Ryle, Gilbert (1900–76)

Author(s):  
William Lyons

Alongside Wittgenstein and Austin, Ryle was one of the dominant figures in that middle period of twentieth-century English language philosophy which became known as ‘Linguistic Analysis’. His views in philosophy of mind led to his being described as a ‘logical behaviourist’ and his major work in that area, The Concept of Mind (1949), both by reason of its style and content, has become one of the modern classics of philosophy. In it Ryle attacked what he calls ‘Cartesian dualism’ or the myth of ‘the Ghost in the Machine’, arguing that philosophical troubles over the nature of mind and its relation with the body arose from a ‘category mistake’ which led erroneously to treating statements about mental phenomena in the same way as those about physical phenomena. For Ryle, to do something was not to perform two separate actions - one mental, one physical - but to behave in a certain way. Much of Ryle’s work had a similar theme: philosophical confusion arose through the assimilation or misapplication of categorically different terms, and could only be cleared up by a careful analysis of the logic and use of language. He later became preoccupied with the nature of reflective thinking, since this stood as an example of an activity which seemed to evade the behaviouristic analysis that he recommended. Ryle was also a considerable Plato scholar, though his work in this area has been less influential.

Author(s):  
William Lyons

Alongside Wittgenstein and Austin, Ryle was one of the dominant figures in the movement of twentieth-century English language philosophy which became known as ‘Linguistic Analysis’. His views in philosophy of mind led to his being described as a ‘logical behaviourist’ and his major work in that area, The Concept of Mind (1949), both by reason of its style and content, has become one of the modern classics of philosophy. In it Ryle attacked what he calls ‘Cartesian dualism’ or the myth of ‘the Ghost in the Machine’, arguing that philosophical questions formulated as problems about the nature of mind and its relation with the body arose from a ‘category mistake’ which led erroneously to treating statements about mental phenomena in the same way as those about physical phenomena. For Ryle, to do something was not to perform two separate actions - one mental, one physical - but to behave in a certain way. Much of Ryle’s work had a similar theme: philosophical confusion arises through the assimilation or misapplication of categorically different terms, and can only be cleared up by a careful analysis of the logic and use of language. He later became preoccupied with the nature of reflective thinking, since this stood as an example of an activity which seemed to evade the behaviouristic analysis that he recommended. Ryle was also a considerable Plato scholar, though his work in this area has been less influential.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 357-375
Author(s):  
Vladimir Tumanov

Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris (1972) is studied through the lens of philosophy of mind. The question of memory and personhood, as developed by John Locke and then expanded by Derek Parfit, is applied to the status of Hari – the copy of the protagonist's deceased wife. The key question addressed by this paper is on what basis Hari can (or should?) be considered human. Hari's personhood is further analyzed in the context of Cartesian dualism, the response to Descartes by reductionism and the rebuttal of reductionism by the functionalist theories of Hilary Putnam. Descartes' thoughts on animal suffering and the bête-machine are pitted against Hari's experience in Solaris. The key question is whether Hari can be reduced to her alien structure or should be considered in terms of her behavior. The moral implications of these questions are extended to human sociality, human emotional response and the role of the body in the human condition.


Author(s):  
Cleo Hanaway-Oakley

This chapter presents an alternative to the popular critical vein that sees Joyce’s Ulysses and early cinema as conveying a mechanical, impersonal view of the world. It is argued that Ulysses and certain genres of early cinema were engaged—naively or otherwise—in a revaluation of Cartesian dualism, involving the reappraisal of mind/body and human/machine binaries. The physical comedy of Bloom and Charlie Chaplin is analysed with reference to phenomenological ideas on prosthesis and the machine–human interface, while other genres of early cinema, such as Irish melodrama and trick films, are considered in the light of phenomenological theories of gesture and embodiment. By comically mocking mind/body separation and depicting the inseparability of subjectivity and corporeality, Joyce and the early film-makers go beyond the ideas of Bergson and anticipate Merleau-Ponty’s later notion of the ‘body-subject’.


