The concept of mind
This now-classic work challenges what Ryle calls philosophy's "official theory," the Cartesians "myth" of the separation of mind and matter. Ryle's linguistic analysis remaps the conceptual geography of mind, not so much solving traditional philosophical problems as dissolving them into the mere consequences of misguided language. His plain language and esstentially simple purpose place him in the traditioin of Locke, Berkeley, Mill, and Russell.
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What Hacker News says
- concept of mind by ryle
on minds by rosenbloom
- I went through all the previous HN discussions on the paper. I don't think I've ever done that before and don't know what compelled me to try today. It was rewarding! Pretty much every thread had new ideas not discussed in previous threads.
One quick takeaway: it seems like reading Ryle's The Concept of Mind to really understand Naur's idea of "theory" is a good next step for going deeper on this topic.
- Are you referring to Cartesian dualism?
Have you read Gilbert Ryle's "The Concept of Mind" (1949) [0]?
This is a very old and tired argument. The form you seem to be endorsing has fallen out of favor in philosophy circles. For an intuitive understanding of why interactionist dualism is a bad explanation of phenomenology, consider the following problems:
- How does your non-physical substance (what you call a fundamental force in the universe) interact with a physical "antenna"?
- Given that this force interacts with matter (as evidenced by consciousness disappearing after certain brain injuries), how is it that it evades physical measure by scientific instruments?
Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (translated by David Gallop)Some from the canon:The Modes of Scepticism by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (a beautiful collection of texts from Pyrrhonian scepticism and analysis of their arguments; the best way I know to meet ancient scepticism)
Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy (The Cambridge University Press edition is very good; it's probably worth buying their Selected Philosophical Writings for a good basic Descartes text)
David Hume: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (I recommend the Oxford Philosophical Texts editions)
Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations (terribly, terribly difficult, but very rewarding)
Gilbert Ryle: The Concept of MindA few contemporary things:Willard Van Orman Quine: From a Logical Point of View
J. L. Mackie: Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
Thomas Nagel: Mortal Questions (short essays, well-written, very accessible)
Bernard Williams: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
Michael Smith: The Moral Problem
The Frege Reader by Michael Beaney (for modern logic and the beginnings of contemporary philosophy in the analytic style)Specialist, technical, odd:J. L. Mackie: The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation
William Kingdon Clifford: The Ethics of Belief (he argues, oddly but powerfully, that it's immoral to believe things on insufficient evidence or irrationally - an offense to morality, not just reason)
- This is a gem, I'm glad I read the whole thing. But the real gem is learning about Ryle and the book "The Concept of mind" which sounds very interesting that I'll add to my read-list
The ideas here are useful even outside of programming.
- As relevant as ever, arguably more relevant than ever as more programs are being written and need to be adapted, in more and more complex domains.
Note what Naur means with Theory here. Quoting from the paper:
"What will be considered here is the suggestion that the programmers' knowledge properly should be regarded as a theory, in the sense of Ryle [Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 1946]. Very briefly, a person who has or possesses a theory in this sense knows how to do certain things and in addition can support the actual doing with explanations, justifications, and answers to queries, about the activity of concern."
This is not "theory" in the sense we sometimes encounter in colloquial speech in the sense of (exclusively) "assumption", especially not with the connotation "unjustified assumption". It is also not a set of rules:
"The dependence of a theory on a grasp of certain kinds of similarity between situations and events of the real world gives the reason why the knowledge held by someone who has the theory could not, in principle, be expressed in terms of rules. In fact, the similarities in question are not, and cannot be, expressed in terms of criteria, no more than the similarities of many other kinds of objects, such as human faces, tunes, or tastes of wine, can thus be expressed."
Yet, it plays a central role in programming:
"For a program to retain its quality it is mandatory that each modification is firmly grounded in the theory of it. Indeed, the very notion of qualities such as simplicity and good structure can only be understood in terms of the theory of the program, since they characterize the actual program text in relation to such program texts that might have been written to achieve the same execution behaviour, but which exist only as possibilities in the programmer's understanding."
