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Gilbert Ryle and the Ethical Impetus for Know-How

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Gilbert Ryle and the Ethical Impetus for Know-How JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY GILBERT RYLE AND THE ETHICAL IMPETUS FOR KNOW-HOW VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1 MATT DouGHERTY EDITOR IN CHIEF MARCUS ROSSBERG, UnIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT This paper aims to shed light on an underexplored aspect of EDITORIAL BOARD Gilbert Ryle’s interest in the notion of “knowing-how”. It is ar- ANNALISA COLIVA, UC IRVINE gued that in addition to his motive of discounting a certain theory HENRY JACKMAN, YORK UnIVERSITY of mind, his interest in the notion also stemmed (and perhaps FREDERIQUE JANSSEN-LaURet, UnIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER stemmed more deeply) from two ethical interests: one concern- KEVIN C. KLEMENt, UnIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS ing his own life as a philosopher and whether the philosopher CONSUELO PRETI, THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY has any meaningful task, and one concerning the ancient issue of ANTHONY SKELTON, WESTERN UnIVERSITY whether virtue is a kind of knowledge. It is argued that Ryle saw MARK TEXTOR, KING’S COLLEGE LonDON know-how as crucial in both respects and, also, that he continued AUDREY YAP, UnIVERSITY OF VICTORIA to be interested in these ethical issues throughout his career. RICHARD ZACH, UnIVERSITY OF CALGARY EDITOR FOR SPECIAL ISSUES SANDRA LaPOINte, MCMASTER UnIVERSITY REVIEW EDITORS SEAN MORRIS, METROPOLITAN STATE UnIVERSITY OF DenVER SANFORD SHIEH, WESLEYAN UnIVERSITY DESIGN AND LAYOUT DaNIEL HARRIS, HUNTER COLLEGE KEVIN C. KLEMENt, UnIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS ISSN: 2159-0303 JHAPONLINE.ORG © 2020 MATT DouGHERTY GILBERT RYLE AND THE ETHICAL IMPETUS FOR we are clear about what knowing how to do things consists in— KNOW-HOW for instance, what knowing how to ride a bicycle or knowing how to care for a garden consists in—we will see that a person’s MATT DouGHERTY intelligence is “as directly exhibited in some of his doings as it is in some of his thinking” (ibid., 5). Ryle’s most explicit aim, then, is to erase the temptation to think that intelligence is or amounts to thinking—the view he calls “Intellectualism”. And though To elucidate the thoughts of a philosopher we need to Descartes is not mentioned here, the proposed view is plausibly find the answer not only to the question “What were his anti-Cartesian. For erasing the temptation to believe that human intellectual worries?” but, before that question and after intelligence essentially amounts to thinking also plausibly erases that question, the answer to the question “What was his the Cartesian temptation to believe that human being essentially overriding Worry?” Gilbert Ryle (1971a, ix) amounts to thinking. That we now tend to think of Ryle’s aim in his presidential ad- dress as specifically anti-Cartesian, however, may result from the fact that The Concept of Mind (his most famous work, published 1. INTRODUCTION four years later) is explicitly anti-Cartesian, and knowledge-how again takes centre stage there. In the introduction to the book, The paper “Knowing How and Knowing That”, Gilbert Ryle’s Ryle states his purpose as “exploding” “the Cartesian myth” presidential address to the Aristotelian Society in 1945, marked of “the ghost in the machine”—a view which, he says, under- the start of an ongoing discussion in philosophy on the nature stands human mind and agency as “para-mechanical” (that is, as of knowing how to do things and its relation to knowing truths one part paranormal and one part mechanical) (Ryle 1949, 7ff). and facts. If Ryle was right, his distinction was one which is Add to this that the chapter entitled “Knowing How and Know- “quite familiar to all of us” (Ryle 1945a, 4). But there is little ing That” is the first substantive chapter of the book (following doubt that he himself was largely responsible for bringing it to the chapter entitled “Descartes’ Myth”, and repeating much of philosophical consciousness. the material of his presidential address), and it becomes quite His primary aim in doing so is commonly understood to have reasonable to assume not only that the notion of know-how is been anti-Cartesian. In the presidential address, he describes foundational for Ryle’s critique in The Concept of Mind but also himself as clarifying the nature of intelligence—or, in his more that the impetus for discussing the notion was anti-Cartesian all linguistic terms, as clarifying “the logical behaviour of the several along. concepts of intelligence” (ibid., 1). He lists various such concepts, Such assumptions are certainly plausible and, to an extent, but his concept of choice is knowing how.1 He believes that once correct. Alone, however, they leave us with an impoverished picture of the genesis (and continuation) of Ryle’s interest in 1 Other such concepts that he