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The Concept of Mind

Gilbert Ryle,

Daniel C. Dennett (Introduction)

3.95 · Rating details · 1,629 ratings · 49 reviews

This now-classic work challenges what Ryle calls philosophy's "official theory," the Cartesians "myth" of the separation of mind and matter. Ryle's linguistic analysis remaps the conceptual geography of mind, not so much solving traditional philosophical problems as dissolving them into the mere consequences of misguided language. His plain language and esstentially simple ...more

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Paperback, 348 pages

Published December 15th 2000 by University of Chicago Press (first published January 1st 1949)

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Jun 16, 2018 Fergus rated it really liked it

OH, LET US NOT SPEAK FALSELY NOW -
THE HOUR IS GETTING LATE!
Bob Dylan

I remember when I picked up my first copy of this landmark brain-bamboozler - I was travelling to Britain, and I saw it at the airport.

Can you imagine that nowadays? Really brainy books at a little airport bookstop? Brainy books that only exist to prove a nonsensical idea is true?

Cause I remember, too, when I was seventeen, and a girl I knew in high school told me she had dated one highly neurotic guy who asked everyone he knew ...more

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Sep 12, 2013 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: highly-recommended-favorites, prose-style, footnotes-to-plato

Men are not machines, not even ghost-ridden machines. They are men—a tautology which is sometimes worth remembering.

The problem of mind is one of those philosophical quandaries that give me a headache and prompt an onset of existential angst whenever I try to think about them. How does consciousness arise from matter? How can a network of nerves create a perspective? And how can this consciousness, in turn, influence the body it inhabits? When we look at a brain, or anywhere else in the phys ...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Rhonda rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy

This is a monumental book in modern philosophy which sets out to destroy the issue of dualism, expressed most succinctly by Descartes and often referred to as the mind/body problem. As a graduate student perusing this text, I was dismayed to read as Ryle apparently destroyed argument after argument which sustained Cartesian thinking.

Though this left me profoundly impressed at the time, I did not realize until much later that destroying a series of arguments concerning a given thing is not the s This is a monumental book in modern philosophy which sets out to destroy the issue of dualism, expressed most succinctly by Descartes and often referred to as the mind/body problem. As a graduate student perusing this text, I was dismayed to read as Ryle apparently destroyed argument after argument which sustained Cartesian thinking.

Though this left me profoundly impressed at the time, I did not realize until much later that destroying a series of arguments concerning a given thing is not the same thing as proving its complement. In fact, it is a far cry from doing so, especially if one supposes that the method by which one provides his arguments (snidely referred to by one reviewer as epigrams which leave rubble and doubt in their wake,) is insufficient.

The primary difficulty with Ryle's point of view is that it is rigidly empirical. While he attempts to glue a world back together which Descartes divided, it is the difference in method to which we ought to attend carefully. That said, if Descartes were able to respond, I suggest that he would be able to offer amplification of his arguments which Ryle would not accept. Thus this is an excellent example of how oftentimes what we argue about can be reduced to the method by which we approach the problem.

Another reviewer suggested, although I am not sure how seriously, that Ryle's reunification argument was merely recycled Schopenhauer. While it is not a stretch to see the metaphysical glue which looks remarkably similar between the two men, the methods of explication differ greatly.

The most interesting part about 20th century analytic philosophy is that although it is remarkably adept at casting doubt on the interpretation of issues as others see them, it very rarely makes more than a limited convincing argument about what it does see.

In Ryle's case, like many before him, his efforts to destroy a particular point of view is only valid if and only if one accepts that eliminating certain possibilities as methodologies are essential truths. He would not have much difficulty in talking about ideas of the world, but Schopenhauer's Will would get him kicked out of the scientific/analytic community. It is, after all, far too human for legitimate empiricism, isn't it? ...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Rand added it

Shelves: aha, philosophy

My father's father's name is Gilbert Royal, Sr.

A riel is a monetary unit in one of those Asian countries, I forget which.

Sometimes I get riled up in a solipsistic muddle. It can become rather uncomfortable.

