Gilbert Ryle 9hwjdugjrhsikajsdukdid.pptx

Gilbert Ryle

1. GILBERT RYLE: The Self Is A Collection Of Behavior

2. Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher. He was a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers who shared Ludwig Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems. GILBERT RYLE (1900-1976)

3. Ryle grew up in an environment of learning. He was educated at Brighton College and in 1919 went up to The Queen's College at Oxford to study classics, but was soon drawn to philosophy. He graduated with a "triple first"; he received first-class honours in classical Honour Moderations (1921), literae humaniores (1923), and philosophy, politics, and economics (1924).

4. He was especially well-known for his definitive critique of the Dualism of Descartes (for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the machine") and other traditional mind-body theories. His form of Philosophical Behaviourism (the belief that all mental phenomena can be explained by reference to publicly observable behavior) became a standard view for several decades.

5. GILBERT RYLE’S CONCEPT OF THE MIND

6. Some of Ryle's ideas in philosophy of mind have been called behaviourist . In his best-known book, The Concept of Mind (1949) , he writes that the "general trend of this book will undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be stigmatised as ' behaviourist ’.” Having studied the philosophers Bernard Bolzano, Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong , Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger, Ryle suggested that the book instead "could be described as a sustained essay in phenomenology, if you are at home with that label."

7. Gilbert Ryle with his behavioristic approach to self, said that self is the behavior presented by the person, his notion of dualism is that the behavior that we show, emotions and actions are the reflection of our mind and as such is the manifestation of who we are. Ryle does not believe that the mind and body, though some say can coexist, are two separate entities, which is said to be evident in the unexplainable phenomenon or abilities of the mind where the soul is considered.

8. In "The Concept of Mind" of 1949, Ryle attacked the body-mind Dualism (the claim that the Mind is an independent entity, inhabiting and governing the body) which has largely permeated Western Philosophy since René Descartes in the 17th Century, rejecting it as a redundant piece of literalism carried over from the era before the biological sciences became established. He dismissed the idea 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 (he referred to Descartes' model as "the dogma of the ghost in the machine").

9. Ryle believes that the mind does not exist and therefore can't be the seat of self, Ryle believed that self comes from behavior. We're all just a bundle of behaviors caused by the physical workings of the body. To him, once we encounter others, their perceptions of what we do, how we act, and the way we behave will then result to the understanding of other people and establishing of who we are.

10. His explanation of self is further exemplified in his “ghost in the machine view. This view said the man is a complex machine with different functioning parts, and the intelligence, and other characteristics or behavior of man is represented by the ghost in the said machine. He gave further explanation using an example imagining that if you are touring a visiting friend to the university that you are studying and you brought him to the athletic Centre, library, buildings and classrooms, but then your friends ask “but where is the university?

11. As such is the point of Ryle all those places, buildings and offices are the university, which supports his idea that the mind and body is not necessarily separate entities. So considering that analogy, the idea of Ryle is saying that the things that we do, how we behave and react and all other components like the way we talk, walk, and look is generally who we are as a person.

12. Summary: Gilbert Ryle's behavioristic approach to self argues that the self is a collection of behaviors, not a separate entity. He believes that the mind and body are not separate, and that our behaviors reflect who we are. Ryle's concept of self is exemplified by his "ghost in the machine" analogy, where the mind is the ghost and the body is the machine. He argues that the self is not an entity to be located, but rather a convenient name for the behaviors we exhibit.