《你的第一本哲学书》在美国与罗素的《西方哲学史》齐名，是哲学入门的必读书目，已被译成二十种语言出版。在这本小书中，当代西方哲学界的领军人物内格尔用生动的语言，高超的分析技巧，以及深刻而冷静的洞察力向我们充分展现了哲学思考的真正旨趣。他告诉我们如何知道外部世界的存在；如何知道他人心灵的存在；如何判断行为的对与错；如何面对死亡的恐惧；又如何寻找到生活的意义。希望你对生活的审视，就从你的第一本哲学书开始。
《你的第一本哲学书》的目的不是要给出答案——即使我本人认为正确的答案——而是以一种非常平易的方式把你引向哲学问题。与其先学上一大堆哲学理论，不如首先对这些理论所要尝试解答的问题产生困惑：
我们如何知道外部世界的存在？
我们如何知道他人心灵的存在？
身体与心灵的关系是怎样的？
词语的意义何在？
我们有自由意志吗？
什么样的行为是对的，什么样的行为是错的？
什么样的不平等是不公正的？
死亡是否意味着终点？
生活的意义何在？

Derived from Thomas Nagel's Locke Lectures, Equality and Partiality proposes a nonutopian account of political legitimacy, based on the need to accommodate both personal and impersonal motives in any credible moral theory, and therefore in any political theory with a moral foundation. Within each individual, Nagel believes, there is a division between two standpoints, the personal and the impersonal. Without the impersonal standpoint, there would be no morality, only the clash, compromise, and occasional convergence of individual perspectives. It is because a human being does not occupy only his own point of view that each of us is susceptible to the claims of others through private and public morality. Political systems, to be legitimate, must achieve an integration of these two standpoints within the individual. These ideas are applied to specific problems such as social and economic inequality, toleration, international justice, and the public support of culture. Nagel points to the problem of balancing equality and partiality as the most important issue with which political theorists are now faced.