The copy of this book I was given early one morning was from a shared bookshelf in a shared rental residence that included at least one cat, at some point in time.

I am severely allergic to cats. I have been told by various health professionals that that allergy is in fact due to a specific pr ...more

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May 07, 2010 Alexander Francis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy

Concept of Mind
The common conception of how minds work is engrained in every facet of western society and culture. For centuries philosophers have been operating on various assumptions that without putting them to the test. This belief is that all humans, except possibly infants and idiots, have both a body and a mind. Human bodies are in space where human minds work outside of space. Being outside of space minds are not observable and therefore the possessors of these minds have privileged acc Concept of Mind
The common conception of how minds work is engrained in every facet of western society and culture. For centuries philosophers have been operating on various assumptions that without putting them to the test. This belief is that all humans, except possibly infants and idiots, have both a body and a mind. Human bodies are in space where human minds work outside of space. Being outside of space minds are not observable and therefore the possessors of these minds have privileged access to them. In The Concept of Mind Gilbert Ryle decides to challenge these assumptions at their very core, suggesting that they are broken backed from the start. Ryle’s main thesis is illustrated in Chapter IX where he discusses the intellect. In that chapter he is able to reference and make use of the previous arguments made throughout the book. In the end it is shown that Ryle’s theory withstands objections and is indeed preferable to the more common occultist theory of dualism.
According to Ryle, a person’s intellect is not something private that only he has access to, it is something that can be demonstrated. A way that we know about someone’s mind is to see that they are prone to do certain things. This is speaking of it as a disposition; this means a person may not be thinking particular thoughts now but that she tends to do so in certain situations. This makes it so that the mind and the actions are no longer separated. That which the person writes down, says and does shows what kind of person he is. If he tends to do the same sorts of things then we can know that he is disposed to a certain type of action. We see certain people as vain only because they do and say vain things. The only way for him to know that he is vain is by the same process. We on a great many occasions claim that someone is vain and does not know it.
One of the main ways that a man can demonstrate his intellect is through his speech. We judge a person based on how he speaks when he is guarded and careful with what he says, such as when he is theorizing. It would be a mistake to believe that the difference between this way of speaking and that of regular chat is only by degree for they are in different categories; chat is not just low level theorizing. This is due to theorizing being didactic which is intended for learning which is work where chatting is idle. Many intellectual tasks are those of which only the schooled can perform. These tasks are brought about by didactic discourse which is itself a skill learned through study. The conversational tone in didactic discourse is fake and is a higher order ability. A higher order ability is one that is complex and builds upon less complex lower acts, in this case not only does one know how to speak in didactic conversation but one knows how to cover it with a more casual tone. Didactic talk is not to be responded to but to be kept in mind. This means that it is supposed to be used for the receiver to improve and strengthen his powers of thought by being remembered and employed later. It is more like other sorts of learning than other sorts of talking. Learning lessons is becoming competent, not just able to parrot back sayings. These lessons can be taught to another or self taught through thinking things out.
A thought that comes with a word or phrase is not a secret happening but the same thought coming to oneself prior to it being spoken. If that thought needed a corresponding thought then it would be the same utterance and its necessity would go ad infinitum. To say something with significance and to be aware of it is doing one thing, not two. It is to say something with a specific frame of mind.
Another way that we decide if another person is a good intellect based on how she makes intellectual advances. Many of these are good inferential thinking but not all of them are, some are just by paying attention to what one is doing and making sure it is done well. Thinking can be progressive since a conclusion can become a premise but some have the instructive effect of teaching us how to do something. One may know something but finds it difficult to observe and has to instruct himself or remind himself to mind what he knows is right. This is because learning that can be imparted and learned relatively quickly where learning how is to improve an ability which takes a gradual process.
