Abstract

Nagel’s most recent book is a defense of rationalism, which places the “last word” in justification within rational justifications themselves, against subjectivism, which reduces rational justifications to the first person singular or plural so that the “last word” is something more fundamental than reason. He admits that the arguments he poses against subjectivism “are as old as the hills”. There are, nonetheless, several reasons why The Last Word is important and novel. First, because the arguments “require constant repetition”, especially in our own time. Beyond the subjectivism within philosophy, the “actual result [of subjectivism] has been a growth in the already extreme intellectual laziness of contemporary culture and the collapse of serious argument throughout the lower reaches of the humanities and social sciences...”.