Essay on Cartesian Dualism and Gilbert Ryle - 1899 Words

Gilbert Ryle is well known in the philosophical world specifically as a behaviorist. According to Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy behaviorist are â€Å"followers in the ‘ordinary language’ tradition of analytic philosophy, while, for the most part, regarding behavioral scientific hopes as vain, hold views that are, in other respects, strongly behaviorists†(Hauser 1). In the middle of the twentieth century the ordinary language behaviorist movement was strongly covered by Ryle and Wittgenstein. These bright minds established a relationship; â€Å"In 1929 Ryle met Wittgenstein and struck up a friendship that profoundly altered the direction of Ryle’s Philosophical thinking†( Stroll 147). Oxford took over for Cambridge as the center of philosophy†¦show more content†¦It is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category mistake†(Ryle 26). Ryles thesis i n The Concept of Mind is that the official doctrine has key principles that â€Å"are unsound and that conflict with the whole body of what we know about minds when we are not speculating about them†(Ryle 23). Laid out, the official doctrine retain that every person has a body and a mind, that they are normally â€Å"harnessed† together and that after death of a body the mind may continue to function and exists. Cartesian theory summarized; embraces that volitional acts of the body are caused by volitionl acts of the mind thus mental acts determine physical acts. Ryle thought the ‘official theory’ was absurd or bitter like, and labels it â€Å"the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine†. A great portion of Ryle’s argument is pointed toward a â€Å"category mistake†. These mistakes that Ryle makes note â€Å"The mistakes were made by people who did not know how to wield the concepts University, division and team-spirit. Their puzzles arose from inability to use certain items the English vocabulary†(27). This dualist doctrine formed a polar opposition between the mind and body. Ryle states that the official doctrine as a category mistake; â€Å"It represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category (or range of types or categories), when they actually belong to another†(26). Meaning mind andShow MoreRelatedDescartes Teachings On Dualism977 Words   |  4 Pages To understand how the dualist commits a category mistake, one must first understand Descartes’ teachings on dualism from the Meditations on First Philosophy. Firstly, Descartes sees the mind as an immaterial, non-physical soul. He believes that his thoughts can be altered but he can never be tricked into the thinking that he is thinking when he is not. While he has complete faith in the existence of his mind, he doubts the existence of his body and the existence of other people s minds. The reasonRead Mor eThe Theory Of The Mind Body Dualism1232 Words   |  5 Pagesaccording to the Encyclopedia Britannica, â€Å"was one of the first to abandon scholastic Aristotelianism and created the first version of the modern mind-body dualism or emotion† (Encyclopedia Britannica). Born on March 31, 1596, he was dubbed as the Father of Modern Philosophy. His theory on the mind-body dualism, also known as Cartesian Dualism, created a stem of the modern problem of the relationship between the mind and body. He created the early version to further explain the interaction of theRead MoreCartesian Dualism vs Logical Behaviorism Essay1483 Words   |  6 Pagesrelevant to philosophy of the mind and discussed through a variety of arguments. Two of the most important arguments with this discussion are Cartesian dualism and logical behaviorism, both of which argue the philosophy of the mind in two completely different ways. Robert Lane, a professor at the University of West Georgia, define the tw o as follows: Cartesian dualism is the theory that the mind and body are two totally different things, capable of existing separately, and logical behaviorism is the theoryRead More Gilbert Ryles The Concept of Mind Essay2412 Words   |  10 PagesGilbert Ryles The Concept of Mind In The Concept of Mind Gilbert Ryle attempts, in his own words, to explode the myth of Cartesian dualism. His primary method in this endeavour is to explain why it is a logical error to describe minds and bodies with semantically similar language; while secondarily, he proposes that even to speak of minds as a second-order ontology is to take the first step in the wrong direction towards intellectual clarity. Thus, with the desire to arrive at this hypotheticalRead MoreThe Mind And Body Problem1443 Words   |  6 Pagesstates. Behaviours visually express mental states better than knowing if one has a Cartesian soul or the requirement of a normal human brain. Body: It is reasonable to think that the patient has the usual range of mental states because she is behaviourally indistinguishable from a normal human. Behaviours make mental states more evidentially obvious than knowing the brain state of a patient or if they have a Cartesian soul or not. Doctor 4 provides the argument that since the patient is behaviourallyRead MoreEssay on The Philosophy of Cognitive Science2158 Words   |  9 PagesThe Philosophy of Cognitive Science Psychophysical dualism — the distinction between mind and body — is the counterposition between essentially irreducible elements: the mind and body. Such a dualism implies the main ontological problem of the philosophy of cognitive science and philosophy of mind: the mind-body problem (MBP). The dualism and the referred-to problem has been insistently discussed in the philosophical tradition and several solutions have been proposed. Such solutions are properlyRead MoreDualism And Its Effects On The World1870 Words   |  8 Pageshave been gracefully put to rest, Dualism has, for better or worse, stuck around. Here I will briefly discuss a few of the proposed alternatives to Dualism and some of the issues they have encountered, with the aim to show that, unlike those subjects covered by the physical sciences, the mind brings it some unique properties that may simply not lend themselves to physical explanation. Ryle s Onslaught and the Behaviorists In his book The Concept of Mind, Gilbert Ryle made a seminal argument that wouldRead MoreThe Mind Body Problem, By Rene Descartes Essay1331 Words   |  6 Pageslarge collection of problems which focuses upon the fundamental issue of reality and knowledge in so far as such analysis may clarify the relationship between the mind and body, and the intelligibility of any alleged relationship between them. Cartesian dualism holds the presupposition that man is made of two elements, a body and a soul (mind). This presumption is informed by the notion that man by his ability to think, choose, reason, imagine, etc. cannot just be physical, there must be something inRead MoreWhat Advantages Does Spinoza’s Substance Monism Have over Descartes’ Dualism?3467 Words   |  14 PagesDescartes’ dualism. Through works such as the Ethics, Spinoza seeks to address the main flaws in Descartes’ philosophy. These flaws included but were by no means limited to, proof for the existence of God and the interaction between mind and body. This essay will highlight the advantages of Spinoza’s monism over Descartes’ dualism by looking at Spinoza’s response to these issues. First, in order to consider the advantages of Spinoza’s substance monism over Descartes’ dualism it is necessaryRead MoreThe Cartesian Theory Of Mind1648 Words   |  7 Pagesresponsible for many ideas and theories still used in the philosophical world today. He earned the nickname â€Å"Father of modern philosophy† for his work. One of his most in depth and lasting legacies is his â€Å"mind-body dualism† thesis also known as the Cartesian theory of mind. The Cartesian theory states that there are two different types of existence, physical and mental. Whatever exists must fall into only one of these existences and they cannot be both. This could be compared to the two faces of