Language, mind and paradigm of subjectivity in Ryle’s framework

Abstract

Dualism came to be repudiated as a result of a landmark treatise by the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle entitled The Concept of Mind, some sixty years ago, in which Ryle accorded that Descartes committed ‘category mistake’. He critiqued Cartesian dualism as the dogma of ‘the Ghost in the Machine’ because in dualism, one is material and the latter immaterial. But many scholars have raised serious objections to Ryle’s concept of mind and hardly anyone working in philosophy of mind today takes seriously Ryle’s concept. In his celebrated book Ryle has tried to elucidate to philosophical problem through logical analysis of ordinary language. However, it is very difficult to talk about the self on the basis of ordinary language. According to Ryle ordinary language ought to involve championing the programme of formalisation. So in this paper we have raised some concerns and problems for these claims. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate that one cannot disclose the self through natural language.