Gilbert Ryle

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Gilbert Ryle

Gilbert Ryle (born August 19, 1900 in Brighton , † October 6, 1976 in Whitby ) was one of the most influential British philosophers of the 20th century. He taught at Oxford University . Together with John Langshaw Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ryle is considered to be the main exponent of Ordinary Language Philosophy or philosophy of normal language , which, in addition to ideal language philosophy, represents one of the two classical currents of analytical philosophy . In the tradition of George Edward Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein, an attempt is made here to clarify philosophical problems through language or concept analysis with reference to everyday or normal language use.

Life

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Gilbert Ryle was born in Brighton , England in 1900 . From 1919 Ryle studied philosophy and classical philology in Oxford . In 1924 he graduated and became a lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford. During World War II , Ryle served in the Welsh Guards and was promoted to major towards the end of the war .

After the end of the war Ryle returned to Oxford and was appointed Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy. From 1945 to 1946 he was President of the Aristotelian Society. Ryle published his main philosophical work, The Concept of Mind, in 1949. In 1968 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

He died on October 6, 1976 in Whitby , North Yorkshire .

The Concept of Mind

Ryle's major work The Concept of Mind (translated as " The Concept of Mind ") was published in 1949. In it the thesis is developed that philosophy since René Descartes has been under the spell of the myth of a “ ghost in the machine ”. By this Ryle was referring to the idea that the mind and the body are two different things that interact with each other. Ryle claims Descartes made a category error, that is, the wrong assignment of terms to a category. An example of a category error is a foreigner who goes to a university and is shown all the rooms, but who then does not know where the university is. The foreigner made the mistake of including the university in the category of rooms. Descartes is said to have committed such a category error, since he assumed two different types of existences (physical and mental existence). But according to Ryle there are no two existences, because just because the bodies exist in space does not mean that the mind must also exist in another space. The category of bodies has nothing to do with the category of mind. There is cause and effect of mental processes, but because of that there is still no space in which this mind exists, like a body. This, according to Ryle, leads to insurmountable difficulties: how does mental causation happen (how does the disembodied mind manage to set the mindless body in motion?) And how do we avoid solipsism , i.e. H. How can we justify the assumption that there is another consciousness besides our own, and how can we know whether a spirit is also present in a foreign body? In addition, it remains unclear within the framework of the official doctrine how a non-spatial, i.e. non-localizable, spirit could be located in a physical (i.e. spatial) object. Ryle assumed that spiritual existence could be reduced to consciousness or to the function of consciousness.

In contrast to the official doctrine , Ryle suggested conceptualizing mental states as behavioral dispositions. Intelligence does not consist in the execution of incorporeal, unobservable acts of thought alongside observable body movements, but in the special way in which these body movements are carried out. Ryle is therefore widely regarded as a representative of a philosophical behaviorism . Unlike some representatives of positivism such as Rudolf Carnap or Carl Gustav Hempel , however, Ryle does not assume that sentences about mental states can be replaced by sentences about purely physical behavior: According to Ryle, the behavioral dispositions, which are our mental characteristics, cannot be otherwise than through our familiar mental vocabulary (intelligent, funny, careful) from everyday life. How we talk about our mental properties in everyday life is, for Ryle, an inevitable horizon of understanding for every theory of the mind. Therefore, as he emphasizes in the foreword to The Concept of Spirit , Ryle does not want to present any new facts about human intellectual life - these are already well known from everyday life and from literature - but rather the conceptual contexts within which those facts are raised, represent again.

For Ryle, a consequence of the official doctrine with serious consequences is the intellectualistic misunderstanding , according to which every intelligent action must be preceded by an internal, purely spiritual ( intellectual ) weighing of action-guiding sentences. Ryle considers this to be wrong, because numerous intelligent actions - his prime example is not only tying knots but also playing chess - can take place spontaneously and without the internal suggestion of the corresponding rules. Ryle tries to show that intelligence (ability to be practical) and intellect (ability to theorize) are exactly the opposite of what the misunderstanding implies: the ability to theorize is just one practical ability among many others. In their practice, too, it is a matter of applying rules wisely, which can also be done without an internal monologue. In this context, Ryle makes the distinction between knowing that and knowing how to show that every knowledge is preceded by a skill.

Category error

In The Concept of Mind there is also a classic formulation of the idea of ​​the category error . According to Ryle, this is the case if one understands terms of different categories in the same way in statements, i.e. ignoring their different types.

An example of a category error is as follows: To say that a team is entering a stadium means that each player on that team will enter the stadium. It would be nonsensical to assume that in addition to the players, there would also be a team on the field. Assuming this would require that the term team be understood in the same way and thus classified in the same category as the term player . Likewise, according to Ryle, it would be nonsensical to ask about the player who is responsible for the team spirit of a team.

Also, according to Ryle, there is a category mistake in assuming that the terms mind and body belong to the same category. What is wrong with this is that the body designates the material carrier of actions, whereas the mind designates the dispositions on which these actions are based. Like the team and the players, both belong to different categories. The category error leads us to look for a spirit next to the body: that would be like looking out for their team next to the players.

effect

Ryle's work dominated the philosophy of mind in the 1950s. With the decline of psychological behaviorism and the beginning of the cognitive revolution in the life sciences, however, Ryle's philosophical behaviorism also became increasingly unpopular. His theses were initially superseded by identity theory and later by functionalism . However, there are still philosophers today who are of the opinion that the identification of mental states with neural or functional states is a category error. This assumption speaks, as some theorists claim, that the identity theory popular today (mind equals brain processes) has not solved the mind- body problem and cannot conclusively explain why spiritual concepts such as remember do not refer to brain processes but to spiritual ones Relate to experience and cannot be reduced to a physical (physical) level.

literature

Primary

  • The Concept of Mind , Chicago, 1949 (German: The Concept of Mind)
  • Dilemmas , Cambridge, 1954 (German conflict of terms)
  • Plato's Progress , Cambridge, 1966
  • Collected Papers , London, 1971

Secondary

  • Savigny, Eike von : The philosophy of normal language , Frankfurt a. M. 1993.
  • Kuno Lorenz : Ryle , in: Jürgen Mittelstraß (Hrsg.): Encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science. 2nd Edition. Volume 7. Stuttgart, Metzler 2018, ISBN 978-3-476-02106-9 , pp. 190–192 (detailed list of works and literature)
  • Lyons, William: Gilbert Ryle. An Introduction to His Philosophy. Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands , New York 1980.
  • Oesterreich, Peter L .: Person and style of action. A rhetorical meta-criticism of Gilbert Ryle's "The Concept of Mind" , Essen 1987.
  • Wood, Oskar P. / Pitcher, George (Eds.): Ryle. Modern Studies in Philosophy , London 1970.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ryle/
personal data
SURNAME Ryle, Gilbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 19th August 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Brighton
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1976
Place of death Whitby