When talking about someone’s intellect it is important to note a division between the work that he puts into the thinking and the results from the work, this distinction is the same as being “searching” words for the former and being “got it” words for the latter. “Got it” words are achievement words and can only be used when something is done. “Searching” words are only to be used in finding out or doing. Many people will make the category mistake of using “got it” verbs such as deduce, abstract, judge and so on in their gerund form making them seem to be “searching” verbs where they are not. This is also seen with the distinction between having a theory and building a theory. Having a theory is a “got it” phrase where building a theory is a “searching” phrase. This is because having a theory is to know it, and be able to use it when necessary and make a didactic exploitation of it, being able to teach it or being willing to act on its precepts, but it does not imply that they theory is currently being used. Though one must do certain mental acts after being schooled, it does not imply that the person has to review all previous schooling to apply concepts that build on them. This is because you have those teachings and do not have to repossess it. Having certain knowledge is being disposed to know the answers to the problems presented or presenting the theory in its strongest light. Building a theory is preparing oneself to get to the point of having a theory; this can be done through researching, or investigating either formally or informally. Having a theory is to manipulate and use it with ease, for the work is already done where building a theory is the hard work to prepare for having the theory.
At times we use abstractions, judgments and inferences all of which have meanings but none of which are occurrences. By not being occurrences in the world they are therefore not in need of a causal explanation, instead they are words used to indicate that an occurrence is over. To have a theory and for it to have meanings, abstractions, reasoning, inferences and judgment is to have one thing, not many. These belong to having a theory because they are what one uses when the theory is built. Judgments belong to having a theory because they are what one has at the end of building. Inferences belong to having a theory because they are the passing to the conclusion, what one does when the theory is done and can do over and over again. These things come about gradually until they are completed. The actual possessing of an inference is not gradual or instant but is a “got it” term, when you infer something it is the end, not a process. If a possessor of a theory is expounding it with care, she is also doing one thing, not two. If we readily see its implications that is due to the work was already done and the person having “got it.” Abstractions are things that are more general than the syntax would suggest. In order to use an abstract term one must use it significantly and know its significance. Having an abstract term is being able to use it.
In employing arguments or jokes a person is showing that she has it but in receiving them the audience is searching and doing to work to have them as well. We first see an argument and draw an implication, the conclusion is already there and the theory is already “got.” The one giving the argument is the executive and the receiver is contemplative. You “see” implications of done theories and you solve those that you are building. To think is not to be shown something but to work something out, not be told a theory but to build one. Being able to argue is not having a theory but having a skill. Drawing a conclusion is a mental act but it does not need to be done to oneself, one may do it vocally or on paper.
The occultist would say that there is no possible way to know someone else’s mind. To them it would just be a guess based on many of the things that Ryle suggests are ways of knowing what is in other people’s minds. They would say that though a person may be able to perform a certain intellectual act that it makes their thoughts known the act may be just luck or knowing only the syntax of the argument but not the semantics. Though a person may be prone to certain things, he may just be deceiving all onlookers. Possibly that person is prone to do the opposite when alone but in front of people the person resorts to what would be socially acceptable. Guarded speech would be the last place to look for how the person’s mind works because it is the least genuine. To have the best guess one must catch the person off guard and challenge his thoughts and beliefs. Though a person may be able to show what he knows through didactic discourse it would be impossible to know what he actually believes about the subjects. The ease with which the person is able to perform the higher order act of didactic speaking in a casual tone is just another layer to the ruse. We are not even able to know if the person finds the subject challenging or not. One may never know if the recipient of the didactic talks is actually just parroting back phrases or is actually able to understand the material. With this only I can know the contents of my own thoughts and abilities. I would have not only the best access to know if I am deceitful but the only access. I can know what I am prone to do because I can see my will. The main objection is that even though we might be able to test what a person may syntactically know, we never can know what he knows semantically or believes about the subject. This means we cannot distinguish this person from the workings of a machine.
