# Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like To Be A Bat? - Deceptive Clarity In Identification - Sadler's Lectures

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/sadler-s-lectures-233636/thomas-nagel-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-deceptive-clarity-in-identification-sadler-s-lectures
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/sadler-s-lectures-233636/thomas-nagel-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-deceptive-clarity-in-identification-sadler-s-lectures.md
Podcast: [Sadler's Lectures](https://stenobird.com/podcast/sadler-s-lectures-233636)
Published: 2026-06-20T20:49:20+00:00
Episode link: https://soundcloud.com/gregorybsadler/robert-nagel-what-is-it-like-3
Audio file: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/2326234409-gregorybsadler-robert-nagel-what-is-it-like-3.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/sadler-s-lectures-233636/episodes/thomas-nagel-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-deceptive-clarity-in-identification-sadler-s-lectures
Duration seconds: 854

## Resource

This lecture discusses the 20th century Analytic philosopher, Thomas Nagel's essay "What Is It Like To Be A Bat", and focuses upon one of the key points Nagel makes in his criticisms of reductionist projects aimed at explaining mind entirely in physical terms, namely that in order to make the deceptively clear "is" or "are" involved in those putative identifications make sense, what is required is some sort of coherent and robust theoretical scheme explaining how the mental can be reduced to the physical. At the present time, that simply isn't available to us, so those sorts of identifications amount to hand-waving. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler or Buy Me A Coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/a4quydwom If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Nagel's What Is It Like to Be a Bat? - https://amzn.to/3P8ihhk

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/sadler-s-lectures-233636/episodes/thomas-nagel-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-deceptive-clarity-in-identification-sadler-s-lectures/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/sadler-s-lectures-233636/thomas-nagel-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-deceptive-clarity-in-identification-sadler-s-lectures.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.