Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of

Cartesian dualism Cartesian means of or relating to the French philosopher René Descartes—from his Latinized name ''Cartesius''. It may refer to: Mathematics *Cartesian closed category, a closed category in category theory * Cartesian coordinate system, moder ...

, for which he coined the phrase "

ghost in the machine The "ghost in the machine" is a term originally used to describe and critique the notion of the mind existing alongside and separate to the body. In more recent times, the term has several uses, including the concept that the intellectual part of ...

." He was a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers who shared

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...

's approach to philosophical problems. Some of Ryle's ideas in philosophy of mind have been called behaviourist. In his best-known book, ''

The Concept of Mind ''The Concept of Mind'' is a 1949 book by philosopher Gilbert Ryle, in which the author argues that "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from René Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have becom ...

'' (1949), he writes that the "general trend of this book will undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be stigmatised as 'behaviourist'." Having studied the philosophers

Bernard Bolzano Bernard Bolzano (, ; ; ; born Bernardus Placidus Johann Gonzal Nepomuk Bolzano; 5 October 1781 – 18 December 1848) was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest of Italian extraction, also known for his lib ...

Franz Brentano Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Josef Brentano (; ; 16 January 1838 – 17 March 1917) was an influential German philosopher, psychologist, and former Catholic priest (withdrawn in 1873 due to the definition of papal infallibility in matters ...

Alexius Meinong Alexius Meinong Ritter von Handschuchsheim (17 July 1853 – 27 November 1920) was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology. He also made contributions to philosophy of mind and theory of value. Life Alexius Meinong ...

Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

, and

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

, Ryle suggested that the book instead "could be described as a sustained essay in

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

, if you are at home with that label."

Biography

Family tree

Gilbert Ryle's father, Reginald John Ryle, was a

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

doctor, a generalist who had interests in philosophy and

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

, passing on to his children a large library; he was a son of

John Charles Ryle John Charles Ryle (10 May 1816 – 10 June 1900) was an English evangelical Anglican bishop. He was the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool. Life He was the eldest son of John Ryle, private banker, of Park House, Macclesfield, M.P. for Maccles ...

, the first

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

Bishop of Liverpool The Bishop of Liverpool is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Liverpool in the Province of York.''Crockford's Clerical Directory'', 100th edition, (2007), Church House Publishing. . The diocese stretches from Southport in the n ...

. The Ryles were Cheshire landed

gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...

; Gilbert's elder brother,

John Alfred Ryle John Alfred Ryle (1889–1950) was a British physician and epidemiologist. He was born the son of Brighton medical doctor R J Ryle and brother of the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle. He was educated at Brighton College and Guy's Hospital where ...

, of Barkhale, Sussex, became head of the family. Their ancestor John Ryle, a silk merchant, was a friend of theologian and evangelist

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

; members of this Ryle family include the silk manufacturer ("father of the United States silk industry") John Ryle, as well as his nephew and business partner,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. Gilbert Ryle's mother, Catherine, was daughter of Samuel King Scott (younger brother of the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott) by his wife Georgina, daughter of William Hulme Bodley, M.D., and sister of architect

George Frederick Bodley George Frederick Bodley (14 March 182721 October 1907) was an English Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and worked in partnership with Thomas Garner for much of his career. He was one of the founders of Watt ...

, himself a student of Sir George. Cousins of the Ryle family thus include the haematologist Ronald Bodley Scott, architect George Gilbert Scott Jr., founder of Watts & Co., and his son,

Giles Gilbert Scott Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (9 November 1880 – 8 February 1960) was a British architect known for his work on the New Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral, and ...

, designer of the

Battersea Power Station Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned Grade II* listed coal-fired power station, located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Nine Elms, Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It was built by the London Power Company (LPC) ...

Early life and education

Gilbert Ryle was born in Brighton, England, on 19 August 1900, and grew up in an environment of learning. He was educated at

Brighton College Brighton College is an independent, co-educational boarding and day school for boys and girls aged 3 to 18 in Brighton, England. The school has three sites: Brighton College (the senior school, ages 11 to 18); Brighton College Preparatory Sc ...

and in 1919 went up to The Queen's College at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

to study

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

, but was soon drawn to philosophy. He graduated with a "triple first": he received

first-class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

in classical Honour Moderations (1921), '' literae humaniores'' (1923), and philosophy, politics, and economics (1924).

Career

In 1924, Ryle was appointed lecturer in philosophy at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

. A year later, he became a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

and tutor at Christ Church, where he remained until 1940. In the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Ryle was commissioned in the

Welsh Guards The Welsh Guards (WG; cy, Gwarchodlu Cymreig), part of the Guards Division, is one of the Foot Guards regiments of the British Army. It was founded in 1915 as a single-battalion regiment, during the First World War, by Royal Warrant of George V. ...

