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Gilbert Ryle
The Concept of the Mind (1949)
Wittgenstein’s Influence
Philosophical Investigations (1953)
Removed motivations for people to accept
Descartes’ idea of introspection.
• We can’t assume private mental entities.
• We need outer behavioral criteria
History
Worked at the University of Oxford for his entire
academic career.
• Lecturer of philosophy at Christ Church College until WWII.
• Worked in military intelligence during WWII.
• Wrote The Concept of Mind while working as the professor of
metaphysics at Magdalen College.
Thought the task of philosophy was to detect how
mistaken theories arise from linguistic idioms.
• Philosophers should reframe or analyze sentences to remove their
systematically misleading nature.
Descartes Dichotomy Ryle
W W
M B P
Physicalist Idealist
Brain B M
Diagrams by Mason Cash
Descartes’ Dichotomy
BODY MIND
Physical Mental
Composed of matter or else is a Composed of consciousness or
function of matter else is a function of consciousness
Not subject to mechanical laws
Subject to mechanical laws Can’t be inspected/observed by
outside observers
Can be inspected/observed by Private (internal)
outside observers Exists in time, but not space
Public (external) Can be sure about inner states and
Exists in space and time processes; introspection cannot be
Can’t be sure about physical mistaken
world; sense perception can be
mistaken
Descartes’ Myth: The Official Doctrine
“The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine” (121).
Theory was popular and well accepted among thinkers.
When Body dies, the mind continues on.
Can directly know one’s inner states and processes through
introspection.
• Can be uncertain about physical world.
Inner and outer are only metaphors because the mind can’t be spatially
in anything.
Problem with theories about how mind and body influence each other.
• No direct causal connection.
Implies two existences: something that happens either has the status of
a physical or a mental existence.
Only in the Physical world can one mind affect another.
Introspection
We have the best knowledge of our own mind (direct
knowledge).
• Freudian problems with this due to actions driven by our
subconscious.
• Supporters still say that under normal conditions, introspection
works.
Immune from illusion, confusion, and doubt.
No access to inner lives of others
• Can only infer based on behavioral observations.
• Can deny the existence of other minds.
• Only bodies can meet.
• Yet, we can relay to others that we have minds through speech.
The Absurdity of the Official Doctrine
A philosopher’s myth
False not in detail, but in principle
One big mistake – a category mistake.
• “Represents facts of the mental life as if they belong to
one logical type or category (or range of types or
categories), when they actually belong to another”
(121).
• Mistakes by people who do not know how to use
concepts.
Category Mistakes
Basic examples of category mistakes:
• UCF campus consists of a library, classrooms, bookstore, parking garages, and
also the University.
• In baseball, one can play as the pitcher, the catcher, right fielder, left, fielder. . .
and also team spirit.
• “I have hands, feet, legs, arms, torso, head, and also a mind.”
Mind and Body category mistakes:
• Conjunctions:
“human beings are a union of mind and body.”
Compare: “she came home in a sedan chair and a floor of tears.”
• Disjunctions:
“the cause is either mental or physical.”
Compare: “He either bought a left glove and a right glove, or he bought a pair of
gloves.”
• Denying half:
“there are no minds, only bodies.”
“there is no pair of gloves, only a left glove and a right glove.”
Quoted text by Mason Cash