Gilbert Ryle was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
philosopher, a representative of the generation of British
ordinary language philosopherOrdinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approaches traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting what words actually mean in everyday use....
s that shared
WittgensteinLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
's approach to philosophical problems, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the
ghost in the machineThe "ghost in the machine" is the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle's description of René Descartes' mind-body dualism. The phrase was introduced in Ryle's book The Concept of Mind to highlight the perceived absurdity of dualist systems like Descartes' where mental activity carries on in parallel...
". Some of his ideas in the philosophy of mind have been referred to as "behaviourist." Ryle's best known book is
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
(1949), in which he writes that the "general trend of this book will undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be stigmatised as 'behaviourist'." Ryle, having engaged in detailed study of the key works of
Bernard BolzanoBernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano , Bernard Bolzano in English, was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian, Catholic priest and antimilitarist of German mother tongue.-Family:Bolzano was the son of two pious Catholics...
,
Franz BrentanoFranz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
,
Alexius MeinongAlexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology...
,
HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, and
HeideggerMartin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
, himself suggested instead that the book "could be described as a sustained essay in phenomenology, if you are at home with that label."
Life
Ryle was born in
BrightonBrighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1900 and grew up in an environment of learning. His father was a Brighton doctor, a generalist who had interests in philosophy and
astronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, and passed on to his children an impressive library. Ryle was educated at
Brighton CollegeBrighton College is an institution divided between a Senior School known simply as Brighton College, the Prep School and the Pre-Prep School. All of these schools are co-educational independent schools in Brighton, England, sited immediately next to each another. The Senior School caters for...
, and in 1919, he went up to
Queen's CollegeThe Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...
at Oxford, initially to study
ClassicsClassics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
but was quickly drawn to
PhilosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. He would graduate with first class honours in 1924 and was appointed to a lectureship in Philosophy at
Christ Church, OxfordChrist Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
. A year later, he was to become a tutor. Ryle remained at Christ Church until
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
A capable linguist, he was recruited to
intelligenceMilitary intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
work during World War II, after which he returned to Oxford and was elected Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy and Fellow of
Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
. He published his principal work,
The Concept of Mind in 1949. He was president of the
Aristotelian SocietyThe Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Square which resolved "to constitute a society of about twenty and to include ladies; the society to meet fortnightly, on Mondays at 8 o'clock, at the rooms of the Spelling...
from 1945 to 1946, and editor of the philosophical journal
MindMind is a British journal, currently published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association, which deals with philosophy in the analytic tradition...
from 1947 to 1971. Ryle died on 6 October 1976 at
WhitbyWhitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the...
,
North YorkshireNorth Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
.
His brothers John Alfred (1889–1950) and George Bodley (1902–1978), both educated at
Brighton CollegeBrighton College is an institution divided between a Senior School known simply as Brighton College, the Prep School and the Pre-Prep School. All of these schools are co-educational independent schools in Brighton, England, sited immediately next to each another. The Senior School caters for...
as well, also had eminent careers. John became
Regius Professor of PhysicRegius Professor of Physic may refer to:*Regius Professor of Physic , a professorship at the University of Cambridge*Regius Professor of Physic , a professorship at the University of Dublin, Trinity College...
at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
1935-45 and physician to King George V. After serving as Director of Forestry first for Wales and then England, George was Deputy-Director of the
Forestry CommissionThe Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for forestry in Great Britain. Its mission is to protect and expand Britain's forests and woodlands and increase their value to society and the environment....
1963-65 and awarded the
CBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...
.
His grandfather was
John Charles RyleJohn Charles Ryle was the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool.-Life:Ryle was born at Macclesfield, and was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was Craven Scholar in 1836...
, the first Anglican
Bishop of LiverpoolThe Bishop of Liverpool is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Liverpool in the Province of York.The diocese stretches from Southport in the north, to Widnes in the south, and from the River Mersey to Wigan in the east. Its see is in the City of Liverpool at the Cathedral Church of...
and 19th century evangelical leader.
Philosophy as Cartography
Ryle believed it was no longer possible for a philosopher to believe that it was the task of a philosopher to study mental as opposed to physical objects. However, in its place, Ryle saw the tendency of philosophers to search for objects whose nature was neither physical nor mental. Ryle believed, instead, that “[p]hilosophical problems are problems of a certain sort; they are not problems of an ordinary sort about special entities.”