. A capable linguist, he was recruited into

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...

work and by the end of the war had been promoted to the rank of Major. After the war he returned to Oxford and was elected

Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy The Waynflete Professorships are four professorial fellowships at the University of Oxford endowed by Magdalen College and named in honour of the college founder William of Waynflete, who had a great interest in science. These professorships are s ...

and Fellow of

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

. He published ''The Concept of Mind'' in 1949. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1945 to 1946, and editor of the philosophical journal ''

Mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

'' from 1947 to 1971. Ryle died on 6 October 1976 at

Whitby Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a maritime, mineral and tourist heritage. Its East Clif ...

, North Yorkshire. Ryle's brothers John Alfred (1889–1950) and

George Bodley George Frederick Bodley (14 March 182721 October 1907) was an English Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and worked in partnership with Thomas Garner for much of his career. He was one of the founders of Watt ...

(1902–1978), both educated at

, also had eminent careers. John became Regius Professor of Physic at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and physician to King George V. George, after serving as Director of Forestry first for Wales and then England, was Deputy-Director of the

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respon ...

and appointed a

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

. Ryle was the subject of a portrait by

Rex Whistler Reginald John "Rex" Whistler (24 June 190518 July 1944) was a British artist, who painted murals and society portraits, and designed theatrical costumes. He was killed in action in Normandy in World War II. Whistler was the brother of poet and ...

, which he said made him look like "a drowned German General". He was a lifelong bachelor, and in retirement he lived with twin sister Mary.

Work

''The Concept of Mind''

In ''The Concept of Mind'', Ryle argues that dualism involves

category mistake A category mistake, or category error, or categorical mistake, or mistake of category, is a semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category, or, alternativ ...

s and philosophical

nonsense Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous To be ridiculous is to be something which is ...

, two philosophical topics that continued to inform Ryle's work. He rhetorically asked students in his 1967–68 Oxford audience what was wrong with saying that there are three things in a field: two cows and a pair of cows. They were also invited to ponder whether the

bunghole A bunghole is a hole bored in a liquid-tight barrel to remove contents. The hole is capped with a cork or cork-like stopper called a ''bung''. Acceptable usage includes other access points that may be capped with alternate materials providing ...

of a beer barrel is part of the barrel or not.

Knowing-how and knowing-that

A distinction deployed in ''The Concept of Mind'', between 'knowing-how' and 'knowing-that', has attracted independent interest. This distinction is also the origin of procedural (''knowing-how'') and declarative (''knowing-that'') models of

long-term memory Long-term memory (LTM) is the stage of the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model in which informative knowledge is held indefinitely. It is defined in contrast to short-term and working memory, which persist for only about 18 to 30 seconds. Long-t ...

Jason Stanley Jason Stanley (born 1969) is an American philosopher who is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is best known for his contributions to philosophy of language and epistemology, which often draw upon and influence other ...

and

Timothy Williamson Timothy Williamson (born 1955) is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. He is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford, and fe ...

"Knowing How"
''

Journal of Philosophy ''The Journal of Philosophy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal on philosophy, founded in 1904 at Columbia University. Its stated purpose is "To publish philosophical articles of current interest and encourage the interchange of ideas, e ...

'', 98(8): 411–444, 2001. This distinction is widely accepted in philosophy. An example of the distinction can be knowing how to tie a

reef knot The reef knot, or square knot, is an ancient and simple binding knot used to secure a rope or line around an object. It is sometimes also referred to as a Hercules knot. The knot is formed by tying a left-handed overhand knot between two ends, ...

and knowing that Queen Victoria died in 1901.

Philosophy as cartography

Ryle thought it no longer possible to believe that a philosopher's task is to study mental as opposed to physical objects. In its place, Ryle saw a tendency of philosophers to search for objects whose nature was neither physical nor mental. Ryle believed, instead, that "philosophical problems are problems of a certain sort; they are not problems of an ordinary sort about special entities." Ryle analogizes philosophy to

cartography Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

. Competent speakers of a language, Ryle believes, are to a philosopher what ordinary villagers are to a mapmaker: the ordinary villager has a competent grasp of his village, and is familiar with its inhabitants and

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

. But when asked to interpret a map of that knowledge, the villager will have difficulty until he is able to translate his practical knowledge into universal cartographic terms. The villager thinks of the village in personal and practical terms, while the mapmaker thinks of the village in neutral, public, cartographic terms.Ryle, Gilbert. 1971. "Abstractions." In ''Collected Papers'' 2. London: Hutchinson. By "mapping" the words and phrases of a particular statement, philosophers are able to generate what Ryle calls implication threads: each word or phrase of a statement contributes to the statement in that, if the words or phrases were changed, the statement would have a different implication. The philosopher must show the directions and limits of different implication threads that a "concept contributes to the statements in which it occurs." To show this, he must be "tugging" at neighbouring threads, which, in turn, must also be "tugging." Philosophy, then, searches for the meaning of these implication threads in the statements in which they are used.

Thick description

In 1949 Ryle first introduced the notion of ''

thick description In the social sciences and related fields, a thick description is a description of human social action that describes not just physical behaviors, but their context as interpreted by the actors as well, so that it can be better understood by an o ...

