Table Of ContentMODERN STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
RYLE
Oscar P. Wood is a Student of Christ
Church, Oxford
George Pitcher is a Professor of
Philosophy, Princeton University
The cover portrait of Gilbert Ryle is reproduced
with the kind permission of the President and
Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford.
MODERN STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
Edited by Amelie Rorty
Modern Studies in Philosophy is a series of anthologies
presenting contemporary interpretations and evalua
tions of the works of major philosophers. The editors
have selected articles designed to show the systematic
structure of the thought of these philosophers, and to
reveal the relevance of their views to the problems
of current interest. These volumes are intended to
be contributions to contemporary debates as well as
to the history of philosophy; they not only trace the
origins of many problems important to modern
philosophy, but also introduce major philosophers as
interlocutors in current discussions.
Titles in the Series
3025 Hume. Edited by V. C. Chappell
3026 Descartes. Edited by Willis Doney
3027 Aristotle. Edited by J. M. E. Moravcsik
3028 Wittgenstein': The Philosophical Investigations.
Edited by George Pitcher
3029 Kant. Edited by Robert Paul Wolff
3030 Locke and Berkeley. Edited by C. B. Martin
and D. M. Armstrong
3031 Mill. Edited by J. B. Schneewind
3032 Plato. I: Metaphysics and Epistemology
3033 Plato. II: Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of
Art and Religion. Edited by Gregory Vlastos
3034 Aquinas. Edited by Anthony Kenny
3036 Ryle. Edited by Oscar P. Wood and George Pitcher
Other titles in preparation
MODERN STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
RYLE
EDITED BY OSCAR P. WOOD
AND GEORGE PITCHER
Introduction by Gilbert Ryle
MACMILLAN
© Doubleday & Co. Inc. 1970
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without permission.
First published in the United States of America 1970
First published in Great Britain 1971
Published by
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Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras
ISBN 978-0-333-12265-5 ISBN 978-1-349-15418-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15418-0
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CONTENTS
Autobiographical, GILBERT RYLE 1
Critical Review of The Concept of Mind, STUART
HAMPSHIRE 17
Intelligent Behaviour, J. L. AUSTIN 45
An Honest Ghost?, A. J. AYER 53
Ryle and Thinking, F. N. SIDLEY 75
Ryle on Perception, ANTHONY QUINTON 105
Imagination, J. M. SHOItTER 137
Mental Copies, G. B. MATTHEWS 157
Categories, P. F. STRAWSON 181
Knowing How and Knowing That, What, D. G.
BROWN 213
Polymorphous Concepts, J. O. URMSON 249
Words and Sentences, G. J• WARNOCK 267
Ryle in Relation to Modern Science, J. J. c. SMART 283
Philosophy and Computer Simulation, :KEITH GUN-
DERSON 307
Notes on Ryle's Plato, G. E. L. OWEN 341
In Defence of Platonic Division, JOHN ACKRILL 373
Verbs and the Identity of Actions-A Philosophi-
cal Exercise in the Interpretation of Aristo-
tle, TERRY PENNER 393
Chronological List of Published Writings 1927-
68 of Gilbert Ryle 461
Notes on Contributors 469
Gilbert Ryle's writings over the last forty years have es·
tablished him as the most fertile British philosopher of
the middle of the century. Few philosophers have been
unaffected by his views and almost all have at some time
made use of his extensive additions to the battery of
philosophical tools. The essays in this volume, most· of
which were written specially for it, are eloquent evidence
of the stimulus he continues to provide to fruitful ex·
plorations over a wide area of philosophical concerns.
o. w.
P.
G.P.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
GILBERT RYLE
I
My father was a general practitioner, with two deep ex
trinsic interests. He was an amateur astronomer and a
philosopher. He contributed two papers to the Aristote
lian Society in its very early days. I do not recollect him
talking much in the home on philosophical matters, but
his large and variegated library contained many philo
sophical and semi-philosophical works-and I was an om
nivorous reader.
When he was a young man he had migrated into agnos
ticism from the Evangelicalism in which his father, even
tually the first Bishop of Liverpool, had raised him.
We ten children were brought up unchurched and non
church-going. I fancy that I was stimulated in my teens
to think defensive heretical thoughts by our exemption
from the orthodoxies that naturally prevailed at school.
But I cannot claim to have been persecuted there, or even
vexatiously teased for our godlessness. My schooldays co
incided with the First World War and this preoccupied
us all. I remember a young schoolmaster, recently down
from Oxford, asking us in the Sixth Form "What is col
our?" I gave a Lockean sort of answer, and laughed know
ingly at the expense of a boy who declared that colour
was paint. I scored five marks for my sapience. I remem
ber another master saying, "Ryle, you are very good on
theories, but you are very bad on facts." My attempts to
repair this latter weakness were short-lived and unsuc
cessful.
In 1919 I went up to Oxford, where for the first five
terms I was working rather half-heartedly for Classical
Honour Moderations. I lacked the ear, the nostrils the
2
RYLE
2
palate, and the toes that are needed for excellence in
linguistic and literary studies. However I took greedily to
the off-centre snbject of Logic. It felt to me like a
grown-up subject, in which there were still unsolved
problems. This was not my impression of the Classics in
general, as they were then taught. However I gladly
learned from Aristophanes and from an Aristophanic
tutor that Ancient Greece had not been wholly popu
lated by the stately, cultured, and liberal-minded sages
whom Alma Tadema depicted and in whom eminent
Hellenists encouraged us to believe.
For my next seven terms I was working for Greats in
ancient and modern philosophy, and in Greek and Roman
history. I do not recall being at all worried by the non
integration of our Roman history with our modern phi
losophy; or even of our Greek history with our Greek
philosophy, which happened to belong to different cur
ricular "periods." But I did think that the Academy mat
tered more than the Pe1oponnesian War.
I was from the start philosophically eager. I became a
member of the undergraduates' Jowett Society fairly
early and I read a lot of self-discovered things that sur
prised my philosophy tutor to hear about. I disappointed
him by failing to appreciate the bulk of Plato's Republic.
This tepidness was not due to any comparisons between
it and other, philosophically superior dialogues. I had not
read any of these, any more than had, apparently, most of
the Plato-venerating philosophy tutors of that era. They
treated the Republic like the Bible, and to me most of it
seemed, philosophically, no better.
H. J. Paton was my tutor. Some of my fellow students
found him too un forthcoming, but for me his untiring
"Now, Ryle, what exactly do you mean by .•. 7" was an
admirable spur. He was an unfanatical Crocean, which,
at the time, was the main alternative to being a Cook
Wilsonian. His evolution into a wholehearted Kant
scholar and expositor had begun before I ceased to be in
