Gilbert Ryle

Major Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle (painting by Rex Whistler)
Born	19 August 1900 Brighton, England
Died	6 October 1976 (aged 76) Whitby, England
Education
Education	The Queen's College, Oxford
Philosophical work
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy logical behaviourism
Doctoral students	Daniel Dennett Colin Radford
Notable students	Theodor W. Adorno A. J. Ayer G. A. Cohen John M. Cooper Antony Flew Þorsteinn Gylfason G. E. L. Owen U. T. Place Bernard Williams Peter Winch
Main interests	Philosophy of language ordinary language philosophy philosophy of mind behaviourism meaning cognition
Notable ideas	Category mistake Ryle's regress ordinary language philosophy ghost in the machine thick description vs thin description knowing-how vs. knowing-that topic neutrality

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 logical 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."