Gilbert Ryle

This paper aims to shed light on an underexplored aspect of Gilbert Ryle’s interest in the notion of “knowing-how”. It is argued that in addition to his motive of discounting a certain theory of mind, his interest in the notion also stemmed (and perhaps stemmed more deeply) from two ethical interests: one concerning his own life as a philosopher and whether the philosopher has any meaningful task, and one concerning the ancient issue of whether virtue is a kind of knowledge. (...) It is argued that Ryle saw know-how as crucial in both respects and, also, that he continued to be interested in these ethical issues throughout his career. (shrink)

The mechanistic concept of the body, as inherited from René Descartes, has generated considerable trouble in philosophy—including, at least in part, the mind-body problem itself. Still, the corps mécanique remains perhaps the most prevalent though least examined assumption in recent philosophy of mind. I discuss two notable exceptions. Gilbert Ryle and Maurice Merleau-Ponty rejected this assumption for surprisingly similar reasons. Writing at about the same time, though in different languages and in very different circles, they each attempted to articulate a (...) non-mechanistic concept of the body by stressing the importance of skill: skillful behavior constituting cognition in Ryle’s case, and the skill body constituting perception in Merleau-Ponty’s case. In this article, I turn to their cautions and insights. By drawing out the relation between these two seemingly unrelated theorists, I hope to show that together Ryle and Merleau-Ponty have much to offer philosophy today. (shrink)

G.H. von Wright, G.E. Moore's and Wittgenstein's successor, and John Wisdom's predecessor as a Professor of Philosophy in Cambridge, wrote in 1993: «The history of the "analytical" movement has not yet been written in full. With its increased diversification, it becomes pertinent to try to identify its most essential features and distinguish them from later additions which are alien to its origins.» In the same year A.J. Ayer's successor as a Wykeham Professor of Logic in Oxford, M. Dummett noted: «I (...) hope that such a history will be written: it would be fascinating.» The task of this book is to fulfill these hopes. (shrink)

Stanley and Williamson reject Ryle's knowing‐how/knowing‐that distinction charging that it obstructs our understanding of human action. Incorrectly interpreting the distinction to imply that knowledge‐how is non‐propositional, they object that Ryle's argument for it is unsound and linguistic theory contradicts it. I show that they misconstrue the distinction and Ryle's argument. Consequently, their objections fail. On my reading, Ryle's distinction pertains to, not knowledge, but an explanatory gap between explicit and implicit content, and his argument for it is sound. I defend (...) the distinction's necessity in explaining human action and show that it propels a fruitful explanatory program. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle was one of the most important and yet misunderstood philosophers of the Twentieth Century. Long unavailable, _Collected Essays 1929-1968: Collected Papers Volume 2_ stands as testament to the astonishing breadth of Ryle’s philosophical concerns. This volume showcases Ryle’s deep interest in the notion of thinking and contains many of his major pieces, including his classic essays ‘Knowing How and Knowing That’, ‘Philosophical Arguments’, ‘Systematically Misleading Expressions’, and ‘A Puzzling Element in the Notion of Thinking’. He ranges over an (...) astonishing number of topics, including feelings, pleasure, sensation, forgetting and concepts and in so doing hones his own philosophical stance, steering a careful path between behaviourism and Cartesianism. Together with the _Collected Papers Volume 1 _and the new edition of _The Concept of Mind_, these outstanding essays represent the very best of Ryle’s work. Each volume contains a substantial preface by Julia Tanney, and both are essential reading for any student of twentieth-century philosophies of mind and language. _Gilbert Ryle_ was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics and Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford, an editor of _Mind_, and a president of the Aristotelian Society. _Julia Tanney_ is Senior Lectuer at the University of Kent, and has held visiting positions at the University of Picardie and Paris-Sorbonne. (shrink)

