Ryle Thoughts on Monism - Essay Example

The body has physical existence and consists of matter. The evidence adduced by Freud suggests that some of the thoughts of a person differ from the thoughts which he acknowledges. However, the common understanding is that a person is aware of his thoughts. Regarding others,   a person can only make inferences from the observed behavior of the other person. But Ryle argues that this common sense understanding based on Descartes’ theory is unsound and conflicts with the whole body of knowledge that we know about the mind.

According to Ryle, the source of such double life theory is because of category mistakes. It is like somebody asking where the university is after seeing, various departments, libraries, and research facilities. The university is just the way everything is organized. The same is the mistake when a child after witnessing the march past of batteries, squadrons, etc .asks when the division is going to appear. He must be explained that battalions, batteries, and squadrons constitute a division. Descartes regards the human body as a complex organized unit and the mind as just another complex unit. Like bodies, minds are also things. Mental processes are causes and effects.

The mind governs the bodily engine although nothing is known about how it governs the bodily engine. Ryle points out that such an explanation given by Descartes rests on a batch of category mistakes. For example, the word rising has different senses in 'the tide is rising,' 'hopes are rising,' and 'the average age of death is rising.' It would be considered a joke if somebody says that three things are now rising, namely the tide, hopes, and the average age of death. So the words body and mind cannot be regarded as belonging to the same category.