The Concept of Mind - Hardcover

Ryle, Gilbert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415485479 ISBN 13: 9780415485470

Publisher: Routledge, 2009

Synopsis

First published in 1949, Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind is one of the classics of twentieth-century philosophy. Described by Ryle as a ‘sustained piece of analytical hatchet-work’ on Cartesian dualism, The Concept of Mind is a radical and controversial attempt to jettison once and for all what Ryle called ‘the ghost in the machine’: Descartes’ argument that mind and body are two separate entities. This sixtieth anniversary edition includes a substantial commentary by Julia Tanney and is essential reading for new readers interested not only in the history of analytic philosophy but in its power to challenge major currents in philosophy of mind and language today.

About this title

About the Author

Gilbert Ryle was born in England in 1900, one of ten children. In 1924 he was appointed to a lectureship at Christ Church College, Oxford where he was to remain for his entire academic career until his retirement in 1968. In 1945 he was elected to the Waynflete Chair of Metaphysical Philosophy. He was editor of the journal Mind from 1947 to 1971. He died on 6 October 1976 at Whitby in Yorkshire after a day's walking on the moors.

From the Back Cover

This now-classic work challenges what Ryle calls philosophy's "official theory," the Cartesians "myth" of the separation of mind and matter. Ryle's linguistic analysis remaps the conceptual geography of mind, not so much solving traditional philosophical problems as dissolving them into the mere consequences of misguided language. His plain language and esstentially simple purpose place him in the traditioin of Locke, Berkeley, Mill, and Russell.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415485479
• ISBN 13: 9780415485470
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384