"they [Nagel and proponents of ID] both believe the reigning scientific view of the origins and evolution of life is wrong" -?

Nagel does not reject Darwinism or materialist explanations of phenomena. From p. 30 of his book" "It remains the case the we are products of the long history of the universe since the big bang, descended from bacteria over billions of years of natural selection. That is part of the true external understanding of ourselves. The question is how we can combine it with other things we know."

Do you think that there are no questions unique to philosophy?

Not really. My beef is with people who insist that 'Philosophy' with a capital P is a rigidly distinct field where only experts in that field are qualified to comment on the issues that are somehow relegated to said field. For people who do try to make that case, I'm not about to let them assign accomplishments in mathematics, logic or science to 'pure' philosophy.

David,
It's possible I suppose that my reading has been biased since I'm thinking of the type of philosophy that tends to show up in discussions: metaphysics, ethics, metaethics, language, philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of religion. I'm aware that the latter at least is practically a backwater in the wider world of academic philosophy.

But I don't buy your implication that philosophy is regularly finding definitive answers and we just don't give it credit because they are no longer considered philosophy. Advancements in other fields are almost always made by people in those fields. So what does it mean to say that there is a body of knowledge that isn't factual? Other than awareness of the body of work put out by philosophers, which is factual knowledge but doesn't indicate that the work itself is advancing knowledge or based on fact. There is a great body of knowledge to be familiar with in astrology or Harry Potter fan fiction, but that doesn't amount to deferring judgment on those things to 'the experts'.

The book you described sounds interesting. But what's notable is that the approach you outlined is scientific. It's based on surveys and could be augmented by neuroscience. There is nothing particularly philosophical in the question being asked or the evidence brought to bear in trying to decide it.

My question isn't "What is the point?", it is"Why are so many of your points either trivial or wrong?" "Why would you proceed with such an obviously problematic framework?" Again, this is primarily aimed at the philosophers that come to my attention.

I suppose that, like you, I'm not too keen to draw distinctions between science and philosophy.

I'm also not too keen to draw distinctions between logic and philosophy. Do you think that there should be a line dividing the two?

Kripke is a smart guy and his only degree is in mathematics. I expect that he is perfectly capable of laying out a formal mathematical system (as he did for Kripke Semantics), and the complexities of that system could be very involved. It is absolutely true that there are smart philosophers with complex, difficult to follow systems. But the crux is the interpretation of such a system. The formal side of things has long since been the province of mathematicians.

What studies? What 'serious blows' has a material theory of mind received in the past decades? Research has revealed more and more physical dependence in the mind and predictability of mental states based on physical states. We continue to increase our knowledge of specific mechanisms of sense, memory, and decision making.

Now you may feel this hasn't solved the 'hard problem', but I can't think of anything new that hasn't pointed to materialism. Part of the problem here is that the 'hard problem' is never clearly stated, nor the conditions under which an advocate would consider it solved. Although there are many unanswered questions in the study of brain and mind, it isn't clear what explanatory gap is supposed to exist that is somehow unanswerable in a way that all the other questions of ongoing study aren't. We don't have a complete model of mind and brain, but every piece we do have looks like a physical theory.

I suspect part of the confusion is over the fact that we experience, say, visual input in a different mode than we experience a feeling of intellectual understanding. Just part of the way we are built perhaps, and we can't completely step outside ourselves. (Although we can observe others who appear to be equivalent and there is no hint of a 'hard problem' there.) But speculation about the limits of our own perceptive abilities isn't really an argument against materialism. Whether or not you feel that you understand consciousness sufficiently, it certainly looks like a material phenomenon.

Neuroscience and psychological studies also support anti-materialism.

Or are you saying that there is no longer the 'hard problem of consciousness'?

Has neuroscience and psychology somehow bridged the explanatory gap?

Because if it did that would have been some pretty big news in the philosophy of mind scene.

I need to read Nagel's book. It sounds very interesting. Thanks to John Burger for the helpful review.

Naturalism does not require materialism. There may be mental objects which follow rules like physical objects follow rules, and then we can study the interface between the mental and physical objects. So long as the rules are deterministic and understandable and testable, then mental objects and minds are not external from but part of the natural world, even if they cannot be reduced to matter.

Monism even doesn't require materialism. Maybe both mind and matter can be reduced to a common substance that is neither solely matter or mind.

Finally, if the mind is not reducible to matter, maybe it's still reducible to discrete units, some sort of indivisible atoms of thought or form?

Mike Newsham says:

Then why post an article entirely devoted to the question of "Why has Nagel's thesis generated so much discussion?" instead of an article about "Is Nagel's thesis true?"