Behavioral problems

The philosopher Gilbert Ryle is probably best known for his book The Concept of Mind which argues against Cartesian Dualism. This includes the proposition that much of what we consider private mental life is inextricably linked to perfectly ordinary and publicly observable behavior. For this reason he is usually considered to be a Behaviorist. However a more careful reading of his work shows that he rejects both the Dualist and Behaviorist extremes and instead adopts a common-sense position that rejects the errors of both sides.

To illustrate this, in Thinking and Saying, Ryle gives the example of two boys - one writing a letter and the other boy mimicking him. Both the Behaviorist and the Dualist agree that the boys actions would differ only if the mimic performs additional actions that his victim does not perform. Since no extra actions were witnessed, says the Behaviorist, their actions were therefore identical. Since no extra actions were witnessed, says the Dualist, the mimic was performing extra internal, unobservable actions.

Ryle's view, in contrast, is not that there were unobservable actions or that their actions were identical, but instead that the seemingly identical actions that we did observe were of different sorts. The broader context shows that their intentions and skills were different and so therefore their actions were different. This conclusion avoids both the "Nothing But ..." of Behavioral Reductionism and the "Something Else As Well ..." of Cartesian Dualism.