What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Thomas Nagel and the Limits of Objectivity
Having read several books about consciousness in 2025, I kept encountering references to Thomas Nagel’s What Is It Like to Be a Bat? . And really, who would not want to read something with a title like that? The piece itself is brief. The original paper appeared in The Philosophical Review in October 1974 and runs to only sixteen pages. Its influence far outweighs its length. Cover image: What Is It Like to Be a Bat? by Thomas Nagel, fiftieth-anniversary edition published by Oxford University Press. Used here for purposes of review and commentary. The Question Behind the Bat Nagel begins from a deceptively simple proposal: an organism is conscious when “there is something it is like” to be that organism. Consciousness is not merely the ability to react, process information or display intelligent behaviour. It includes how existence feels from the organism’s own point of view. Bats make the problem unusually vivid. They are mammals, close enough to us ...