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Plato's Progress: 1966
With Plato's Progress Ryle makes an ambitious attempt to rewrite the literary and intellectual biography of the author of the Dialogues along radical new lines. His argument explores the nature of Plato's intellectual development and doctrines, and the reasons there are problems with the standard interpretation of Plato's work and its impact on Aristotle.
- GenresPhilosophy
320 pages, Paperback
First published July 3, 1975
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About the author
Gilbert Ryle
77 books88 followersGilbert Ryle was a British philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein's insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the machine". Some of his ideas in the philosophy of mind have been referred to as "behaviourist" (not to be confused with the psychological behaviourism of B. F. Skinner and John B. Watson). Ryle himself said that the "general trend of this book [The Concept of Mind, p. 327] will undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be stigmatised as 'behaviourist'."
Ryle was born in Brighton, England in 1900. The young Ryle grew up in an environment of learning. His father was a generalist who had interests in philosophy and astronomy, and passed on to his children an impressive library. Ryle was initially educated at Brighton College. In 1919, he went to Queen's College at Oxford, initially to study Classics but was quickly drawn to Philosophy. He would graduate with first class honours in 1924 and was appointed to a lectureship in Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. A year later, he was to become a tutor. Ryle remained at Christ Church until World War II.
A capable linguist, he was recruited to intelligence work during World War II, after which he returned to Oxford and was elected Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He published his principal work, The Concept of Mind, in 1949. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1945 to 1946, and editor of the philosophical journal Mind from 1947 to 1971. Ryle died on 6 October 1976 at Whitby, North Yorkshire.
Traditional philosophy believed that the task of a philosopher was to study mental as opposed to physical objects. Ryle believed it was no longer possible for philosophers to believe this. However, in its place, Ryle saw the tendency of philosophers to search for objects whose nature was neither physical nor mental. Ryle believed, instead, that "[p]hilosophical problems are problems of a certain sort; they are not problems of an ordinary sort about special entities."
Ryle offers the analogy of philosophy as being like cartography. Competent speakers of a language, Ryle believes, are to a philosopher what ordinary villagers are to a mapmaker. The ordinary villager has a competent grasp of his village, and is familiar with its inhabitants and geography. However, when asked to consult a map for the same knowledge he has practically, the villager will have difficulty until she is able to translate her practical knowledge into universal cartographal terms. The villager thinks of the village in personal and practical terms while the mapmaker thinks of the village in neutral, public, cartographical terms.
By "mapping" the words and phrases of a particular statement, philosophers are able to generate what Ryle calls "implication threads." In other words, each word or phrase of a statement contributes to the statement in that, if the words or phrases were changed, the statement would have a different implication. The philosopher must show the directions and limits of different implication threads that a "concept contributes to the statements in which it occurs." To show this, he must be "tugging" at neighbouring threads, which, in turn, must also be "tugging." Philosophy, then, searches for the meaning of these implication threads in the statements in which they are used.
In The Concept of Mind (1949), Ryle admits to having been taken in by the body-mind dualism which permeates Western philosophy, and claims that the idea of Mind as an independent entity, inhabiting and governing the body, should be rejected as a redundant piece of literalism carried over from the era before the biological sciences became established. The proper function of Mind-body language, he suggests, is to describe how higher organisms such as humans demo
Ryle was born in Brighton, England in 1900. The young Ryle grew up in an environment of learning. His father was a generalist who had interests in philosophy and astronomy, and passed on to his children an impressive library. Ryle was initially educated at Brighton College. In 1919, he went to Queen's College at Oxford, initially to study Classics but was quickly drawn to Philosophy. He would graduate with first class honours in 1924 and was appointed to a lectureship in Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. A year later, he was to become a tutor. Ryle remained at Christ Church until World War II.
A capable linguist, he was recruited to intelligence work during World War II, after which he returned to Oxford and was elected Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He published his principal work, The Concept of Mind, in 1949. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1945 to 1946, and editor of the philosophical journal Mind from 1947 to 1971. Ryle died on 6 October 1976 at Whitby, North Yorkshire.
