Literature/1949/Ryle

Authors

 * Gilbert Ryle

Wikimedia

 *  The Concept of Mind
 * The fundamental error ... is a category mistake made when philosophers talk about mind and matter as if they were "... terms of the same logical type."
 * A prospective student who visits a university and sees the library, the labs, the sports arena, may ask the tour guide, "But where is the university?", having supposed that it is a different place altogether. According to Ryle, the student fails to realize that "university" and "library" are terms that belong to different logical categories.
 * Ryle claims his purpose is to correct the logical geography of the knowledge that we already possess about mental powers and mental operations. Also, he declares that he is determining the logical cross-bearings of concepts. In so doing, he metaphorically compares such knowledge to the reading of a map. This activity displays the logic of the propositions that are used to communicate the concepts. Such logic is ... a spatial metaphor that reveals how propositions consistently precede and follow concepts.
 * Ghost in the machine