mentions are shrewdly, wittily, methodically, and know-how. The notion clearly does form part of the foundation scrupulously. Presumably, he believed that to do a thing in any of these ways is to do it knowingly and that the basic way in which to do a thing knowingly of his anti-Cartesian critique in The Concept of Mind, and the is to exercise knowledge how to do it. initial motivation for discussing it may, at least in part, have JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY VOL. 8 NO. 1 [1] been anti-Cartesian. But we have good reason to believe that Perry seconded Hobhouse, calling Bergson’s philosophy a form much more motivates his concern with it, even regarding The of “irrationalism”, supported by “the motivation of lawlessness” Concept of Mind. (Perry 1918, 296; Kremer 2017, 24). And even into the Second In “Ryle’s ‘Intellectualist Legend’ in Historical Context” (2017), World War, the assault on Bergson and anti-intellectualism con- Michael Kremer has provided us with an additional aspect of this tinued, with then-political scientist Max Lerner going as far as picture. He has shown that in taking Intellectualism as his en- to say that Bergson and other anti-intellectualists had prepared emy, Ryle plausibly saw himself as contributing to a decades-long the ground for Hitler, albeit unconsciously (Lerner 1943, Kremer debate about the nature of human mind and agency, “spanning 2017, 21). Bergson was thus seen as the arch anti-intellectualist. not only philosophy, but also psychology, economics, political Today, the term “anti-intellectualism” is commonly used to science, and sociology”.2 Put in the most general terms, this de- describe Ryle’s position as well, but as Kremer argues, Ryle’s bate pitted Reason against Instinct, with individuals who took aim in opposing the Intellectualist legend is not to defend anti- Reason’s side being labelled “intellectualists”, and those who intellectualism as just described but, rather, to mark a path be- took Instinct’s side being labelled “anti-intellectualists”. While tween intellectualism and anti-intellectualism.5 In both the presi- intellectualists understood human beings as basically rational dential address and The Concept of Mind, Ryle argues that human and as at their best when acting with deliberation and thought, action can be rational without involving reasoning—being, in a the latter understood humans, much like non-human animals, as sense, both rational and instinctual. In particular, Ryle aims to basically instinctual and as at their best when acting instinctually. mark a path between Reason and Instinct by arguing that exer- As Kremer tells the story, the so-called “revolt against reason” cises of knowledge-how involve both. Kremer’s history of the in philosophy was led by the French intuitionist Henri Bergson.3 Intellectualism debate brings this more firmly to light and thus In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Bergson had become a adds some historical richness to the story of Ryle’s interest in public intellectual and cult figure and, in 1928, even received a know-how. Nobel Prize in literature.4 But this was no doubt a controver- I believe, however, that neither the anti-Cartesian story nor sial choice. In 1915, the sociologist L. T. Hobhouse had said of Kremer’s history of the Intellectualism debate, even together, Bergson’s philosophy that it was fitting for “a generation which gives us a suitably complete story. Indeed, I think that the most was rushing headlong on disaster”, since it degraded reason basic impetus for Ryle’s interest in know-how lay elsewhere. I and placed instinct “upon the throne” (Hobhouse 1915, 51; Kre- will be arguing that his most basic interest in know-how was mer 2017, 24). In 1918, the American philosopher Ralph Barton (broadly speaking) an ethical one, with both a theoretical and a practical dimension. In the epigraph to this paper, we see 2Kremer (2017, 17-18); I rely on Kremer for the historical content of this and the following paragraph. Ryle state that to understand a philosopher, we need to know 3With some help from the American pragmatist William James. See, e.g., not only their “intellectual worries”—their theoretical aims and A Pluralistic Universe (1909). interests—but also their “overriding Worry”—their more basic, 4 Technically, Bergson won the 1927 Nobel Prize for literature, but he was perhaps existential motivations.6 In arguing that Ryle’s interest not awarded it until 1928. In 1927, the committee had decided that there were no suitable candidates. They thus saved the award until the following year and awarded it then, along with the 1928 prize, which was won by the Norwegian 5Indeed, one could argue that this was Bergson’s aim as well. novelist Sigrid Undset. (Bergson, however, had been nominated numerous 6Iris Murdoch (1970, 72) similarly notes that “[i]t is always a significant times prior.) question to ask about any philosopher: what is he afraid of?” JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY VOL. 8 NO.
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