Traditional philosophy believed that the task of a philosopher was to study mental as opposed to physical objects. Ryle believed it was no longer possible for philosophers to believe this. However, in its place, Ryle saw the tendency of philosophers to search for objects whose nature was neither physical nor mental. Ryle believed, instead, that "[p]hilosophical problems are problems of a certain sort; they are not problems of an ordinary sort about special entities."
Ryle offers the analogy of philosophy as being like cartography. Competent speakers of a language, Ryle believes, are to a philosopher what ordinary villagers are to a mapmaker. The ordinary villager has a competent grasp of his village, and is familiar with its inhabitants and geography. However, when asked to consult a map for the same knowledge he has practically, the villager will have difficulty until she is able to translate her practical knowledge into universal cartographal terms. The villager thinks of the village in personal and practical terms while the mapmaker thinks of the village in neutral, public, cartographical terms.
By "mapping" the words and phrases of a particular statement, philosophers are able to generate what Ryle calls "implication threads." In other words, each word or phrase of a statement contributes to the statement in that, if the words or phrases were changed, the statement would have a different implication. The philosopher must show the directions and limits of different implication threads that a "concept contributes to the statements in which it occurs." To show this, he must be "tugging" at neighbouring threads, which, in turn, must also be "tugging." Philosophy, then, searches for the meaning of these implication threads in the statements in which they are used.
In The Concept of Mind (1949), Ryle admits to having been taken in by the body-mind dualism which permeates Western philosophy, and claims that the idea of Mind as an independent entity, inhabiting and governing the body, should be rejected as a redundant piece of literalism carried over from the era before the biological sciences became established. The proper function of Mind-body language, he suggests, is to describe how higher organisms such as humans demo
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 19, 2017
Quite interesting - Ryle has some idiosyncratic and speculative ideas about what life was like in the Academy of Plato. For instance, he supposes that 'Eristic Moots' were conducted at the Academy, under the direction of Plato, and that most of the published Platonic dialogues are transcriptions or heavily adapted re-performances of these moots. He devises other elaborate theories about the performance contexts of the individual dialogues, and their chronology: most of this comes across as rather dated, and overly speculative - the book is much less consistently compelling than the rest of his work.
However, there is a jewel in the book, which probably makes it worth reading: chapter 4, on dialectic. Ryle argues that dialectic originates in a highly formalised verbal battle, actually practised at the Academy, whereby a 'questioner' subjects an 'answerer' putting forward a thesis to a sustained interrogation. The questioner succeeds if he reduces the answerer to contradiction, silence, infinite regress, babbling, or paradox; the answerer wins if they hold their ground during the time limit of the contest. This verbal battle can be considered to serve many purposes: (1) 'gymnastic' - a kind of wit-sharpening exercise, like doing a crossword puzzle; (2) 'peirastic' - cross-examining an individual to reveal their intellectual complacency - like a clever undergraduate challenging an arrogant professor (or vice versa); (3) 'agonistic' - playing to win, for reasons intrinsic to the game (like a game of chess); (4) 'eristic' - playing to win, for reasons extrinsic to the game (e.g. to impress the spectators, or for the frisson of victory); and (5) 'philosophical' - using the verbal battle genuinely to investigate deep conceptual problems.
Ryle develops an interesting corollary to this theory in chapter 6. He argues that Plato became a solitary philosopher when he was no longer able to participate in the Academy's eristic moots - until then:
–“He had not yet learned, since he had not yet had to learn, to excogitate arguments to be notionally pitted against merely imagined counter-arguments; any more than most chess-players have learned notionally to counter the imagined moves of merely imagined opponents; or any more than most boxers have learned to think up feints and parries in the course of their shadow-boxing. At this stage arguments are team-products. They are not the handiwork or property of individuals” (p204)
The idea of argument, in the abstract, thus emerges from a heavily choreographed communal practice.
