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Ernest Nagel was born in Nové Město, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary to Isadora and Frida Weiss Nagel (Nagel, Ernest).
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His long tenure at Columbia allowed him to play a large role in the academic culture the students received. To the many generations of students he was the outstanding spokesman of what philosophy could offer in terms of analysis of the scientific method, as it is practiced in many different sciences, and in the relation between science and perennial problems of philosophy such as those of causality and determinism.(Patrick Suppes)
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With the help of Morris Cohen the two published Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method. It was the first book of its kind stressing the role of hypotheses in research (Nagel, Ernest).
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Commended as one of the best works in philosophy of science, where he evaluated the logical structure of the scientific concept and evaluated the claims of knowledge in various sciences. He also tried to show the same scientific explanation could be used in all sciences(Nagel, Ernest).
The Cognitive Status of Theories -
During his speech he gave his view of philosophy "Philosophy is in general not a primary inquiry into the nature of things. It is a reflection on the conclusion of those inquiries that may sometimes terminate, as it did in the case of Spinoza, in a clarified vision of man's place in the scheme of things." (Nagel, Ernest).
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Nagel died of pneumonia at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City(Britannica).