Ryle’s position withstands these objections with a few simple answers. The truth is that on though there are situations where a person may know their intents and thoughts better than I do; there are situations where I can know their dispositions and workings of mind better than they do. The problem is with bias, the person can be too proud to admit to their dispositions or beliefs even if it is most obvious to everyone else. He may be lying to me but they could just as easily be deceiving himself. There are also certain things I can do to recognize his lies. He could be caught in a lie which would show to me that he is disposed to lying. He could offer contradictory positions at different times suggesting that he does not know the subject as well as he may claim. The only way for him to know that he understands and argument is by being able to work with it and show its premises and conclusion, its benefits and shortfalls as well as where it may be attacked. By discussing the argument with him I would be able to know how well he understands the arguments. If he suggests that he really does know it but just can’t say or write it then barring other circumstances he is most likely deceiving himself. Guarded speech is the best way to find out what a person knows. He is able to carefully present a theory or problem that he has previously worked out, this gives him the best possibility to show that he knows what he is talking about. In order to know if he believes it you can ask him and, if he is disposed to be reasonable, if the argument is valid for why he holds such a position. The fact that he is able to casually discuss complicated topics does not say much about his ability to deceive but it says a great deal as to his skill in understanding the topic and having “got it.” He is talking with ease because he had already done the work, though the didactic talk is work the delivering of an already understood and adopted theory is not. We are able to know if he understands the semantics of it by asking him questions about the theory such as in what different situations can it be applied as well as the implications of the theory. In short the person is just as capable of being deceived as he is to deceiving, his dispositions are not hidden but can be evident through experiment and examination, to know what he knows is simply by having him explain different components of a theory.
The occultist would believe that there are too many vagaries to make a real distinction between “got it” and “searching” words. There are too many degrees and that one quite possibly will never fully “have” a concept in the mind. Deducing, judging, and abstracting are in fact occurrences. A person can judge whether something is the case even when he is in the process. While a person is using abstract terms he is able to abstract and while he is reasoning he can be deducing. A theory can never be fully built because it can always have more premises as well as the conclusion can become a premise in a different argument. All theories are then in the building phase and are never truly built. A person is able to teach or explain parts of theory when he does not fully understand the whole thing. She can at do a wide range of things with parts of a theory without fully understanding its implications. Even the founder of a theory may not fully understand everything that the theory entails. A person may forget vital parts of the theory and have to be re-schooled in them; this means that she may have it less than previously thought. On top of that it is impossible to know if another person “has” a theory. They may go over implications but still might not be aware of the biggest ones or they may not understand how it all fits together.
The defense of Ryle’s position is yet again simple. It is easy to concede that there are degrees without conceding that there is no possibility of “getting it.” Ryle would not claim that to “have” a theory is to be able to have command of every aspect of it. In fact, that would be absurd since it would lead to needing infinite knowledge. Instead Ryle would claim that in order to “have” a theory is to be able to recognize and utilize new aspects as they come up. If a person understands the theory so well that he is able to manipulate it and use it then he would know it well enough to hold a discussion with any implication that he might come across and see exactly where his theory fits in. The theory may in fact have more premises but he has at least produced one where the conclusion follows from the premises by necessity. That the conclusion can be adopted as a sub-conclusion of a bigger argument means that he may have not yet “gotten” the big argument, he still “has” the smaller one, which is the only thing that he implied. If the person forgets pieces of the theory then he no longer has the theory and that is acceptable as well, he just needs to “have” the theory at the time it is suggested that he “has” it. To know if another person “has” a theory then he must be able to show an understanding of it and where it fits in to any seen or unforeseen questions or implications.
Ryle’s theory is able to withstand the major objections and is therefore preferable to the position offered by the occultist theory. Though it is not as engrained as the opposition in western society and culture it is in fact a better explanation for how we conduct our daily affairs. It is able to bring back together mind and action. In order to function when relating to people one must operate with at least a few assumptions about the minds of those with whom he speaks. If a person is able to put forth a theory, what is better evidence for how the person thinks than to see how the theory works? We see people as vain because of what they do and say but that same person may not believe it because of his bias. We operate with these believes about one another every day. There is no such thing as privileged access because we can at times understand others better than they understand themselves. We believe that we know people and act on those assumptions all of the time, it is more fruitful to have a concept of minds that reflects that knowledge and sears together our “mental lives” and our “physical lives.”
...more