Ryle's recent retirement after almost a half-century of study, teaching and writing might well be regarded as the end of an era. A large segment of the philosophical world has come to regard him as the embodiment of the spirit of Oxford. His clear and informal style, his gift for fresh analogies and striking similes, his mastery of the epigram, have set new literary standards for philosophical writing. Largely responsible for inaugurating the B. Phil. and D. Phil. programs after World (...) War II for the benefit of graduate students from abroad, Ryle both as Waynflete professor of metaphysics and editor of Mind has enormously influenced the thinking of Anglo-American philosophers. Apart from his Concept of Mind, Dilemmas and Plato's Progress, his writings have taken the form of reviews, short articles or essays addressed to specific philosophical issues. Though many of these have become minor classics and have graced innumerable anthologies, it is only now that we have virtually the whole of this important segment of his writings available in book form. With the exception of four essays published originally in French, the papers in these two volumes have been published previously in English, mostly in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Analysis or Mind. They range in time from his early days at Oxford to 1968 and cover a wide range of topics, mainly in the areas of philosophical methodology, the philosophy of logic and the philosophy of mind. Only the fields of moral, political and aesthetic philosophy are comparatively neglected. The first volume contains his critical essays on individual thinkers. They include studies on Plato, Locke and Hume as well as his pieces on such contemporary thinkers as Husserl, Heidegger, Carnap, Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore and John Anderson, who dominated the Australian scene during the first half of this century. The second volume contains 37 pieces dating back to 1929. It is worth mentioning that despite their brevity, Ryle's introductions to these volumes throw considerable light on his philosophical development. While professional philosophers will be happy to have these collected papers in their present form, we hope they will soon become available in less costly editions for student use.--A. B. W. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the debate about Know-how.

(2013). Is the Royaumont Colloquium the Locus Classicus of the Divide Between Analytic and Continental Philosophy? Reply to Overgaard. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 177-188. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.689751.

The aim of the article is to analyze the situation of contemporary logic with reference to the issue concerning connections between the pluralism of logical systems and relativism in logic. Accordingly, I seek answers to the following questions: Can the plurality of logic, more specifically, a large number and variety of systems constructed by logicians, be justified in a rational way? Does pluralism in logic imply the thesis of relativism? Is logical relativism in the contemporary philosophy of logic just a (...) superstition or is it a duly substantiated view? (shrink)

In this thesis I examine the view—known as intellectualism—that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that, or propositional knowledge. I examine issues concerning both the status of this view of knowledge-how and the philosophical implications if it is true. The ability hypothesis is an important position in the philosophy of mind that appeals to Gilbert Ryle’s famous idea that there is a fundamental distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that. This position appears to be inconsistent with the truth of intellectualism. However, I demonstrate (...) in this thesis that the ability hypothesis can be restated using the intellectualist view of knowledge-how. With regards to the status of intellectualism, I argue that the two main traditional arguments against intellectualism do not succeed. I also provide new and, I claim, successful arguments against intellectualism. These arguments point to a new view of knowledge-how that is distinct from both the standard intellectualist and Rylean views of knowledge-how. (shrink)

Many psychologists studying lay belief attribution and behavior explanation cite Donald Davidson in support of their assumption that people construe beliefs as inner causes. But Davidson’s influential argument is unsound; there are no objective grounds for the intuition that the folk construe beliefs as inner causes that produce behavior. Indeed, recent experimental work by Ian Apperly, Bertram Malle, Henry Wellman, and Tania Lombrozo provides an empirical framework that accords well with Gilbert Ryle’s alternative thesis that the folk construe beliefs as (...) patterns of living that contextualize behavior. (shrink)

This is a précis of my book "Know-how as Competence. A Rylean Responsibilist Account".

This paper responds to comments and criticisms by Stefan Brandt and Eva-Maria Jung, directed at the book "Know-how as Competence. A Rylean Responsibilist Account".

Contemporary discussions of knowledge how typically focus on the question whether or not knowing how to do ϕ consists in propositional knowledge, and divide the field between intellectualists and anti-intellectualists. This way of framing the issue is said to derive from Gilbert Ryle. I argue that this is a misreading of Ryle, whose primary interest in discussing knowledge how was not epistemological but rather action-theoretical, whose argument against intellectualism has for this reason been misunderstood and underestimated, and whose positive view (...) aims to chart a middle course between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

What does it mean to know how to do something? This book develops a comprehensive account of know-how, a crucial epistemic goal for all who care about getting things right, not only with respect to the facts, but also with respect to practice. It proposes a novel interpretation of the seminal work of Gilbert Ryle, according to which know-how is a competence, a complex ability to do well in an activity in virtue of guidance by an understanding of what it (...) takes to do so. This idea is developed into a full-fledged account, Rylean responsibilism, which understands know-how in terms of the normative guidance and responsible control of one's acts. Within the complex current debate about know-how, this view occupies a middle ground position between the intellectualist claim that know-how just is propositional or objectual knowledge and the anti-intellectualist claim that know-how just is ability. In genuine know-how, practical ability and guiding intellect are both necessary, but essentially intertwined. (shrink)