1995 ◽  
Vol 45 (181) ◽  
pp. 540
Author(s):  
Stuart Brown ◽  
John Skorupski

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Dávila ◽  
Meghan E. Barnes

Purpose Grounded in the scholarship addressing teacher self-censorship around controversial topics, this paper aims to investigate a three-part research question: How do secondary English language arts (ELA) teacher–candidates (TCs) in the penultimate semester of their undergraduate teacher education program position political texts/speeches, interpret high school teens’ political standpoints and view the prospects of discussing political texts/speeches with students? The study findings provide insights to the ways some TCs might position themselves as novice ELA teachers relative to political texts/speeches, students, colleagues and families in their future school communities. Design/methodology/approach Audio-recorded data from whole-class and small-group discussions were coded for TCs’ positioning of political texts/speeches, interpretations of teens’ political standpoints and viewpoints on discussing with students President Obama’s speech, “A More Perfect Union” (“A.M.P.U.”) The coded data set was further analyzed to identify themes across the TCs’ perspectives. Findings The data set tells the story of a group of TCs whose positionalities, background knowledge and practical experiences in navigating divergent perspectives would influence both their daily selection and censorship of political texts/speeches like “A.M.P.U.” and their subsequent willingness to guide equitable yet critical conversations about controversial issues in the secondary ELA classroom. Originality/value In advance of the 2018 midterm elections, this paper considers how the common core state standards’ (CCSS) recommendations to include more nonfiction documents in ELA instruction positions ELA teachers to provide interdisciplinary support in helping students think critically about political issues. It expands on the body of scholarship that, thus far, has been primarily grounded in the research on social studies instruction.


Pólemos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Nicolini

Abstract This essay addresses different patterns of the visualisation of the law. It examines how scholars attempt to depict, represent, and perform the law and its founding authority. It also focuses on the pragmatics of legal language: written and spoken standard legal English are pragmatically enriched within contexts where the law is interpreted, uttered, or performed. The linguistic notion of “context” discloses the interrelations between the agendas of law and power and reveals how the law conveys its content to the body politic as its ultimate addressee. It then proposes a renewed concept of legal linguistics. In order to determine the different ideologies underpinning the evolution of English legal language, as well as its prototypical forms of the visualisation of the law, three stages in the history of the English language will be examined: Late Middle English, Early Modern English, and Contemporary English. Each of these stages will be likened to the different parts of judicial proceedings. This will allow us to examine how English legal language has been used in a specific context, the trial, where the law is both uttered and performed.


2004 ◽  
pp. 147-176
Author(s):  
Stanimir Rakic

In this paper I examine compound names of plants, animals, human beings and other things in which at least one nominal component designates a part of the body or clothes, or some basic elements of houshold in Serbian and English. The object of my analysis are complex derivatives of the type (adjective noun) + suffix in Serbian and componds of the type noun's + noun, noun + noun and adjective + noun in English. I try to show that there is a difference in metaphorical designation of human beings and other living creatures and things by such compound nouns. My thesis is that the metathorical designation of human beings by such compounds is based on the symbolic meaning of some words and expressions while the designation of other things and beings relies on noticed similarity. In Serbian language such designation is provided by comples derivatives praznoglavac 'empty-headed person', tupoglavac 'dullard' debolokoiac 'callos person', golobradac 'young, inexperienced person' zutokljunac 'tledling' (fig), in English chicken liver, beetle brain birdbrain, bonehead, butterfingers, bigwig, blackleg, blue blood bluestocking, eat's paw, deadhead,fat-guts,fathead, goldbrick (kol) hardhat, hardhead, greenhorn, redcoat (ist), redneck (sl), thickhead, etc. Polisemous compounds like eat's paw lend support for this thesis because their designation of human beings is based on symbolic meaning of some words or expressions. I hypothesize that the direction and extend of the possible metaphorization of names may be accounted for by the following hierarchy (11) people - animals - plants - meterial things. Such hierarchy is well supported by the observations of Lakoff (1987) and Taylor (1995) about the role of human body in early experience and perception ofthe reality. Different restrictions which may be imposed in the hierarchy (11) should be the matter of further study, some of which have been noted on this paper. The compounds of this type denoting people have metaphorically meaning conected with some pejorative uses. These compounds refer to some psychological or characteral features, and show that for the classification of people such features are much more important than physical properties. While the animals and plants are classified according to some charecteristics of their body parts, people are usually classified according to psychollogical characteristics or their social functions. I have also noted a difference in structure between compounds designation animals and those designating plants and other things. The designation of animals relies more on metonymy, and that of plants and other things on metaphor based on comparision of noticed similarities. In the compounds designating animals, the nominal component relatively seldom refers to the parts of plants or other things. I guess that the cause may be the fact that the anatomy of plants is very different from the anatomy of animals. As a consequence the structure adjective + noun is much more characteristic of the compounds designating animals in English than the structure noun's + noun, and the same holds, although in a lesser degree for the compounds designating humans. It is also noticeable that in English compounds whose second component a part of body or clothes the first component rarely designates animals. On the other hand the compounds (9), in which the nominal head refers to some superordinate species, the first component often designates animal species, but usually of a very different kind. These data seem to lend support for Goldvarg & Gluksberg's thesis (1998) that metaforical interpretation is favoured if the nominal constituents denote quite different entities.


