essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
E421685
"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is a landmark philosophical essay by Thomas Nagel that argues subjective conscious experience cannot be fully explained by objective physical theories, using the example of a bat’s echolocation to illustrate the limits of reductionism.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4231330 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Context triple: [Thomas Nagel, knownFor, essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"]
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A.
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening is a 1944 surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí that depicts a hyper-realistic dream scene exploring the boundary between sleep and sudden awakening.
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B.
Essays of a Biologist
Essays of a Biologist is a collection of influential essays by evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley that explores biology’s implications for human society, philosophy, and the modern worldview.
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C.
A Fable for Critics
A Fable for Critics is a satirical poem by James Russell Lowell that humorously critiques and caricatures his contemporary American authors and the literary scene of his time.
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D.
Praise of the Creatures
Praise of the Creatures is a religious poem traditionally attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi that celebrates God through the beauty and harmony of creation.
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E.
For Small Creatures Such as We
For Small Creatures Such as We is a reflective nonfiction book by Sasha Sagan that explores meaning, ritual, and wonder in a secular, science-informed worldview.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Target entity description: "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is a landmark philosophical essay by Thomas Nagel that argues subjective conscious experience cannot be fully explained by objective physical theories, using the example of a bat’s echolocation to illustrate the limits of reductionism.
-
A.
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening is a 1944 surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí that depicts a hyper-realistic dream scene exploring the boundary between sleep and sudden awakening.
-
B.
Essays of a Biologist
Essays of a Biologist is a collection of influential essays by evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley that explores biology’s implications for human society, philosophy, and the modern worldview.
-
C.
A Fable for Critics
A Fable for Critics is a satirical poem by James Russell Lowell that humorously critiques and caricatures his contemporary American authors and the literary scene of his time.
-
D.
Praise of the Creatures
Praise of the Creatures is a religious poem traditionally attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi that celebrates God through the beauty and harmony of creation.
-
E.
For Small Creatures Such as We
For Small Creatures Such as We is a reflective nonfiction book by Sasha Sagan that explores meaning, ritual, and wonder in a secular, science-informed worldview.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
philosophical essay
ⓘ
work on philosophy of mind ⓘ |
| academicDiscipline | philosophy ⓘ |
| academicSubdiscipline |
metaphysics of mind
ⓘ
philosophy of mind ⓘ |
| addressesQuestion |
Can consciousness be explained in purely physical terms?
ⓘ
What is the relation between subjective experience and objective description? ⓘ |
| argumentAgainst |
reductionist accounts of mind
ⓘ
reductive physicalism ⓘ |
| author | Thomas Nagel ⓘ |
| centralConcept |
subjective character of experience
ⓘ
what-it-is-like-ness ⓘ |
| centralExample | bat ⓘ |
| citedBy |
David Chalmers
ⓘ
Ned Block ⓘ many later philosophers of mind ⓘ |
| claims | even complete physical knowledge of a bat’s brain and behavior would not reveal what it is like to be a bat ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| criticizes | attempts to reduce mental states to physical states alone ⓘ |
| illustrates |
difficulty of understanding alien forms of experience
ⓘ
limits of objective third-person descriptions of consciousness ⓘ |
| influenced |
non-reductive theories of mind
ⓘ
subsequent discussions of qualia ⓘ |
| influencedField |
analytic philosophy of mind
ⓘ
cognitive science debates on consciousness ⓘ consciousness studies ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
consciousness
ⓘ
mind–body problem ⓘ phenomenal consciousness ⓘ philosophy of mind ⓘ physicalism ⓘ qualia ⓘ reductionism ⓘ subjective experience ⓘ subjectivity ⓘ |
| notableFor |
introducing the bat example as a challenge to reductionism
ⓘ
popularizing the phrase "what it is like" in discussions of consciousness ⓘ |
| philosophicalPosition | emphasis on irreducible first-person perspective ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1974 ⓘ |
| publishedIn | The Philosophical Review ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
The View from Nowhere
ⓘ
linked to:
"The View From Nowhere"
|
| thesis |
subjective conscious experience cannot be fully captured by objective physical theories
ⓘ
there is something it is like to be a conscious organism that is essentially subjective ⓘ |
| usesExampleOf | echolocation in bats ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Description of subject: "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is a landmark philosophical essay by Thomas Nagel that argues subjective conscious experience cannot be fully explained by objective physical theories, using the example of a bat’s echolocation to illustrate the limits of reductionism.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.