book "Mortal Questions"
E421686
"Mortal Questions" is a collection of philosophical essays by Thomas Nagel that explores fundamental issues about life, death, meaning, and the nature of subjective experience.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Mortal Questions | 1 |
| Mortal Questions (book by Thomas Nagel) | 1 |
| Thomas Nagel's later work "Mortal Questions" | 1 |
| book "Mortal Questions" canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4231331 — 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: book "Mortal Questions" Context triple: [Thomas Nagel, knownFor, book "Mortal Questions"]
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A.
Forty Questions on the Soul
Forty Questions on the Soul is a mystical-philosophical treatise by Jakob Böhme that explores the nature, origin, and destiny of the human soul within his Christian theosophical framework.
-
B.
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher is an autobiographical work by Charles Babbage in which he recounts his life, scientific pursuits, and the development of his pioneering calculating machines.
-
C.
"The Will to Meaning"
"The Will to Meaning" is a psychological and philosophical work by Viktor Frankl that further develops his logotherapy theory, emphasizing humanity’s search for purpose as the central motivational force in life.
-
D.
The Doubter’s Companion
The Doubter’s Companion is a philosophical reference book by Canadian thinker John Ralston Saul that offers brief, critical essays on key political, economic, and cultural concepts to encourage skeptical, independent thought.
-
E.
The Meaning of Life
The Meaning of Life is a 1983 British comedy film by Monty Python that satirically explores the stages and absurdities of human existence through a series of surreal sketches.
- 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: book "Mortal Questions" Target entity description: "Mortal Questions" is a collection of philosophical essays by Thomas Nagel that explores fundamental issues about life, death, meaning, and the nature of subjective experience.
-
A.
Forty Questions on the Soul
Forty Questions on the Soul is a mystical-philosophical treatise by Jakob Böhme that explores the nature, origin, and destiny of the human soul within his Christian theosophical framework.
-
B.
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher is an autobiographical work by Charles Babbage in which he recounts his life, scientific pursuits, and the development of his pioneering calculating machines.
-
C.
"The Will to Meaning"
"The Will to Meaning" is a psychological and philosophical work by Viktor Frankl that further develops his logotherapy theory, emphasizing humanity’s search for purpose as the central motivational force in life.
-
D.
The Doubter’s Companion
The Doubter’s Companion is a philosophical reference book by Canadian thinker John Ralston Saul that offers brief, critical essays on key political, economic, and cultural concepts to encourage skeptical, independent thought.
-
E.
The Meaning of Life
The Meaning of Life is a 1983 British comedy film by Monty Python that satirically explores the stages and absurdities of human existence through a series of surreal sketches.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
essay collection ⓘ |
| author | Thomas Nagel ⓘ |
| authorOf |
Mortal Questions
ⓘ
linked to:
"Mortal Questions"
|
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| genre | philosophy ⓘ |
| hasEssay |
Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness
ⓘ
Death ⓘ Equality ⓘ Moral Luck ⓘ Panpsychism ⓘ Ruthlessness in Public Life ⓘ Sexual Perversion ⓘ Subjective and Objective ⓘ Suicide ⓘ The Absurd ⓘ
linked to:
the absurd
The Fragmentation of Value ⓘ The Policy of Preference ⓘ War and Massacre ⓘ What Is It Like to Be a Bat? ⓘ
linked to:
"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
|
| hasInfluenced |
contemporary ethics
ⓘ
contemporary philosophy of mind ⓘ debates on consciousness ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
death
ⓘ
ethics ⓘ meaning of life ⓘ metaphysics ⓘ moral luck ⓘ personal identity ⓘ philosophy of mind ⓘ subjective experience ⓘ value theory ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
human mortality
ⓘ
limits of human understanding ⓘ moral responsibility under luck ⓘ rationality and value ⓘ tension between subjective and objective viewpoints ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
academic philosophers
ⓘ
students of philosophy ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| notableFor |
articulating the problem of subjective experience in philosophy of mind
ⓘ
influencing debates on the meaning of life ⓘ popularizing the concept of moral luck ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1979 ⓘ |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press ⓘ |
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: book "Mortal Questions" Description of subject: "Mortal Questions" is a collection of philosophical essays by Thomas Nagel that explores fundamental issues about life, death, meaning, and the nature of subjective experience.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
book "The Possibility of Altruism"
linked to: book "Mortal Questions"
subject linked to:
"The View From Nowhere"
linked to: book "Mortal Questions"
subject linked to:
"The Possibility of Altruism"
linked to: book "Mortal Questions"