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Jul 14, 2017 Joshua Stein rated it really liked it

Shelves: mind, history-of-philosophy, philosophy, metaphysics

Ryle is indispensable reading for folks in the philosophy of mind or 20th century philosophy. Part of the reason that I wanted to revisit The Concept of Mind was to see how it stood up historically, and whether it was important to read Ryle or whether one might be better off reading him through those on whom he had a large influence. I think my most significant finding in this discussion is that it is really important for philosophers of mind to read Ryle and come away with their own interpretat Ryle is indispensable reading for folks in the philosophy of mind or 20th century philosophy. Part of the reason that I wanted to revisit The Concept of Mind was to see how it stood up historically, and whether it was important to read Ryle or whether one might be better off reading him through those on whom he had a large influence. I think my most significant finding in this discussion is that it is really important for philosophers of mind to read Ryle and come away with their own interpretation, for precisely the same reason philosophers of language should read Wittgenstein and come away with their own interpretation.

Ryle is one of those figures who did an enormous amount of work in philosophy of mind before the development of the analytic/continental divide, and his approaches had an enormous influence on how philosophers think about mind, especially those influenced by the early 20th century British tradition. In comparison to many of the philosophers who have written about mind in that setting (I'm thinking here of Peter Hacker, John Searle, and some others) Ryle is fundamental, often much easier to read, and very straightforward in his approach to problems. Even if you wind up disagreeing with a lot of what Ryle has to say (and, as someone who comes from a much more scientifically oriented background, and thinks less of natural language and conceptual analysis approaches to these issues, I certainly disagree with a lot of it) I think the presentation of Ryle's ideas is often illuminating.

The greatest strength of Ryle's work is becoming what I find definitive about the great modern philosophers (the most prominent other figure who jumps to mind is the late Hilary Putnam); reading their articulation of the problem and the context in which it occurs is far more useful than just looking at the bare-bones version of an argument. They make the flesh of their arguments matter, and they give a comprehensive account of the argument in a way that has both literary style and increased intellectual value. Ryle's use of metaphor, his focus on making complicated issues intuitive and accessible, is a part of what makes this book so useful. Instead of being an obscure philosophical work, Ryle shows that philosophy can simultaneously be deep and accessible. That's something that a lot of philosophical writing has to revisit.

With this in mind, I think the biggest challenge to reading the book in a modern context is that a lot of the content is outdated. Because Ryle was so influential, many of the ideas that he offers have been widely discussed for decades. The result is that the modern context of these arguments is totally different than what is in the book. In terms of finding a way to use Ryle, it isn't enough just to read The Concept of Mind or his other works; you also have to do the work to figure out where they fit in to modern discussions in the philosophy of mind and language. I think this is the hardest thing about recommending him, because the book really can't stand on its own very well; it's a heavily contextualized piece of the philosophical literature, for better or for worse. ...more

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Sep 02, 2011 Lysergius rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

This is the give away.

"Ryle's linguistic analysis remaps the conceptual geography of mind, not so much solving traditional philosophical problems as dissolving them into the mere consequences of misguided language".

In other words this is not about the mind but rather the way in which we use language to talk about the mind. ...more

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Jun 11, 2011 sologdin rated it liked it

Shelves: dilectio-sapientiae

lotsa fun. presents the well known "ghost in the machine" thesis, and develops the fallacy "category mistake." presents a persuasive deductive critique of the concept of "volition." eat that, objectivists! ...more

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Dec 01, 2019 Ian rated it really liked it

I read this for graduate school in Applied Behavior Analysis. It remains one of the best attacks on Cartesian dualism and had a large impact on cognitive psychology. The concept of "the mind" is like the soul. It can't be measured, proven, or disproven. We can observe and measure actions, but we can't necessarily infer the internal reasoning behind these actions. We can observe that someone smokes and measure their smoking habit, but it's not pragmatic to theorize that the person smokes due to a ...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Tyler rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Fans of Philosophy

Shelves: philosophy

Descartes helped establish the idea of the mind as a separate entity from the body, separate, perhaps, to the point of having altogether different origins. His theory bridged a gap opening up in his day between a newly natural conception of the universe and the traditional supernatural one. Cartesian dualism, in other words, made the intellectual arena safe for both scientists and theologians. Three centuries later comes this book, whose author, Gilbert Ryle, has decided to put paid to the two-t Descartes helped establish the idea of the mind as a separate entity from the body, separate, perhaps, to the point of having altogether different origins. His theory bridged a gap opening up in his day between a newly natural conception of the universe and the traditional supernatural one. Cartesian dualism, in other words, made the intellectual arena safe for both scientists and theologians. Three centuries later comes this book, whose author, Gilbert Ryle, has decided to put paid to the two-track account of the mind and the mess it creates.

