An Evaluation of Gilbert Ryle’s Concept of the Mind and Its Metaphysical Implications

The project of Ryle’s concept of Mind consists in a sustained and punishing bombardment of the
Cartesian conception of man, characteristically labeled “the dogma of the ghost in the machine”.
In this Project, Ryle is trying to discover how far he could push analytical behaviorism, the
doctrine that psychological notions can be analyzed in terms of actual or possible behavior. He
tried to bring down assumed psychological behaviors that we see as mind blowing activities to
mere physical or continual activities which we are conversant with in our day to day activities.
Ryle tries to eliminate the traditional conception of mind as an entity and ascribing functions to
it. The work is an avenue to solve the problem by proving the absurdity of mind. The problem
for Ryle is that in actual sense, there is nothing like mind. As such, the work adopted evaluation
method to be able to solve the above problems in line with the thoughts of Gilbert Ryle. The
work will go as far as explaining with instances the reasons for the absurdity of mind, and
bringing them to bear with the normal life activities. The findings also recorded based on the true
nature of mind as behavioural. Most of our behaviours are attributed to be the activities of the
mind while in the actual sense, it is not. Generally, the work is an eye opener and a total contrast
with Descartes conception of mind. Ryle called the traditional conception of the mind as a
Category mistake.