Devin Sanchez Curry | Ryle on Cartography and (Cognitive) Ontology | Philosophy Speaker Series

Abstract: Gilbert Ryle was, first and foremost, a metaphilosopher. In this talk, I’ll reconstruct Ryle’s views concerning the methods and nature of philosophy, and compare them with six other analytic metaphilosophies (logical positivism, conceptual analysis, ordinary language philosophy, Wittgensteinianism, Sellarsianism, and philosophy as the mapping of logical space). According to Ryle, philosophical problems are perplexities about the world engendered by tensions within one’s worldview(s). A worldview comprises complexly interrelated ideas (and categories of ideas). Philosophy is the activity of discovering and charting the relevant relations between ideas in order to release the tensions that engender perplexities. If time permits, I’ll conclude by using a case study in recent comparative cognitive science to argue that Ryle’s metaphilosophy illuminates the distinctive kind of contribution that philosophy can make to scientific inquiry.

Devin Sanchez Curry is Associate Professor of Philosophy at West Virginia University. He specializes in the history and philosophy of psychology. He has published many articles about belief, intelligence, and the interplay between common sense and scientific ways of thinking about minds.