Ryle's heart is in the right place. As an example he asks how we develop abstract thought. Well, the ability to abstract an idea from concrete examples, Ryle notes, is too often describe as a “seeing.” You see the real examples, then your mind “sees” the abstract idea linking them.

But this is part of the mess dualism has left us, because this seeing is taken to be an intuition from who know where -- why not from the supernatural? Looking at it closer, though, it turns out that what the mind does when it “abstracts” is that it creates. It creates the new insight; it doesn’t “see” it.

This is all good enough, but I wondered if Ryle was behind the times. Dualism hasn’t been killed off. Rather, it has fallen into gradual disuse once scientific reasoning offered better accounts of man’s place in the world. Is there a real need to deliver a coup de grace such as this?

Ryle dismantles dualism with the help of logical positivism and language. But does it help to urge upon us a distinction between introspection and retrospection? I, for one, had trouble seeing how introspection serves only a dualistic worldview. He goes on to tackle ideas or terms that appear to have already fallen into disuse. So he’s either behind the times or he’s attacking straw men.

Maybe it’s not his methods so much as the times that influence Ryle. The book’s thesis is bound by a materialistic worldview and a behaviourist psychology. He writes during their heyday, but these fashionable propositions can’t do what he wants them to do. Ryle finds it necessary not to explain the human mind, but to explain it away.

The materialist account reduces much of mental activity to “dispositions,” for example. The rest could be offloaded, if one were so inclined, onto the science of psychology. But the approach that seemed so solid at the time has since come under strong criticism for implicitly accepting Descartes's either/or approach and simply arguing the other side of it.

Ryle's flashy writing gives readers an idea of the issues involved in philosophical dualism, and it shows how logical positivism, linguistic analysis and psychological behaviourism can be used in philosophical argumentation. ...more

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Nov 15, 2019 Sandro Brincher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: phd-readings, non-fiction

First published in 1949, Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind is one of the classics of twentieth-century philosophy. Described by Ryle as a ‘sustained piece of analytical hatchet-work’ on Cartesian dualism, The Concept of Mind is a radical and controversial attempt to jettison once and for all what Ryle called ‘the ghost in the machine’: Descartes’ argument that mind and body are two separate entities.

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Feb 20, 2014 Racheet rated it it was ok

This book felt very much like a lite version of Heidegger's corpus. Do yourself a favour and skip directly to "Being and Time", the heavy handholding and excessively drawn out explanations of simple arguments make this book a frustrating and dull read. ...more

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Sep 09, 2016 Gerard rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy

I happen to think Ryle misses the shot on what mind 'is' but he certainly does a brilliant job on sweeping away many of the previous misconceptions. If you care about the current debate on ToM you need to read this to get your thinking straight on what it is not. ...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Frank Spencer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: t-t-recommmended-reading

certainly a classic; still has information that makes you think

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Jun 07, 2020 Zack2 rated it it was ok

Reasoning that comes off as cloying and pedantic, frequent seeming misrepresentations of the position Ryle argues against (although it's very hard to tell, since he doesn't give explicit references to books he thinks get things wrong), terminological distinctions which don't match up with my everyday understandings of words (which explicitly clashes with Ryle's supposed plain English style), a literary style which comes off as someone who loves Wittgenstein but isn't nearly as clever... Doesn't ...more

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Oct 02, 2018 Kim Li rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy

Unbearably excruciating and revelatory! As if someone took my pre-frontal cortex out on a triathlon. I really didn't think there's a way to quantify "consciousness" in anything remotely scientific. Come on! I'd say. Yet I was proven very wrong (thank you books). Who studied this for their major? Did you survive? :) ...more

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Jan 02, 2019 Tom rated it liked it

This book is like an old man with a very old bundle of cables meticulously unknotting everything while explaining the exact methods of his untangling as he does so.

