Online research in philosophy

Gilbert Ryle's book The Concept of Mind was published in 1949. According to Ryle, his "destructive purpose" was to show that "a family of radical category mistakes" is the source of the "official doctrine," that is, a "double-life theory," according to which "with the doubtful exception of idiots and infants in arms every human being has both a body and a mind." By numerous examples, Ryle showed quite forcefully how psychology and philosophy at the time were misled into asking the wrong kinds of questions. More than 50 years have elapsed since the original publication of Gilbert Ryle's book and, as Ullin T. Place wrote shortly before passing away, Ryle's conceptual analysis is now due, if not overdue, for a comeback. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the persistent relevance of category mistakes to current problems in the analysis of behavior.

Primary Works

Ryle, Gilbert: The Concept of Mind, Penguin Books, 1978

__________: Dilemmas, Cambridge, at the University Press, 1966.

__________: Collected Papers, Edited by Barnes and Noble Vols. I &II, Hutchinson, 1971.

__________: On thinking, Edited by K. Kolenda, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1982.

__________;Aspects of Mind, Edited by Rene Meyer, Oxford : Blackwell, 1993..

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 purpose place him in the traditioin of Locke, Berkeley, Mill, and Russell.

My research work title is “A Philosophical Study of the Concept of Mind (with special reference to Rene Descartes, David Hume and Gilbert Ryle).” In this study we have discussed three conceptions of mind presented by Rene Descartes, David Hume and Gilbert Ryle. All the three thinkers are related to different philosophical traditions known as Rationalism, Empiricism and Analytical Philosophy respectively. Each of these various approaches can be seen as at least partly successful, each provides answers to questions regarded as especially pressing, each apparently solved certain problems. Notoriously, however, each leaves unanswered and unsolved a host of distinct problems as well.

Although Gilbert Ryle published on a wide range of topics in philosophy (notably in the history of philosophy and in philosophy of language), including a series of lectures centred on philosophical dilemmas, a series of articles on the concept of thinking, and a book on Plato, The Concept of Mind remains his best known and most important work. Through this work, Ryle is thought to have accomplished two major tasks. First, he was seen to have put the final nail in the coffin of Cartesian dualism. Second, as he himself anticipated, he is thought to have argued on behalf of, and suggested as dualism's replacement, the doctrine known as philosophical (and sometimes analytical) behaviourism. Sometimes known as an “ordinary language”, sometimes as an “analytic” philosopher, Ryle—even when mentioned in the same breath as Wittgenstein and his followers—is considered to be on a different, somewhat idiosyncratic (and difficult to characterise), philosophical track.

It is the intention of this paper is to introduce some contemporary relevance of Descartes’ dualism with special reference to Gilbert Ryle’s criticism. Ryle’s explicit target in The Concept of Mind is what he calls the “official doctrine”, which results, he tells us, at least in part from Descartes’ appreciation that Galilean methods of scientific discovery were fit to provide mechanical explanations for every occupant of space, together with Descartes’ conviction that the mental could not simply be a more complex variety of the mechanical. Whether or not every aspect of the resulting “two-world” view is properly attributed to Descartes. It is familiar view, which has widely become known as Cartesianism in Anglo-American philosophy. It has distinctive ontological and epistemological commitments.

I have posted four my article published at different journals in India. This is an open resource to do our work well.

GILBERRT RYLE ON DESCARTES’ MYTH Philosophical Mind Studies, Dec 13, 2010 (Published).

Ryle’s Dispositional Analysis of Mind and its Relevance Philosophical Mind Studies, Dec 13, 2010 (Published).

The Official Doctrine and its Relevance Today Philosophical Mind Studies, Dec 13, 2010 (Published).

The Concept of the Self in David Hume and the Buddha Philosophical Mind Studies, Dec 13, 2010 (Published).

Human Beings Have No Identical Self Philosophical Mind Studies, Dec 13, 2010 (Published).

The aim of this paper is to critically examine the Ryle’s conception of “Descartes Myth”. Ryle has two objectives in his book The Concept of Mind: (i) to refute a current philosophical theory about mind. (ii) to substitute at least in blue print, a satisfactory alternative. This paper gives a descriptive analysis of what Ryle calls Descartes-Myth and arguments for it. Conclusion of this paper drawn as he does not succeed in dispelling the myth but only substitutes a peculiar logical monism for Descartes’ Myth.