Gilbert Ryle

Abstract

Though best known and often identified with his work on concepts of mind, Gilbert Ryle (b. 1900–d. 1976) was no monoglot. He was a broad thinker, with broad influences, invested in various philosophical issues—perhaps chief among them, the status and methods of philosophy itself. Eventually becoming one of the twentieth century’s most famous English-speaking philosophers—due to the publication of his classic The Concept of Mind (cited under Monographs and Collected Papers)—his philosophical education focused largely on the history of philosophy, which he drew on throughout his career. His interest in Plato and Aristotle, especially, can be seen not only in his work on concepts of mind but also in his work on language and action, on ethics, on philosophical method, and in scholarly work in ancient philosophy. And though heavily influenced in his contemporary thinking by the analytic philosophy of Frege, Moore, Russell, and Wittgenstein, he did not limit himself to it. He helped it evolve, and he drew on and made important contributions to the understanding of the phenomenological tradition as well, including Brentano, Husserl, Meinong, and Heidegger. Ryle’s best-known work is often taken to have been quickly superseded—whether by new philosophical or psychological theories or by Wittgenstein—but a number of current philosophical ideas can be construed as neo-Rylean, and there is good reason to think that aspects of his work have been substantially underestimated and misunderstood, in no small part due to an underestimation of the breadth of his interests and influences. Much current work on Ryle and in a Rylean spirit aims to correct these misunderstandings. This article surveys the main philosophical topics to which Ryle made significant contributions—to which his contributions are either seminal or else still part of the current debate. His contributions to the understanding of the mind (see Mind) and of knowing-how (see Knowing-How) remain the most significant. However, there is growing interest as well in his work on moral education and moral memory (see Ethics), and his work in ancient philosophy is still regularly cited as well (see Ancient Philosophy). Finally, no good history of analytic philosophy can be written without reference to his part in bringing it to and reinterpreting it in Oxford, in dialogue with phenomenology (see Philosophical Method). This article begins, however, with an overview of his life and work.