The Ghost in the Machine: “The Concept of Mind”
Gilbert Ryle
About The Concept of Mind
Gilbert Ryle was a mid-20th-century British philosopher who loved calling out what he saw as bad philosophical habits—and in The Concept of Mind (1949), he goes after one of the biggest thinkers of all time: René Descartes. Descartes famously said the mind and body are two totally different things—the body is a physical machine, and the mind is like a ghost controlling it from the inside. Ryle thought this was… well, kind of nonsense.
In fact, he called it “the ghost in the machine,” and he didn’t mean that in a cool sci-fi way. He meant it as a mockery. According to Ryle, Descartes made a “category mistake”—basically, a major philosophical whoopsie—by treating the mind like it’s some invisible thing floating inside the body, when really, that’s not how we experience mental life at all.
Ryle argues that mental concepts like thinking, feeling, or intending aren’t ghostly inner events—they’re better understood through how people behave and act in the world. Saying the mind is something extra that controls the body is like saying a university is something separate from its buildings and professors. It’s a mistake about how the parts fit together.
Instead of spooky metaphysical stuff, Ryle thought we should pay attention to how people use mental language in everyday life. His view is now seen as part of a broader move toward behaviorism in philosophy—the idea that mental states can be described in terms of behavior, not invisible inner goings-on.
This reading is a playful but serious challenge to dualism, and it pushed philosophers to rethink what it really means to have a mind.
Before You Read
Imagine someone tells you that your brain is a machine, but your mind is like a ghost sitting inside it, pulling levers. Spooky, right? That’s basically what Descartes suggested—and for centuries, people kind of just rolled with it.
But Gilbert Ryle was not having it. In this reading, Ryle calls Descartes out for creating a confusing and misleading picture of how minds work. He says Descartes made a “category mistake”—kind of like asking, “Where’s the team spirit?” after being shown all the players, the field, and the coach.
Before you dive in, think about how we usually talk about mental life. When you say someone is smart, or anxious, or planning something—are you referring to a mysterious ghost-thing inside them? Or are you watching how they act, speak, and move? Ryle says we already know what minds are—we just need to stop overcomplicating it.
Guiding Questions
- What does Ryle mean by the phrase “ghost in the machine”?
- How does Ryle argue that Descartes made a “category mistake” about the mind?
- What does Ryle think mental states actually are, if they’re not inner, ghost-like things?
- Do you think mental life can be explained entirely by behavior? Why or why not?
