Reinterpreting Ryle: A Nonbehavioristic Analysis

Reinterpreting Ryle: A Nonbehavioristic Analysis SHELLEY M. PARK 1. INTRODUCTION GILBERT RYLE IIAS BEEN VARIOUSLY INTERPR~r~D aS a naive realist, x a pragmatist ,, an instrumentalist,s a functionalist,4 a nominalist,5 a verificationist,6 a phenomenologist,7 and even as a dualist, g Most prevalently, however, Ryle has been interpreted as a behaviorist.9 As the title of this essay suggests, it is this I wish to thank David Sanford, Tad Schmaltz, Carl Posy, and the reviewers for theJournal of theHistoryofPhilosophyfor their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. ' Stuart Hampshire, "Critical Notice of The Conceptof Mind," Mind 59 095o): 24z; Bertrand Russell, "What is Mind?'Journa/ofPhilosophy55 0958): lO;J. N. Wright, "Mind and the Concept of Mind," Proceedingsof theAristotelianSociety,supplementary volume (1959): 13. 'Ryle's project is likened to Dewey's by Albert Hofstadter, "Professor Ryle's CategoryMistake ,"Journal of Philosophy48 (1951): 257; Morris Weitz, "Professor Ryle's 'Logical Behaviorism '," Journal of Philosophy 48 (1951): 3m; and Arthur Pap, "Semantic Analysis and PsychoPhysical Dualism," Mind 61 (1952): 21 i. sJ. j. C. Smart, in Oscar P. Wood and George Pitcher, eds., Rile: A Collectionof CriticalEssays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 197o), 294-3o6, and Richard Rorty, Ph//osophyand the Mirror ofNature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), 1o2. 4Hofstadter, "Professor Ryle's Category-Mistake," 249; Hugh R. King, "Professor Ryle and The ConceptofMind,"Journal ofPhilosophy48 (1951): ~86; P. S. MacLellan, "Professor Ryle and the Concept of Mind," tlibbertJournal 5o (1952): 14o. Hofstadter ("Professor Ryle's Category-Mistake," 264• is especially vehement on this point. 6Hampshire, "Critical Notice," 245. 7Michael Murray, "Heidegger and Ryle: Two Versions of Phenomenology," Review of Metaphys /cs27 (1973). sj. N. Wright, "Mind and the Concept of Mind," 13. 9Cf. John Wisdom, "The Concept of Mind," Proceedingsof theAristotelianSociety095o): 191; Russell, "What is Mind?" 8; Hofstadter, "Professor Ryle's Category-Mistake," 257; Dickinson Miller, "Descartes' Myth and Professor Ryle's Fallacy,"Journa2 ofPhilosophy48 (t951): 272; Campbell Garnett, "Mind as Minding," Mind 61 (195~): 349; Hampshire, "The Concept of Mind," 244; Weitz, "Professor Ryle's 'Logical Behaviorism'," 3m and pass/m; Pap, "Semantic Analysis and [~65] 266 .JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:9 APRIL 1994 last pervasive interpretation of Ryle that I will discuss here. Interpretations of Ryle as a behaviorist stem primarily from readings of The Concept of Mind.'o This work is difficult to interpret and several characterizations of Ryle can, with varying degrees of plausibility, be supported by passages from that text. In particular, Ryle often sounds like a behaviorist when he says such things as: "... in describing the workings of a person's mind.., we are describing the ways in which parts of his conduct are managed" (CM 5o) or "my mind" is simply "my ability and proneness to do certain sorts of things" (CM 168). Yet, as I will argue below, the behaviorist label yields a caricature of Ryle's position in The Concept of Mind that cannot be adequately fleshed out by reference to the larger corpus of Rylean texts. Ryle was aware of the caricaturing effect of any "ism" and, for this (and other) reasons, stalwartly refused to ally himself with any philosophical camp. In "Taking Sides in Philosophy," he explains: There is a certain emotion of repugnance which I... feel when asked the conventional question, "If you are a philosopher, to what school of thought do you belong?"... The gist of my position is this. There is no place for "isms" in philosophy. The alleged party issues are never the important philosophic questions, and to be affiliated to a recognizable party is to be the slave of a non-philosophic prejudice .... To be a 'so-and-so-ist' is to be philosophically frail .... " Psycho-Physical Dualism," 21o; Peter Geach, Mental Acts (London: Roudedge and Kegan Paul, 1957), sections 3 and 4; J. J. C. Smart, Philosophyand ScientOfcRealism(New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), 89; D. M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of Mind (New York: Humanities Press, 1968), 54; David Lewis, "Psychophysicai and Theoretical Identifications," Australa.~nJourhal of Philosophy5~ (197~): 255-56; Jerry Fodor, The Language of Thought (New York: Crowell, a975), Chapter 1,passim;Daniel Dennett, Brainstorms(Cambridge, Mass...