|
 Building
a home philosophy library
Lyn
May and Steve Deery
The
sixteenth in a series of articles advising on how to build your
own home philosophy library.
No.
16 Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind
What
is it to have a mind? Well nothing else is so immediate and familiar,
yet so intractable and mysterious. Before we start sounding like
a 1960's folk song let us turn to our latest recommendations for
the home library.
Ryle's
The Concept of Mind begins with destructive purpose by attacking
Cartesian dualism, portrayed as the 'Ghost in the Machine' dogma.
According to that dogma, there exist both bodies and minds; there
are physical processes and mental processes; and there are both
physical and mental causes of bodily movements. But it is absurd,
argues Ryle, to think something mysteriously inhabits the body and
operates it from inside.
What
we have, says Ryle, is a category mistake; namely, the error of
assimilating statements about mental processes to the same category
as statements about physical process. What he wants to do is dissipate
the hallowed contrast between mind and matter.
Ryle
is not, however, a materialist. Indeed, he questions the legitimacy
of the disjunction 'either there exist minds or there exist bodies'.
For him minds and bodies are of different logical types. So while
he wants to dispel the myth of a mind as a field of special causes
he was equally adamant, "Men are not machines, not even ghost-ridden
machines."
Ryle's
primary enterprise was then to correct the logical geography, to
show to what logical types the concepts of mind and body ought to
be allocated.
The
Concept of Mind is a positive delight to read with Ryle grounding
concepts with everyday examples. This ensures the reader is never
in doubt about the point he is trying to convey. The easy style
Ryle exhibits makes his philosophy very seductive.
The
Concept of Mind by
Gilbert Ryle (Penguin) £7.50 /$15.00
A
new book will be featured late-April 2002.
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