The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle

The Concept of Mind

by Gilbert Ryle

Penguin Books, 1976, ISBN 0140550291, paperback

Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, some creasing and sticker residue to covers, staining to bottom corner, age toned pages, no inscriptions (see photographs)

“Professor Ryle sets out to expose the myth of Descartes’ doctrine of the separateness of mental and physical existence, and attitude still fundamental to much philosophical and psychological thinking today and based on an aversion to the mechanistic assumption that ‘human nature differs only in degree of complexity from clockwork’.  The influence of the idea of a ‘ghost in the machine’ is traced, explained, and combated in tradition, and thought.  The nature of knowledge is carefully analysed and a theory of mind emerges from which the Cartesian myth is dispelled and which does justice to our ordinary common-sense views about the workings of our own, and other people’s minds.”