Author(s):  
G. A. Zolotkov

The article examines the change of theoretical framework in analytic philosophy of mind. It is well known fact that nowadays philosophical problems of mind are frequently seen as incredibly difficult. It is noteworthy that the first programs of analytical philosophy of mind (that is, logical positivism and philosophy of ordinary language) were skeptical about difficulty of that realm of problems. One of the most notable features of both those programs was the strong antimetaphysical stance, those programs considered philosophy of mind unproblematic in its nature. However, the consequent evolution of philosophy of mind shows evaporating of that stance and gradual recovery of the more sympathetic view toward the mind problematic. Thus, there were two main frameworks in analytical philosophy of mind: 1) the framework of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy dominated in the 1930s and the 1940s; 2) the framework that dominated since the 1950s and was featured by the critique of the first framework. Thus, the history of analytical philosophy of mind moves between two highly opposite understandings of the mind problematic. The article aims to found the causes of that move in the ideas of C. Hempel and G. Ryle, who were the most notable philosophers of mind in the 1930s and the 1940s.


Author(s):  
Miranda Anderson

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in medieval and Renaissance studies on topics related to distributed cognition and to consider how the various chapters in this volume represent, reflect and advance work in this area. The volume brings together 14 chapters by international specialists working in the period between the ninth and the seventeenth century in the fields of law, history, drama, literature, art, music, philosophy, science and medicine. The chapters revitalise our reading of medieval and Renaissance works by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the distributed nature of cognition. Together the chapters make evident the ways in which particular notions and practices of distributed cognition emerged from the particular range of sociocultural and technological contexts that existed during this period. This chapter attempts to put these contributions in their wider research context by examining how such topics have been approached by mainstream scholarship, earlier work in the cognitive sciences and by existing applications of distributed cognition theory. It draws out both more general features of distributed cognition and what was distinctive about medieval and Renaissance insights into (and superstitions about) the cognitive roles of the body and environment. Throughout this chapter, I reference the chapters in this volume that provide further information on topics covered or take forward the issues in question. In the concluding section, I turn to a fuller overview of the chapters themselves


Author(s):  
Jonardon Ganeri

Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācārya was a seventeenth-century Indian philosopher belonging to a school of thinkers, Navya-Nyāya, noted for its extreme realism and its contributions to philosophical methodology. Though Gadādhara’s commentaries on the school’s key texts are recognized as among the latest, most detailed and innovative, his greater claim to fame is due to his composition of a number of independent tracts on topics in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, ethics and legal theory. He may be credited in particular with the discovery of a version of the pragmatic theory of pronominal anaphora. His work on case grammar and inferential fallacies is highly admired in India, while recent translations into English have begun to make him better known outside.


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