The Most Common Criticisms Of Nagel's Subjectivity Argument

Nagel’s subjectivity argument appears fairly straight-forward – Nagel asserts that there is a unique and subjective component of consciousness, and this component defeats any attempt to define consciousness in objective terms. Nagel believes that it is impossible to fully understand consciousness without the subjective experience. Intentional states cannot explain a subjective experience; therefore, the only to understand consciousness using reductionist theory would be to remove the subjective component – this would obviously be illogical.
Nagel concludes that consciousness cannot be explained by reductionists. Physicalism also fails to explain consciousness due to the subjective component. Physicalism argues that there is a physical property associated with every mental experience; therefore, due to the subjective nature of consciousness, all mental experiences are unique, and physical properties cannot accurately account for the variability and difference. The main conclusion from
Critics of Nagel express that humans do not need a first person perspective on a mental experience if we have a sufficient and thorough understanding of the experience. As in Nagel’s bat metaphor, humans possess an extremely advanced understanding of echolocation and sonar. Humans can accurately interpret how a bat perceives the world and its surroundings without having the point-of-view of a bat. As Fuller states, bats “experience recognition and purpose as rational rather than sensory categories. Its singular point of view is not limited to sensation alone” (Fuller). Due to the rationality of a bats behavior, humans can attribute objective reasoning to the subjective experience of the bat. Therefore, Nagel’s reliance on subjective experience should not be