Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Gilbert Ryle's (1900–1982) The Concept of Mind (1949) had for a considerable time an enormous influence, but, despite its open and direct style, it was never easy to characterize. One reason for this can be found in its origins. Ryle tells us in his Autobiographical Sketch (1970) that his main interest was in the metaphilo-sophical question: ‘what constitutes a philosophical problem and what is the way to solve it?’ Questions specifically to do with the mind were not in the forefront of his thinking when he embarked on The Concept of Mind . Instead, he was looking around for, as he wrote, ‘some notorious and large-size Gordian Knot’ upon which to ‘exhibit a sustained piece of analytical hatchet-work’. Leaving aside the fact that Ryle was more interested in philosophical method than in the philosophy of mind itself, there is a second reason for the difficulty one has in interpreting the book. The Gordian knot Ryle chose was the product of a conception of mind that is generally attributed to Descartes. On that conception, there is, in addition to material substance, a kind of mind substance, and we have a more direct – indeed privileged – access to what passes in the mind than to what takes place in the material world. Thus, for example, I can know for certain and immediately that I have a pain, though I could doubt that I have a damaged hand which I take to be the cause of my ... log in or subscribe to read full text