Conceptual Analysis, Theory Construction, and Conceptual Elucidation

Almost a half century after the publication of the Philosophical Investigations, it seems important to ask why Wittgenstein"s ideas have had so little impact on contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind. A clue can be discerned by what Georges Rey says in the introduction to his book on contemporary philosophy of mind. Rey announces at the outset to his readers that his treatment of the mind aspires to be continuous with science, not with literature. He explains that there is a recent resurgence of interest in the philosophy of mind with "explanatory questions� about what sort of thing a pain, a thought, a mental image, a desire, or an emotion is. Neither materialism nor dualism provides a "serious� theory about the mind, which will give us a "serious� explanation of mental phenomena. According to Rey, although old-style grammatical investigations may have given us a "heightened sensitivity to complexities and nuances of our ordinary mental talk,� they "tended to occur at the expense of further theorizing about the mental phenomena themselves� (Rey, 4)

Journal for the history of analytical philosophy: Gilbert Ryle: intelligence, practice, skill, v. 5, no. 5

Special issue on Gilbert Ryle edited by Juliet Floyd and Lydia Patton. Articles: "Volume Introduction: Gilbert Ryle on Propositions, Propositional Attitudes, and Theoretical Knowledge" by Julia Tanney; "Ryle’s “Intellectualist Legend” in Historical Context" by Michael Kremer; "Skill, Drill, and Intelligent Performance: Ryle and Intellectualism" by Stina Bäckström and Martin Gustafsson; "Ryle on the Explanatory Role of Knowledge How"by Will Small.https://jhaponline.org/jhap/issue/view/319Published versio

Ryle’s Regress and Cognitive Science

Ryle’s regress objection to the ‘Intellectualist Legend’ – that intelligent activity requires prior theoretical operations – was recognized by Fodor to present a powerful conceptual obstacle to the premise that underlies cognitivist approaches in the sciences. Fodor attempts to thwart Ryle’s argument in The Language of Thought by accusing him of confusing causal and conceptual explanations and claiming that, by analogy with computers, we can see how the appeal to explicit rules is halted at the first level, since second-order rules are reducible to built-in causal processes. This paper maintains that Fodor’s arguments against Ryle fail. First, Fodor’s appeal to the ‘empirical necessity’ of theoretical operations misfires because he is the one who has misunderstood the difference between causal and conceptual questions. Second, the fact that second-order rules are reducible to causal processes shows, not that the regress is halted, but that we cannot consider intelligent activity by analogy with computers. This paper ends by examining the philosophical motivation for introducing rules into an account of intelligent activity in the first place

Investigating Cultures: A Critique of Cognitive Anthropology

This paper considers Dan Sperber’s arguments that a more scientific, ‘natural’, approach to anthropology might be pursued by abstracting from interpretive questions as much as possible, and replacing them with questions amenable to a cognitive psychological investigation. It attempts to show that Sperber’s main argument rests on controversial assumptions about the nature of the mental states that are ascribed within our commonsense psychological practices and that any theoretical psychology that accepts these assumptions will be revisionist concerning mental concepts. Sperber is right to point out that there must be constraints on what should count as appropriate interpretations of cultural phenomena. It is argued however, that in hoping to assimilate anthropological investigations to scientific ones, Sperber miscontrues the nature of anthropological claims

Reason-Explanation and the Contents of Mind

This paper takes a close look at the kinds of considerations we use to reach agreement in our ordinary (non-philosophical, non-theoretical) judgements about a person’s reasons for acting and the following theses are defended. First, considering the circumstances surrounding the action is often enough to remove our puzzlement; second, in those situation when we do enquire into the agent’s state of mind this does not normally lead to investigation of hidden, inner events that are candidate causes of action. Finally, although it sometimes makes sense to advert to mental causes, there are good reasons to see the situations in which we do so as parasitic on the others. This suggests a prima facie problem for most philosophical accounts of what it is to act for reasons and for most philosophical accounts of the nature of mental states. Ratio is a very respectable UK philosophical journal with blind refereeing

Reasons as Non-Causal, Context-Placing Explanations

Philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein rejected the idea that the explanatory power of our ordinary interpretive practices is to be found in law-governed, causal relations between items to which our everyday mental terms allegedly refer. Wittgenstein and those he inspired pointed to differences between the explanations provided by the ordinary employment of mental expressions and the style of causal explanation characteristic of the hard sciences. I believe, however, that the particular non-causalism espoused by the Wittgensteinians is today ill- understood. The position does not, for example, find its place on a map that charts the territory disputed by mental realists and their irrealist opponents. In this paper, I take a few steps toward reintroducing this ill-understood position by sketching my own understanding of it and explaining why it fits so uncomfortably within the contemporary metaphysical landscape