Ryle offers the analogy of philosophy as being like
cartographyCartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
. Competent speakers of a language, Ryle believes, are to a philosopher what ordinary villagers are to a mapmaker. The ordinary villager has a competent grasp of his village, and is familiar with its inhabitants and
geographyGeography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
. However, when asked to interpret a map for the same knowledge he has practically, the villager will have difficulty until he is able to translate his practical knowledge into universal cartographal terms. The villager thinks of the village in personal and practical terms while the mapmaker thinks of the village in neutral, public, cartographical terms.
By "mapping" the words and phrases of a particular statement, philosophers are able to generate what Ryle calls "implication threads." In other words, each word or phrase of a statement contributes to the statement in that, if the words or phrases were changed, the statement would have a different implication. The philosopher must show the directions and limits of different implication threads that a "concept contributes to the statements in which it occurs." To show this, he must be "tugging" at neighbouring threads, which, in turn, must also be "tugging." Philosophy, then, searches for the meaning of these implication threads in the statements in which they are used.
The Concept of Mind
In
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
(1949), Ryle admits to having been taken in by the
body-mind dualismIn philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical....
which permeates
Western philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, and claims that the idea of
MindThe concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
as an independent entity, inhabiting and governing the
bodyWith regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
, should be rejected as a redundant piece of literalism carried over from the era before the biological sciences became established. The proper function of Mind-body language, he suggests, is to describe how higher organisms such as humans demonstrate resourcefulness, strategy, the ability to abstract and hypothesize and so on from the evidences of their behaviour.
He attacks the idea of 17th and 18th century thinkers (such as Descartes) that nature is a complex
machineA machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...
, and that human nature is a smaller machine with a "ghost" in it to account for
intelligenceIntelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
, spontaneity and other such human qualities. While mental vocabulary plays an important role in describing and explaining human behavior, neither are humans analogous to machines nor do philosophers need a "hidden" principle to explain their super-mechanical capacities.
Ryle asserted that the workings of the mind are not distinct from the actions of the body. They are one and the same. Mental vocabulary is, he insists, merely a different manner of describing action. He also claimed that the nature of a person's motives is defined by that person's
dispositionA disposition is a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way.The terms dispositional belief and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind but not currently being considered, and in the latter case, to a belief that is...
s to act in certain situations. There are no overt
feelingFeeling is the nominalization of the verb to feel. The word was first used in the English language to describe the physical sensation of touch through either experience or perception. The word is also used to describe experiences, other than the physical sensation of touch, such as "a feeling of...
s,
painPain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone."...
s, or twinges of vanity. There is instead a set of actions and feelings that are subsumed under a general behavior-trend or propensity to act, which we term "vanity."
Novelists, historians and journalists, Ryle points out, have no trouble in ascribing motives, moral values and individuality to people's actions. It is only when philosophers try to attribute these qualities to a separate realm of mind or soul that the problem arises. Ryle also created the classic argument against
cognitivistCognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false , which noncognitivists deny...
theories of explanation,
Ryle's RegressIn philosophy, Ryle's regress is a classic argument against cognitivist theories, and concludes that such theories are essentially meaningless as they do not explain what they purport to...
.
Criticisms
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
is Ryle's principal philosophical contribution. The sharpness of its challenge to Cartesian dualism - the idea that mind and body are radically distinct substances, an idea guyed under the phrase 'the ghost in the machine' - was more influential than the quasi-behaviourism with which he sought to replace it. The vivid metaphors that were (to some) an enjoyable feature of Ryle's prose in
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
came unhelpfully to dominate his writing. In
Dilemmas, for example, there is seriously more metaphor than argument. It should be stressed, too, that Ryle's 'Descartes' is not the Descartes of Cartesian scholarship but a caricatural Descartes.
One theme of
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
is that dualism involves category mistakes and philosophical
nonsenseNonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous...
. Category mistakes and nonsense as philosophical topics continued to inform Ryle's work. Students in his 1967-8 Oxford audience would be asked rhetorically what was wrong with saying that there are three things in a field - two cows and a pair of cows. They were also invited to ponder whether the bung-hole of a beer barrel is part of the barrel or not.
