Brain antomy, 19th century artwork. Artwork from the 1886 ninth edition of Moses and Geology (Samuel Kinns, London). This book was originally published in 1882.

The philosopher Thomas Nagel’s new book, ‘Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False,” restores the primal force of a great old philosophical word, ‘metaphysics.” He starts with a boldly discerning look at that strange creature, mankind, and comes to some remarkable speculations about who we are and what our place is in the universe. Incidentally (and seemingly unintentionally) he illuminates, along the way, some significant aspects of the cinema, and of art overall.

The book deals with science-specifically, Darwinian ideas regarding evolution and natural selection-and it’s filled with the quasi-scientific language and argumentation that characterizes much of Anglo-American analytical philosophy. This is unfortunate, because the ideas that Nagel unfolds ought to be discussed by non-specialists with an interest in the arts, […]