Gilbert Ryle

Gilbert Ryle
Born19 August 1900
Brighton, England
Died6 October 1976 (aged 76)
Whitby, England
Education
Alma materThe Queen's College, Oxford
Philosophical work
RegionWestern philosophy
School
Doctoral students
Notable students
Main interests
Notable ideas

Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine". Some of Ryle's ideas in philosophy of mind have been called behaviourist. In his best-known book, The Concept of Mind (1949), he writes that the "general trend of this book will undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be stigmatised as 'behaviourist'." Having studied the philosophers Bernard Bolzano, Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger, Ryle suggested that the book instead "could be described as a sustained essay in phenomenology, if you are at home with that label."