'' in "The Thinking of Thoughts: What is 'Le Penseur' Doing?"Ryle, Gilbert.

968 Year 968 ( CMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Emperor Nikephoros II receives a Bulgarian embassy led by Prince Boris (th ...

1996.
The Thinking of Thoughts: What is 'Le Penseur' Doing?
''Studies in Anthropology'' 11:11. . Archived from th

on 10 April 2008. Retrieved 25 June 2008. and "Thinking and Reflecting". According to Ryle, there are two types of descriptions: # thin description: surface-level observations of behaviour, e.g. 'His right hand rose to his forehead, palm out, when he was in the vicinity of and facing a certain other human.' # thick description: adds context to such behaviour. Explaining this context necessitates an understanding of the motivations people have for their behaviours, as well as how observers in the community understand such behaviour: 'He saluted the General.'

Legacy

Ryle's notion of thick description has been an important influence on cultural anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz. ''

'' was recognised on its appearance as an important contribution to philosophical psychology, and an important work in the

ordinary language philosophy Ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is a philosophical methodology that sees traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting how words are ordinarily used to convey meaning in ...

movement. But in the 1960s and 1970s, the rising influence of the cognitivist theories of

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

Herbert A. Simon Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary ...

Jerry Fodor Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modul ...

, and others in the neo-Cartesian school became predominant. The two major postwar schools in the

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...

, Fodor's

representationalism In the philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, the question of direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, is the debate over the nature of conscious experience;Lehar, Steve. (2000)The Function of Consc ...

and

Wilfrid Sellars Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (May 20, 1912 – July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher and prominent developer of critical realism, who "revolutionized both the content and the method of philosophy in the United States". Life and career His father ...

's functionalism, posited precisely the 'internal' cognitive states that Ryle had argued against. Philosopher Daniel Dennett, a student of Ryle's, has said that recent trends in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

such as

embodied cognition Embodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of an organism's entire body. Sensory and motor systems are seen as fundamentally integrated with cognitive processing. The cognit ...

discursive psychology Discursive psychology (DP) is a form of discourse analysis that focuses on psychological themes in talk, text, and images. As a counter to mainstream psychology's treatment of discourse as a "mirror" for people's expressions of thoughts, intentio ...

situated cognition Situated cognition is a theory that posits that knowing is inseparable from doing by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts. Under this assumption, which requires an epistemological shift ...

, and others in the

post-cognitivist Movements in cognitive science are considered to be post-cognitivist if they are opposed to or move beyond the Cognitivism (psychology), cognitivist theories posited by Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, David Marr (psychologist), David Marr, and others. ...

tradition, have provoked a renewed interest in Ryle's work. Dennett provided a sympathetic foreword to the 2000 edition of ''The Concept of Mind''. Author Richard Webster endorsed Ryle's arguments against mentalist philosophies, suggesting in ''

Why Freud Was Wrong ''Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis'' (1995; second edition 1996; third edition 2005) is a book by Richard Webster, in which the author provides a critique of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, and attempts to develop his own t ...

'' (1995) that they implied that "theories of human nature which repudiate the evidence of behaviour and refer solely or primarily to invisible mental events will never in themselves be able to unlock the most significant mysteries of human nature."

Books

*1949. ''

'' *1954. ''Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures 1953'', a collection of shorter pieces *1966. ''Plato's Progress'' *1971. ''Collected Essays 1929 - 1968'', in two volumes, 57 essays *1977. ''Contemporary Aspects of Philosophy'', editor *1979. ''On Thinking''

References

External links

Gilbert Ryle
in ''The

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...

''
"Ordinary Language"
Gilbert Ryle, ''

The Philosophical Review ''The Philosophical Review'' is a quarterly journal of philosophy edited by the faculty of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University and published by Duke University Press (since September 2006). Overview The journal publishes original ...

'' LXII (1953)
"Symposium: Use, Usage and Meaning"
Gilbert Ryle; J. N. Findlay, ''Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'' ''Supplementary Volume'' 35 (1961): 223–242.
The Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy – Issue 7, 2002
(Issue dedicated to Ryle)
The Gilbert Ryle Collection at Linacre College, Oxford.
Linacre College houses Gilbert Ryle's library along with a collection of his papers

''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 20 October 1976 (obituary) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ryle, Gilbert 1900 births 1976 deaths 20th-century British philosophers 20th-century English writers Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Analytic philosophers Aristotelian philosophers British Army personnel of World War II English philosophers Epistemologists Fellows of Christ Church, Oxford Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Intelligence Corps officers Linguistic turn Metaphysicians Ontologists Ordinary language philosophy People educated at Brighton College People from Brighton Phenomenologists Philosophers of language Philosophers of mind Philosophy academics Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Waynflete Professors of Metaphysical Philosophy Welsh Guards officers Wittgensteinian philosophers Mind (journal) editors