It's interesting and peppered with logical deconstructions.

But in the end, when it's all untangled, it really is just a set of old cables.

...more

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Dec 05, 2019 Ed rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A Guide to Effective Communication

An excellent insight into the nuances of everyday communication . As a layman it has inspired me to want to learn more about the responses we give in casual and formal conversation.
This is an excellent guide for anyone who wants to communicate more effectively.

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Apr 27, 2020 Stephen Bedard rated it really liked it

While I disagree with his conclusions, the author has an engaging style. He argues against the idea of "a ghost in the machine," that is a spirit/mind in a body. He argues that we should not even talk about physical and mental as two different categories. This is a very influential book on the theory of mind. ...more

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Sep 26, 2017 Taojie Wang rated it really liked it

Avoiding the real question of mind, but still a classic, for behaviourists.

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Nov 16, 2017 Robert Tessmer rated it liked it

While I think I agree with the main premise of the book, I did not find the writing very interesting.

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Sep 12, 2018 Martyn rated it it was amazing

This was, I think, the first real book I bought (with real money) and read just before I went off to college in 1974. I ended up doing psychology ...at college as a start.

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Oct 18, 2019 Shawn rated it really liked it

A deep look into the philosophy of mind and thinking. Excellent presentation and thoroughness.

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Aug 19, 2020 Ani rated it it was ok

Yeah and I figured this out when I was 14

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Oct 20, 2020 Clark Vaccaro rated it liked it

nice

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Feb 18, 2017 Paul O'Leary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Gilbert Ryle's Concept of the Mind is a work that has an honored and earned spot in any history of philosophy. Yes, that does imply this is a "dated" work. It is an important work, nevertheless, for the author's investigation into how we ordinarily think of the mind, or, rather, our own mind in an everyday sense and how metaphysics creeps into our relationship with "it" through loose language. Written during a period when many philosophers thought it was of paramount importance to ascertain what Gilbert Ryle's Concept of the Mind is a work that has an honored and earned spot in any history of philosophy. Yes, that does imply this is a "dated" work. It is an important work, nevertheless, for the author's investigation into how we ordinarily think of the mind, or, rather, our own mind in an everyday sense and how metaphysics creeps into our relationship with "it" through loose language. Written during a period when many philosophers thought it was of paramount importance to ascertain what good philosophy shouldn't be doing, Ryle wears the mantle of debunker of smuggled mental nonsense with easygoing distinction. Ryle dismantles "the ghost in the machine"(I believe he coined this phrase in this book) by slicing off common absurdities and myths our species has developed to explain "mental" processes. As these mental processes cannot be witnessed, it is completely reasonable a less advanced culture than our own(we're so wonderfully reasonable.now!) would construct rather numinous language to explain what goes on interiorly as a "thoughtful" mirror of what we witness exteriorly. Thus, when we witness a splendid bird alight from a tree we might imagine there's a second world theatre inside us thinking "I've just seen the most splendid bird fly from that tree." Perhaps this may extend into thinking that we are thinking we are seeing a splendid bird now fly away, and so on. Ryle pours his scorn thick where he believes scorn is due. This can give his examination a rather negative air. On the constructive side, and there certainly is one, Ryle collapses the imagined exchange between an acting agent thinking he's uncorking a bottle of wine from the bodily act of physically uncorking a bottle. Ryle never waivers from his stance that "(o)vert intelligent performances are not clues to the workings of minds; they are those workings." Certainly Heidegger and his mental musings, at their height of popularity when this book was written, play offstage villains. Also, I was frequently reminded of Dennett's Consciousness Explained reading through this. Especially with Ryle's frequent use of examples involving music and my thinking back to Dennett's humorous anecdote of the neurosurgeon and his rock n roll loving patient. Dennett has contributed an introduction to the latest edition of this work(alas I have an older version). Though Dennett traded out Ryle's ghost for a more materialistic homunculus, one feels Dennett owes much to his worthy predecessor. ...more