Most interestingly, I think, Ryle suggests that the idea of logic only gradually emerges from this practice: Plato only gradually came to realise the difference between 'winning a battle of wits' and 'solving a problem', between what we would call a 'valid' argument and a merely unrebutted argument. Ryle's comments on Aristotle confirm this view that validity in classical philosophy originates in 'the inescapability of an elenchus', and that 'it was the debating match with its rules and its controls that gave the lessons' (p206-7). Even in Hellenistic philosophers, who start to do much more advanced logic, the link is readily apparent. I am not sure to what extent Ryle was the first to put this point, but he articulates it very well, and I think it points us in the direction of some interesting reflections about how the fabric of logic has been woven out of real arguments had by real people - and how it has not always been clearly separable from interrogation, rhetorical persuasion, and indeed aesthetic concerns (if indeed it really is now...)
However, there is a jewel in the book, which probably makes it worth reading: chapter 4, on dialectic. Ryle argues that dialectic originates in a highly formalised verbal battle, actually practised at the Academy, whereby a 'questioner' subjects an 'answerer' putting forward a thesis to a sustained interrogation. The questioner succeeds if he reduces the answerer to contradiction, silence, infinite regress, babbling, or paradox; the answerer wins if they hold their ground during the time limit of the contest. This verbal battle can be considered to serve many purposes: (1) 'gymnastic' - a kind of wit-sharpening exercise, like doing a crossword puzzle; (2) 'peirastic' - cross-examining an individual to reveal their intellectual complacency - like a clever undergraduate challenging an arrogant professor (or vice versa); (3) 'agonistic' - playing to win, for reasons intrinsic to the game (like a game of chess); (4) 'eristic' - playing to win, for reasons extrinsic to the game (e.g. to impress the spectators, or for the frisson of victory); and (5) 'philosophical' - using the verbal battle genuinely to investigate deep conceptual problems.
Ryle develops an interesting corollary to this theory in chapter 6. He argues that Plato became a solitary philosopher when he was no longer able to participate in the Academy's eristic moots - until then:
–“He had not yet learned, since he had not yet had to learn, to excogitate arguments to be notionally pitted against merely imagined counter-arguments; any more than most chess-players have learned notionally to counter the imagined moves of merely imagined opponents; or any more than most boxers have learned to think up feints and parries in the course of their shadow-boxing. At this stage arguments are team-products. They are not the handiwork or property of individuals” (p204)
The idea of argument, in the abstract, thus emerges from a heavily choreographed communal practice.
Most interestingly, I think, Ryle suggests that the idea of logic only gradually emerges from this practice: Plato only gradually came to realise the difference between 'winning a battle of wits' and 'solving a problem', between what we would call a 'valid' argument and a merely unrebutted argument. Ryle's comments on Aristotle confirm this view that validity in classical philosophy originates in 'the inescapability of an elenchus', and that 'it was the debating match with its rules and its controls that gave the lessons' (p206-7). Even in Hellenistic philosophers, who start to do much more advanced logic, the link is readily apparent. I am not sure to what extent Ryle was the first to put this point, but he articulates it very well, and I think it points us in the direction of some interesting reflections about how the fabric of logic has been woven out of real arguments had by real people - and how it has not always been clearly separable from interrogation, rhetorical persuasion, and indeed aesthetic concerns (if indeed it really is now...)
July 17, 2012
Only a mind as razor-sharp as Ryle's could have produced a book like this, one that seeks to slice apart the idea that Plato is in any case obfuscatory or obscurantist. Any contradictions in the works of the great philosopher are (shock!) because he just changed his mind, and if you ever get stuck it might just be (double shock!) a simple case of Plato not explaining himself properly. Watching Ryle in full flow is like seeing the end of an episode of Poirot or something where the titular hero unravels, with devastating leaps of logic, the mystery that had bamboozled everyone from the police to the audience. This is the great strength of the book as a piece of entertainment and its weakness as a piece of historical biography, as Ryle makes quite brilliant inferences on the scantest evidence.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews