Gilbert Ryle attacks Descartes’ Dualism as a ’Category Mistake’

I am writing a book! If you to know when it is ready (and maybe win a free copy), submit your email on my website: I won’t spam you or share your email address with anyone. This is a lecture video about a selection from Gilbert Ryle objecting to what he calls “the Official Doctrine,“ which is the dualist theory of mind espoused by Rene Descartes and many other philosophers following him. Ryle claims that dualists are making a ’category mistake’. He explains the idea of a category mistake with a famous example of a visitor to Oxford University. The reading also includes several other examples of category mistakes. When applied to the mind, Ryle is claiming that the dualist’s mistake is to think that the mind is in the same logical category as physical objects. Instead it is not some additional thing, but rather just some ways that physical things are arranged and interact. For background, you might want to watch my videos about... D