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MODERN 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 MACMILLAN AND CO LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New York Toronto 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 The Papermac edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. 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
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