The Root Misconception

1.1 The book is not about the mind. It is about what happens when different philosophers use mental conduct words like “knows”, “believes”, “perceives” and then ask “what are those words referring to?”.

1.2 Then they propose that “they must be referring to inner events in a private theatre.” This is a misconception.

2.1 Galileo proposed everything in space obeys mechanical laws.

2.2 Descartes, a brilliant scientist, didn’t want to accept that humans are like that - that they obey mechanical laws. So he negated the physical space by defining a new category of Mind = Not-matter, not-in-space, not-mechanical, not-public.

2.2.1 basically, he created the Para-mechanical Hypothesis, in which Mind is a spectral / ghostly machine which

  • obeys ghostly laws (not mechanical, doesn’t remain in space but in some other dimension)
  • one’s own mind can see itself but not other minds (unlike physical objects, again)
  • can exert effects and causes (but always hidden)

basically, all these created a set of mind-body problems, which are intractable.

The Diagnosis

Ryle labeled this as a Category Mistake, not just an error. A Category Mistake is when you treat a term as belonging to one type when it is another. Treating Fish as a Bird.

Some examples that he gave are:

  1. A visitor goes to Oxford. Sees all the buildings, colleges, libraries, labs, and then asks “where is the university?”. I have seen where the dean sits and works, where the scientists work in labs and live, but i have not seen the University where the members of the university work and reside." The explanation to him is that University is not another collateral institution, of the same category as the colleges, labs, libraries, offices, which he has already seen. It is the way all those are organized, and that organization is labeled as University. Different categories.
  2. Cricket has bowlers, batsmen, fielders, umpires, scorers and viewer is told what they do. Then he asks “but where is the famous team-spirit? i see a person doing the bowling, another doing the batting, but where is the person who is doing the team-spirit?”. The explanation is that team-spirit is the way bowling and batting are done. It is not a separate activity, like bowling and batting, but a different logical category altogether. It is the ghost. When a bowler bowls, he is doing a single activity of bowling, but the way he is bowling exhibits team-spirit. It isn’t that he is bowling and then showing team-spirit as a separate activity.
  3. Same with a march-past of tanks, soldiers, guns, in groups of battalions and squadrons. If after watching a long procession, the viewer asks “but where is the army?” The explanation is, the march-past was not a procession of tanks, battalions, squadrons and a army, but it was a procession of tanks, battalions, squadrons of a army.

Same with Mind. It is not a label to a thing, but a label to a how. How the thing works. How behavior is done.

More correctly, it is a group of labels. At times, those labels are verb-nouns like the set of traits = knowing, believing, understanding; and at other times verbs. BUT NOT A FIXED NOUN.

What Ryle is Not Saying

He isn’t saying - “there is no mind and everything is bodily movement.” He does support the idea that when you do a long division, you are indeed doing a mental process. But that process is part of the box of labels called “mind.” Not, that the mind is doing the long division.

  • The doer and doing distinction isn’t there.
  • There is no inner doer.
  • There is no parallel universe of a public physical one and a private mental one.

What gets destroyed

  1. Privacy of consciousness as a philosophical foundation - goes. Cartesian certainty about inner states goes. There is no private stream of which i am absolutely certain.
  2. Mind-body problems - the typical posturing goes. Not as we found a solution, but as that the question was a language misconstruction.
  3. Solipsism as a serious worry goes = we cannot know other minds at all. We still understand how mental conduct concepts apply to all, so no need to question that.

Applied to Cook Ding

  • one of my fav characters!
  • There is no ghost within Ding who is analysing the anatomy of ox, making precise calculations, and then coordinating the dance and butchering.
  • The entire thing is in the movement itself, and there is no separate doer agent in Ding.
  • Knowing is Doing.

Applied to Poisoned Observer

Ryle says that there is no self-luminous observer who is doing the updating. It is a matter of practice and disposition. Zhuangzi says the updater and updated are not two separate things needing coordination.

Q. If mind is not a noun, is it correct to say it is a verb?

No. It is neither a fixed noun nor a fixed verb. It is a box of processes, labels, dynamic. = a placeholder for a family of concepts that describe how a living thing engages with the world.

Q. Is Mind a dynamic label?

as such, that is a big improvement from usual usage.

  • Ryle would be happy with that.
  • Witty would say: like “Game” can be very different processes with a common theme. There is a family resemblance. Part of language game (context dependent).
  • Zhuangzi would say: the point where we put on a label, we have divided, carved out the world into pieces, which were not there originally. He would then ask - what is the need for the label? Better to respond directly. Ding responds to ox, not to the label of ox. He would warn, even a dynamic label will create a new cage if you grip it.
    • So hold it lightly. That isn’t evasion or avoidance.
    • That is the correct epistemic posture towards a word which was doing too much work.
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Mind
  2. Internet Archive link