Ernest nagel

Ernest Nagel

By jrpark

  • Birth and Life

    Ernest Nagel was born November 16, 1901, in Nové Mesto, Slovakia. Nagel moved to the United States when he was 10 years old and became a U.S. citizen in 1919. In 1931 he received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Columbia. Nagel married Edith Alexandria Haggstrom in 1935 and they had two sons named Alexander Joseph and Sidney Robert. Ernest worked at the University of Columbia for most of the years between 1931 to 1970.

  • Career

    Nagel began his professional career in 1931 at the University of Columbia. He would go on to teach philosophy there until 1970, with the exception of the years 1966-1967 and 1967 to 1970. From 1966 to 1967, he accepted a position at Rockefeller University, but would return to Columbia the following years. In 1967, he was the university professor at Columbia until he retired in 1970.

  • Works

    Ernest Nagel first published a book with a colleague named Morris R. Cohen in 1934 called "Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method". This book was one of Nagel's most known that he published. The book "richly illustrates the function of logical principles in scientific method in the natural and social sciences and in law and history." (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica).

  • Works Cont.

    Nagel also published or helped publish many other works, including: "In Logic WIthout Metaphysics" (1957), "The Structure of Science" (1961), "Gödel’s Proof" (1958) with James R. Newman, and "Technology Revisited and Other Essays" (1979).

  • Death and Influence

    Nagel died in New York City on September 20, 1985. The best way in which he influenced the modern-day was during his over 40 years of teaching as a philosophy professor and guest speaker(after retirement). He showed these generations "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." (Suppes)

  • References/ Works Cited

    Here is a link to a Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University Department of Philosophy on Ernest Nagel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szgIYlV5Zy0
    Information on Nagel's stance toward God:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RoWF6TD3Sk&ab_channel=lcuddy12lcuddy12

  • Works Cited Cont.

    Citations:
    hintikka, jaakko j. “Ernest Nagel.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 19 Sept. 1998, www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-Nagel. Suppes, Patrick. “Read ‘Biographical Memoirs: Volume 65’ at NAP.edu.” National Academies Press: OpenBook, 1994, www.nap.edu/read/4548/chapter/14#258.