Research Seminars, Colloquia and Reading Groups
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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Room R1.15, Ramphal Building
ABSTRACT: A thing can be not F, but not un-F. Sometimes this is because it strikes a mean between a sufficiency and a deficiency (I am not happy, but not unhappy either). Sometimes it is because it is of a category such that no serious question of its being F arises (the tomato is not marriageable, but not unmarriageable either). In *The Concept of Mind* Ryle says, in a number of places, of various putative mental and/or dispositional phenomena that they are neither observable nor unobservable. He is standardly read as denying the existence of such phenomena. I propose an alternative reading that takes him at his word. On this reading, the phenomena in question are non-spatially located, and hence of a category such that the question of their observability does not arise. On this reading, Ryle's view, and his view of its place in history - relative to rival "mechanist" and "para-mechanist" views - are, I contend, each worthy of serious reconsideration. |
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Room R1.15, Ramphal Building |