Talk:Gilbert Ryle

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Er....I'm sorry? Ryle was refuted by Foucault? I don't THINK so. Actually Rylean 'behaviourism' is much closer to post-structuralist thought than is say, cognitivism or structuralism. I have changed the article accordingly.

BScotland

Crikey! Well done BScotland!Thewikibeagles (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Biography

Seems like there should be a biographical section here. Kevin L. 04:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Ryle's behaviorism

Ryle's logical behaviorism should not be confused with Skinner's psychological (radical) behaviorism, but it is interesting to note that Skinner did profess admiration for Ryle, and it appears that Skinner borrowed some of Ryle's analysis of mentalism (along with Wittgenstein's) in developing his own critique of mentalist psychologies.

Behaviorism was an intellectual fad for the first half of the twentieth century. Many philosophers felt compelled to make their philosophies agree with that limited and restrictive psychology. Ryle, as a professional academic, could not oppose or contest the fad.Lestrade (talk) 01:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Talking about intellectual fads was an intellectual fad in the first part of the twenty-first century. Many wikipedia commentators felt compelled to make their comments agree with that limited and restrictive sociology. Lestrade, as a wikipedia commentator, could not oppose or contest the fad. (Incidentally, the last line of your critique is clearly false. The rest of it just reflects a particularly shallow conceptual framework.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.246.191.83 (talk) 14:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Behaviorism as a theory taken out to its logical conclusion is self-defeating, because by definition the behaviorist is expressing the response to the stimuli in his history. There cannot be any independent confirmation except by someone who is doing the same thing for the same reasons. Ryle, as an excellent critical philosopher, would see this clearly. For this reason he is using the term "behaviorism" for its heuristic value.Euonyman (talk) 18:58, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

La Mettrie and "ghost"s ?

I am deleting the reference to La Mettrie from the sentence <He attacks the idea of 17th and 18th century thinkers (such as Descartes and La Mettrie) that nature is a complex machine, and that human nature is a smaller machine with a "ghost" in it to account for intelligence, spontaneity and other such human qualities.> because having read most of his philosophical work I cannot find any evidence whatsoever that he held such a view at all. On the contrary, La Mettrie was a radically monistic, materialistic naturalist.

Inline references

Does the tag at the top of the page really make sense now? It seems like there are now several citations within the article. JustinBlank (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

This page seems to be horribly lacking in citations. "Students in his 1967-8 Oxford audience would be asked..." is a notable example of this. MaximilianKH (talk) 01:49, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Criticisms

While it is important to highlight the criticisms of an influential thinker like Ryle, the quotation from Bloom is less of a scholarly critique, more of an ad hominem. I find it entirely inappropriate, essentially noise, for a philosopher of Ryle's stature. I will remove it at the earliest opportunity. Those who wish to quote Bloom at length can surely find something better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oyigit (talk • contribs) 17:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Also certain passages are highly subjective:

"The vivid metaphors that were (to some) an enjoyable feature of Ryle's prose in The Concept of Mind came unhelpfully to dominate his writing. In Dilemmas, for example, there is seriously more metaphor than argument." -- It's never a good sign if you have to emphasize your remarks with a "seriously".

"It should be stressed, too, that Ryle's 'Descartes' is not the Descartes of Cartesian scholarship but a caricatural Descartes." -- Admitted, Ryles 'Descartes' is a bit of a caricature. But is it such a bad caricature? Also, the caricature serves a purpose (Cf. e.g. E. v. Savigny "Discussion" In: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. vol. 57: 1, p. 54–59, 1975).

Yes, Descartes did posit an independent existence of the self by reifying it, as Ortega saw the issue, thereby taking off on the wrong track at the fork in the road. There is no logical necessity to talk about the self as confirmation of your existence in the sense that it is a thing.Euonyman (talk) 18:47, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

"Students in his 1967-8 Oxford audience would be asked rhetorically 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 bung-hole of a beer barrel is part of the barrel or not. This was intellectually teasing and entertaining but at least one member of the audience had the sense that Ryle was unsystematically producing puzzles to which he had no unified solution." -- It might just be that the protagonist of this anecdote simply didn't get the point of the "puzzels". — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheseusX (talk • contribs) 05:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll delete the stuff from Bloom. An ad-hominem attack, taken from a letter written in response to a poor review in the New York Review of Books is not authoritative or notable Dilaudid (talk) 13:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

It appears that this "criticisms" section doesn't actually contain any criticisms now. The three observations made in this section appear to be completely neutral expository points with nothing negative or critical about them whatsoever. I would suggest moving the current content elsewhere, and the section either eliminated or filled in with some actual known criticisms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThePantsParty06 (talk • contribs) 02:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I've modified the formatting to reflect ThePantsParty06's point and as the "old" criticisms contained only an additional contribution of Ryle not a criticism. I also made all the sections between "Life" and "Legacy" subsections of a new "Works" section (and put the "writings" section in it as well. LookingGlass (talk) 16:28, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Roy Schafer

There is no mention of Roy Schafer or his book "A New Language for Psychoanlysis" which is based on Ryle's "The Concept of Mind". G. Robert Shiplett 15:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Plagiarism in Article!

Tracking down plagiarism (from this site) by one of my students, I noticed that this article is itself plagiarized. The section on The Concept of Mind has text taken directly from this blog: http://aeconomics.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/concept-of-mind-and-infinite-regression.html

Since the blog contains more information and is more of a complete piece, it really looks like the copying without attribution goes in that direction. One difference is the removal of mention of La Mettrie, as discussed in the edit talk below "La Mettrie and "ghost"s ?"

216.229.6.19 (talk) 22:16, 28 November 2016 (UTC)Aaron Elliott

Thank you. I'll probably remove that content in the near future, and if I don't, another editor is likely to. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:19, 28 November 2016 (UTC)