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Jul 12, 2014 Dan Cohen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

I found this a long hard struggle to read through. Maybe because it's been nearly 30 years since I read any analytical philosophy, maybe because I found his arguments obscure, or maybe because I found the book repetitive. His attack on "the ghost in the machine" starts off well and he introduces his main technique of categorising concepts to illustrate how concepts of the wrong category can be misapplied. So far so good. He also introduces his infinite series argument (the ghost in the ghost in ...more

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Feb 16, 2017 Viviana rated it liked it

An interesting book essential to a complete understanding of the history of philosophy of mind. However, I neither agree with the ordinary language philosophical methodology nor with the deflationary analysis of mind. I am grateful that most contemporary philosophers of mind agree with me here.

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Jun 02, 2015 Matej rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-of-mind, philosophy

A valiant effort to analyse the ways in which qualities of the mind are invoed in both everyday and scientific discourse. The central thrust of the book is to give a deflationary account of the mental. Quite unlike the traditional Cartesian picture of the mental realm, where mental acts and mental entities dwell, Ryle presents qualities of the mind as modes of engaging with the world - as skills, modifications of behaviour, or processes.
This analysis points out serious difficulties with the trad ...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Josiah rated it it was ok

Shelves: 20th-century

Gilbert Ryle's classic philosophical work, The Concept of Mind, is now best remembered for the least philosophical part of it, the rhetorical dubbing of Descartes mind/body dualism as the "dogma of the ghost in the machine." Ryle's own particular brand of philosophical behaviorism hasn't weathered all that well, and so this book's surviving interest is primarily as a negative work. Nevertheless, the book is interesting as a crucible for Cartesians and those interested in the philosophical merits ...more

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About Gilbert Ryle

Gilbert Ryle

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Gilbert Ryle was a British philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein's insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the machine". Some of his ideas in the philosophy of mind have been referred to as "behaviourist" (not to be confused Gilbert Ryle was a British philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein's insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the machine". Some of his ideas in the philosophy of mind have been referred to as "behaviourist" (not to be confused with the psychological behaviourism of B. F. Skinner and John B. Watson). Ryle himself said that the "general trend of this book [The Concept of Mind, p. 327] will undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be stigmatised as 'behaviourist'."

Ryle was born in Brighton, England in 1900. The young Ryle grew up in an environment of learning. His father was a generalist who had interests in philosophy and astronomy, and passed on to his children an impressive library. Ryle was initially educated at Brighton College. In 1919, he went to Queen's College at Oxford, initially to study Classics but was quickly drawn to Philosophy. He would graduate with first class honours in 1924 and was appointed to a lectureship in Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. A year later, he was to become a tutor. Ryle remained at Christ Church until World War II.

A capable linguist, he was recruited to intelligence work during World War II, after which he returned to Oxford and was elected Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He published his principal work, The Concept of Mind, in 1949. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1945 to 1946, and editor of the philosophical journal Mind from 1947 to 1971. Ryle died on 6 October 1976 at Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Traditional philosophy believed that the task of a philosopher was to study mental as opposed to physical objects. Ryle believed it was no longer possible for philosophers to believe this. 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 cartography. 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 geography. However, when asked to consult a map for the same knowledge he has practically, the villager will have difficulty until she is able to translate her 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.

In The Concept of Mind (1949), Ryle admits to having been taken in by the body-mind dualism which permeates Western philosophy, and claims that the idea of Mind as an independent entity, inhabiting and governing the body, 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 demo ...more

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Collected Papers, Volume 1: Critical Essays

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“A person who has a good nose for arguments or jokes may have a bad head for facts.” — 13 likes

“Minds are not bits of clockwork, they are just bits of not-clockwork. As thus represented, minds are not merely ghosts harnessed to machines, they are themselves just spectral machines. . . . Now the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine does just this. It maintains that there exist both bodies and minds; that there occur physical processes and mental processes; that there are mechanical causes of corporeal movements and mental causes of corporeal movements. I shall argue that these and other analogous conjunctions are absurd.” — 8 likes

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