Cartesian Dualism and Gilbert Ryle

Gilbert Ryle is well known in the philosophical world specifically as a behaviorist. According to Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy behaviorist are “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; “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 in the world due to Ryle’s success (Stroll). He is known as logical behaviorist that believes that mental terms can be defined in physical or behavioral terms. Ryle critiques dualism's most notable philosopher Rene Descartes.

In The Concept of Mind, Ryle critiques the mind-body dualism tradition. His ultimate goal was to show Dualism as myth and nothing else. Ryle points out “that people have no trouble in attributing motives, moral values and individuality to people’s actions, it is only when philosophers try to accredit these qualities to a separate realm of ‘mind’ or ‘soul’ that the problems arise (Cohalan, Ryle1949). Behaviourisms philosophical theory summaries; is that being in a mental state is the equivalent to being in a physical state(Cohlan).Ryle uses this as the bases of his criticism of Dualism. Ryle rejects the Cartesian Theory in his book The Concept of Mind and establishes his view heavily the chapter labeled “Descartes’ Myth”. In chapter in the section The Absurdity of the Of...

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...ind." Perspectives and Research on Business, Education and Cognitive Science: The Concept of the Mind. N.p., 2005. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.

Hauser, L. 2005. “Behaviorism”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/behavior/. See especially section on “Ordinary language behaviorism” and section on objections to behaviorism.

Putnam, H. 1967/2012.“The nature of mental states”. In Martinich and Sosa (eds.), Analytic Philosophy. Blackwell.

Ryle, G. 1949/1992.“Descartes’ myth” (excerpt from The Concept of Mind). In Beakley and Ludlow (eds.), The Philosophy of Mind. MIT Press. Available electronically via Library.

Scott, Alex. "Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind." N.p., 2003. Web. 28 Apr. 2014. .

Stroll, A. 2000.Twentieth-­Century Analytic Philosophy. Columbia University Press. Chapter 6.