The hermeneutic tradition divides /physical/ discourse, which takes an 'exterior' point of view in /describing/ its subject-matter, from /mental/ discourse, which takes an 'interior' point of view in /expressing/ its subject-matter: a 'metapsychological dualist' or 'metadualist' approach. The analytic tradition, in its attachment to truth-logic and consequently the 'unity of science', is 'metamonist', and thinks all discourse takes the 'exterior' viewpoint: the 'bump in the rug' moves to the disunification of mind into the functional and (big-'C') Consciousness. Assuming the hermeneuts (...) are correct, the literature's twisty path---from Place and Smart's confused metamonist responses to Ryle's crypto-metadualist /Concept of Mind/ to contemporary metamonist 'phenomenal intentionality'---emerges as an attempt to stabilize theory on a fundamentally wobbly platform. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle was one of the most important and controversial philosophers of the Twentieth century. Long unavailable, Critical Essays: Collected Papers Volume 1 includes many of Ryle’s most important and thought-provoking papers. This volume contains 20 critical essays on the history of philosophy, with writing on Plato, Locke and Hume as well as important chapters on Russell and Wittgenstein. It also includes three essays on phenomenology, including Ryle’s famous review of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time first published in 1928. Although (...) Ryle believed phenomenology ‘will end in self-ruinous subjectivism or in a windy mysticism’ his review also acknowledged that Heidegger was a thinker of great originality and importance. While surveying the developments in the philosophy of language and philosophical logic, Ryle sets out his own conception of the philosophers’ role against that of his predecessors and contemporaries. Together with the second volume of Ryle’s collected papers Collected Papers Volume 2 and the new edition of The Concept of Mind , all published by Routledge, these outstanding essays represent the very best of Ryle’s work. Each volume contains a substantial introduction by Julia Tanney, and both are essential reading for any student of twentieth-century philosophies of mind and language. Gilbert Ryle (1900 -1976) was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics and Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford, an editor of Mind , and a president of the Aristotelian Society. Julia Tanney is Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent, and has held visiting positions at the University of Picardie and Paris-Sorbonne. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine two philosophical accounts of thinking—yet examine them anew by considering what I take to be their under-examined relationship. These are the accounts of Gilbert Ryle and Martin Heidegger. It is often supposed that these two philosophers belong to differing, even conflicting, philosophical traditions. However, this article will seek to demonstrate that an unrecognised affinity exists between them on account of their shared endeavour to venture ahead of the ‘beaten tracks’ of Modern Philosophy. (...) In this way, I will seek to challenge a number of preconceptions that inform the way these thinkers are interpreted and utilised by philosophers of education—particularly preconceptions about Ryle that appear to be active in much ‘thinking skills’ literature. Through exploring certain under-attended-to aspects of Ryle's work this article will seek to offer a renewed investigation into these two philosophical accounts of thinking, in terms of both their limitations and the ways of thinking they open. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle was one of the most important and controversial philosophers of the Twentieth century. Long unavailable, _Critical Essays: __Collected Papers Volume 1 _includes many of Ryle’s most important and thought-provoking papers. This volume contains 20 critical essays on the history of philosophy, with writing on Plato, Locke and Hume as well as important chapters on Russell and Wittgenstein. It also includes three essays on phenomenology, including Ryle’s famous review of Martin Heidegger’s _Being and Time_ first published in 1928. Although (...) Ryle believed phenomenology ‘will end in self-ruinous subjectivism or in a windy mysticism’ his review also acknowledged that Heidegger was a thinker of great originality and importance. While surveying the developments in the philosophy of language and philosophical logic, Ryle sets out his own conception of the philosophers’ role against that of his predecessors and contemporaries. Together with the second volume of Ryle’s collected papers _Collected Papers Volume 2 _and the new edition of _The Concept of Mind_, all published by Routledge, these outstanding essays represent the very best of Ryle’s work. Each volume contains a substantial introduction by Julia Tanney, and both are essential reading for any student of twentieth-century philosophies of mind and language. _Gilbert Ryle_ was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics and Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford, an editor of _Mind_, and a president of the Aristotelian Society. _Julia Tanney_ is Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent, and has held visiting positions at the University of Picardie and Paris-Sorbonne. (shrink)

Aspects of Mind contains previously unpublished manuscript material by Gilbert Ryle along with notes taken by the editor, Rene Meyer, at lectures given by Ryle on the philosophy of mind in 1964. Gilbert Ryle, Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1945 until 1967, had a decisive influence on contemporary philosophy. His Concept of Mind not only put a methodological edge in a most readable way to what has become known as Analytical Philosophy, but it also (...) stimulated interest in the philosophy of mind as a pivotal part of philosophy as a whole. A second important influence derives from his reorganization of philosophical studies at Oxford after the war which made it, for several years, one of the liveliest philosophical centres in the world. Ryle's interest covered almost the entire field of philosophy. He also made substantial contributions to the history of philosophy, notably on Plato, Locke, Hume, Husserl and Heidegger. Gilbert Ryle died in October 1976. The book also includes two tributes to Ryle; one from John Mabbott, a close friend, on Ryle the man, and one from David Gallop, an ex-student, on Ryle the Philosopher. A chapter entitled "Philosophy, Logical Geography and Dilemmas" by Rene Meyer provides a perspective on Ryle's philosophy. (shrink)

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.