A distinction deployed in
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
, between knowing-how and knowing-that (e.g., knowing how to tie a reef knot and knowing that Queen Victoria died in 1901), has attracted independent interest. See, for example, Jason Stanley & Timothy Williamson, 'Knowing How',
Journal of PhilosophyThe Journal of Philosophy is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal on philosophy. Its stated purpose is "To publish philosophical articles of current interest and encourage the interchange of ideas, especially the exploration of the borderline between philosophy and other disciplines." The...
, 98 : 8, 2001.
Ryle was an entertaining lecturer. He once referred to 'Professor Campbell, who has written several books on freedom of the will - or rather one book several times'. (There was also Ryle's rule reported by D.W. Hamlyn : '"Several" means at least five'.)
Ryle took a narrow view of the scope of philosophy. Philosophy, for Ryle, did not extend beyond the philosophy of mind, philosophical logic, and the philosophy of language. Ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics were 'philosophy' only by a strained courtesy and a burdensome historical tradition.
Legacy and reputation
Ryle's notion of
thick descriptionIn anthropology and other fields, a thick description of a human behavior is one that explains not just the behavior, but its context as well, such that the behavior becomes meaningful to an outsider....
, from "The Thinking of Thoughts: What is 'Le Penseur' Doing?" and "Thinking and Reflecting", has been an important influence on cultural anthropologists like
Clifford GeertzClifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology, and who was considered "for three decades...the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until...
.
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
was recognized on its appearance as an important contribution to philosophical psychology, and an important work in the
ordinary language philosophyOrdinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approaches traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting what words actually mean in everyday use....
movement. However, in the 1960s and 1970s the rising influence of the
cognitivistIn psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that came into usage in the 1950s. The movement was a response to behaviorism, which cognitivists said neglected to explain cognition...
theories of
Noam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
,
Herbert SimonHerbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
,
Jerry FodorJerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He holds the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the...
and others in the
neo-CartesianPhilosophers and psychologists are described as being neo-Cartesian if they posit 'mind stuff' as being different from 'brain stuff' and if they posit 'internal cognitive states' as having causal powers. Some philosophers Philosophers and psychologists are described as being neo-Cartesian if they...
school became predominant. Chomsky even wrote a book entitled
Cartesian LinguisticsThe term Cartesian linguistics was coined with the publication of Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought , a book on linguistics by Noam Chomsky, written with the purpose of deepening "our understanding of the nature of language and the mental processes and...
. In philosophy the two major post-war schools in the
philosophy of mindPhilosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...
, the representationalism of Jerry Fodor and the
functionalismFunctionalism is a theory of the mind in contemporary philosophy, developed largely as an alternative to both the identity theory of mind and behaviourism. Its core idea is that mental states are constituted solely by their functional role — that is, they are causal relations to other mental...
of
Wilfrid SellarsWilfrid Stalker Sellars was an American philosopher. His father was the Canadian-American philosopher Roy Wood Sellars, a leading American philosophical naturalist in the first half of the twentieth-century...
posited precisely the 'internal' cognitive states that Ryle had argued against. However as influential modern philosopher and former student
Daniel DennettDaniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
has pointed out, recent trends in
psychologyPsychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
such as
embodied cognitionPhilosophers, psychologists, cognitive scientists and artificial intelligence researchers who study embodied cognition and the embodied mind believe that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. They argue that all aspects of cognition, such as ideas,...
,
discursive psychologyFor other uses of the word, see discursive.Discursive psychology is a form of discourse analysis that focuses on psychological themes....
,
situated cognitionSituated cognition poses that knowing is inseparable from doing by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts....
and others in the post-cognitivist tradition have provoked a renewed interest in Ryle's work. Dennett has provided a sympathetic foreword to the 2000 edition of
The Concept of MindThe Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
. Ryle remains a significant defender of the possibility of lucid and meaningful interpretation of higher-level human activities without recourse to an abstracted soul.
Books
- The Concept of Mind
The Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
(1949)
- Dilemmas (1954), a collection of shorter pieces
- Plato's Progress (1966)
- On Thinking (1979)
External links