Ryle, Gilbert - The Will

06/06/2008

The Concept of Mind Ch 3, Penguin Books 1966

This is the third chapter in a famous book where author's main concern is arguing that the use of 'mind' as opposed to 'matter' is a category-mistake, similar to thinking that 'a pair of gloves' is something extra one also buys when one buys 'one left-handed glove and one right-handed glove'. In previous chapters, author takes care to lay out a crucial distinction and style of argumentation that will serve him in this one: the knowing how vs. knowing that distinction and the ad infinitum reductio. Author establishes early on that there can be abilities and performances to which we naturally and rightly apply predicates such as 'intelligently' 'shrewdly' 'prudently' where there is not plausibly some activity of considering rules, maxims, or other that-propositions performed by the subject. It isn't that the mind is thinking what rules to apply 'shrewdly' and then doing so, instead, we are doing something shrewdly. If the mind was, then we'd have a reductio ad infinitum, since we would also have to antecedently shrewdly consider whether to apply these rules or those rules, this set of that-propositions or an other set.

In chapter 3, author first claims that the term 'volition' and 'the will' are technical terms that ordinary language almost never uses, and certainly not in the way that philosophers do. Author later points out that it seems ordinary usage of the word 'voluntary' is almost exclusively reserved for discussing actions that were contrary to good expectations (pg67), though philosophers also want to use this term to describe actions in line with expectations as well. Thus the oddity: 'could you have helped being kind fo that child?'. (pg68)

Author dislikes talk of the will or volitions for many reasons:
1) It postulates a third entity or power that is needed to give the mind efficacy on the body, but it is a theoretical result, not an empirical finding.
2) Since volitions cannot be witnessed, we have no grounds for inferring what they are in a person. Further, a person himself might not even know which volition effected which action. (pg64-5)
3) The connection between the mind's volition and the body's movements is a mystery, yes, but of the insoluble type, not like 'the cause of cancer'.
4) Some solely mental activities merit will-like predicates being applied to them, so now we will require to know about how mind volitions are formed-- is there an antecedently formed mind-volition volition? Author gives a reductio. (pg65-6)

Author is careful to distinguish between what common thought processes won't do when looking for 'the will' or volitions (examine pg66-7). What is a more fruitful discussion is to look at what we're talking about when we talk about 'voluntary' and 'could not have helped' and so on. Author describes a boy charged with tying a reef-knot, but instead ties a granny-knot. In order to find out whether it was voluntary or not, we can use a variety of potentially publically available information: did the boy know and practice the proper knot? etc (pg69). We also talk of volitions when contrasting them with things done under complusion or by outside forces, like being carried out to sea while on your yacht (pg71-2).

The discussion of purposive vs mechanistic explanations eventually brings out the reason, author contends, why philosophers are so intent on keeping the will; the 'bogy of mechanism'. (pg73) This launches the last part of the chapter, an extended discussion of how two different sets of predicates can apply to the same action-- perhaps moving a piece in chess or shooting a billiard ball-- one that describes the movements mechanistically, the other as 'wisely-moved' or 'expertly-hit'. (pg75-78) This is arguing for the irreducibility of mental descriptions, even if they supervene on physical descriptions.

Kiteley, Murray - Verbs of Speech

This is a short discussion on Austin's How To Do Things With Words, where he introduces the category of 'performatives', or speech-acts. Also mentioned was the fact that once a speech-act is made into a past-tense verb, it can have a truth value instead of a speech-act.