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.

Gilbert Ryle?s The Concept of Mind (1949/2002. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press) is generally considered a landmark in the quest to refute Cartesian dualism. The work contains many inspirational ideas and mainly posits behavioral disposition as the referent of mind in order to refute mind?body dualism. In this article, I show that the Buddhist theory of ?non-self? is also at odds with the belief that a substantial soul exists distinct from the physical body and further point out similarities between (...) the Buddhist outlook and Ryle?s ideas in three parts. First, I illustrate that Ryle?s ?category mistake? has certain points in common with the Buddhist refutation of ?self?. Within the Buddhist framework, referents such as ?mind? and ?self? are merely imputed terms. The presumed existence of an independent substance such as a ?soul?, when considered in isolation from the expedient usage of the term ?mind?, can therefore also be viewed as a ?category mistake?. Second, attempting to solve the questions of ?what mind is? and ?how mind operates? are two entirely different approaches to the study of mind. I argue that it is necessary to focus on ?knowing-how? rather than ?knowing-that?, if we are to gain a more comprehensive understanding of mind and avoid any kind of category mistake such as those that follow from isolating the physical properties of brain or drawing inferences from a mystical soul. Third, I aim to show why investigating mind from the perspective of ?dispositions? of behavior is a valid approach. The Buddhist concept of karma-v?san? elucidates the habitual tendency to act or not act in various situations. Based on this theory, I argue that the workings of the human mind bears strong links to the formation of karma and as such have important axiological implications that cannot be ignored. I conclude by pointing out that Ryle?s insightful ideas could in certain ways be complemented by the Buddhist theory of mind. In my view, his philosophy is not only a mediator between Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology, but could perhaps also be seen as a mediator between traditional Eastern systems of thought and contemporary philosophies of mind. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle never pursued research under Edmund Husserl. However, Ryle was indeed Husserl’s student in a broader sense, as much of his own work was deeply influenced by his studies of Husserl’s pre-World War I writings. While Ryle is the thinker whose name typically comes to mind in connection with the concern over category mistakes I argue that (1) Husserl deserves to be known for precisely this concern as well, and (2) the similarity between them is no accident. Developing this (...) reading of Ryle’s Husserlian pedigree forces a broader reevaluation of each of their roles in twentieth-century thought. (shrink)

The paper argues that Daniel Dennett’s reductive account of consciousness in Consciousness Explained goes against theoretical commitments driving much of his previous work. I focus on considerations for the plurality of distinctive explanation of ourselves, as they have been articulated in Dennett's earlier work, and argue that Dennett's reductive framework is not adequately supported in the face of these considerations. The paper details tensions in Dennett’s work and shows how Consciousness Explained departs from the diagnoses of the mind/body problem offered (...) by Ryle, Wittgenstein and Sellars with which Dennett casts it as continuous. (shrink)

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. This sixtieth anniversary edition includes a substantial commentary by Julia Tanney and is essential reading (...) for new readers interested not only in the history of analytic philosophy but in its power to challenge major currents in philosophy of mind and language today. (shrink)

Book review of Tsilipakos, Leonidas: Clarity and Confusion in Social Theory: Taking Concepts Seriously. Farnham : Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015.

In this paper, we examine the historical relationship between phenomenology and the emerging analytic tradition. We pay particular attention to the reception of Husserl’s work by Russell, Moore, and others, and to some convergences between phenomenology and ordinary language philosophy, noted by Wittgenstein, Austin, and Ryle. Focusing on Russell and Ryle, we argue that the historical details suggest an alternative parsing of the ways to the “parting of the ways” narrative made famous by Dummett but also committed to by many (...) others, in which we start from a common source or origin only to have two increasingly divergent inheritances of philosophy that have next to nothing in common, like the Rhine and the Danube. We will show that the period thought to be prior to the “gulf” does not evince the sort of philosophical unity and commonality of purpose sometimes ascribed to it, and that the period of socio-political institution of the ‘divide’ post World War Two, is both historically and philosophically much more complicated than is usually thought, with the ostensible rivers being rather more intertwined than is often supposed. (shrink)