Ryle’s “Intellectualist Legend” in Historical Context
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/jhap.v5i5.3204Abstract
Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that emerged from his criticism of the “intellectualist legend” that to do something intelligently is “to do a bit of theory and then to do a bit of practice,” and became a philosophical commonplace in the second half of the last century. In this century Jason Stanley (initially with Timothy Williamson) has attacked Ryle’s distinction, arguing that “knowing-how is a species of knowing-that,” and accusing Ryle of setting up a straw man in his critique of “intellectualism.” Examining the use of the terms “intellectualism” and “anti-intellectualism” in the first half of the 20th century, in a wide-ranging debate in the social sciences as well as in philosophy, I show that Ryle was not criticizing a straw man, but a live historical position. In the context of this controversy, Ryle’s position represents a third way between “intellectualism” and “anti-intellectualism,” an option that has largely gone missing in the 21st century discussion. This argument illustrates how history can inform the history of philosophy, and how the history of philosophy can inform contemporary philosophical inquiry.References
Adamson, Walter, 2012. “The Liberal Democratic State: Critics.” In The Cambridge History of Philosophy: 1870–1945, edited by T. Baldwin, pp. 755–64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Akehurst, Thomas L., 2010. The Cultural Politics of Analytic Philosophy. London: Continuum.
Bengson, John and Marc A. Moffett, 2011. “Two Conceptions of Mind and Action: Knowing How and the Philosophical Theory of Intelligence.” In Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action, edited by J. Benson and M. A. Moffett, pp. 3–56. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bergson, Henri, 1911. Creative Evolution, translated by A. Mitchell. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Ryle owned this book in the original French.
Carter, J. Adam, 2012. “On Stanley’s Intellectualism.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20: 749–62.
Cohen, G. A., 2013. Finding Oneself in the Other, edited by M. Otsuka. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Connelly, James, 2014. “Collingwood, Gentile, and Italian neo-Idealism in Britain.” Collingwood and British Idealism Studies 20: 205–34.
Cook Wilson, John, 1926. Statement and Inference. Bristol: Thoemmes Press. First published in 1926.
Dewey, John, 1910. “Some Implications of Anti-Intellectualism.” The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods 7: 477–81.
Fantl, Jeremy, 2012. “Knowledge How.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First published 4 Dec. 2012. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-how/, accessed 12 May 2015.
Frege, Gottlob, 1918. “The Thought: A Logical Inquiry,” translated by A. M. Quinton and M. Quinton. Mind 65 (1956): 289–311. First published in 1918–19. Ryle owned the original German publication.
Gallie, Ian, 1948. “Intelligence and Intelligent Conduct.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 48: 187–204.
Gentile, Giovanni, 1922. The Theory of Mind as Pure Act, translated by H. Wildon Carr. London: Macmillan.
———, 1928. “The Philosophy of the Modern State.” The Spectator 141.5236 (3 Nov. 1928): 36–37.
Ginsberg, Morris, 1921. The Psychology of Society. London: Methuen.
Gottlieb, Gabriel, 2015. “Know-How, Procedural Knowledge, and Choking Under Pressure.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14: 361–78.
Hobhouse, Leonard T, 1915. The World in Conflict. London: T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd.
———, 1921. The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Husserl, Edmund, 1922. Logical Investigations, 2 vols., translated by J. N. Findlay. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2000. 1st ed., 1900; 2nd ed., 1913; trans. from the 2nd ed. in 1970. Ryle owned the 1900–01 German first edition as well as the 1922 German third edition.
James, William, 1890. The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. London: Macmillan.
———, 1909. A Pluralistic Universe. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Kremer, Michael, 2017. “A Capacity to Get Things Right: Gilbert Ryle on Knowledge.” European Journal of Philosophy 25: 25–46.
Laird, John, 1948. “Reflections Occasioned by Ideals and Illusions.” In Philosophical Studies: Essays in Memory of L. Susan Stebbing. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Langer, Suzanne K., 1951. “In Praise of Common Sense.” The Hudson Review 4: 146–49.
Lerner, Max, 1943. Ideas are Weapons: The History and Use of Ideas. New York: Books, Inc.
Martin, G. Currie, 1924. The Adult School Movement: Its Origin and Development. London: National Adult School Union.
McDougall, William, 1908. Introduction to Social Psychology, 2nd ed. London: Methuen, 1912. 1st ed., 1908.
———, 1912. Psychology: The Study of Behaviour. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
———, 1923. Outline of Psychology. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929. First published 1923.
———, 1960. Introduction to Social Psychology, 23rd ed., revised. London: Methuen.
Noë, Alva, 2013. “On Over-Intellectualizing the Intellect.” In Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, edited by J. K. Schear, pp. 178–93. London and New York: Routledge.
Perry, Ralph Barton, 1918. The Present Conflict of Ideals: A Study of the Philosophical Background of the World War. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.
Pitkin, Walter B., 1914. “Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 1912–13.” The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods 11: 298–304.
Popper, K. R., 1945. The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 vols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Price, H. H., 1933. Perception. New York: Robert McBride and Co.
Roback, A. A., 1952. History of American Psychology. New York: Library Publishers.
Royce, Josiah, 1912. The Sources of Religious Insight. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912.
Russell, Bertrand, 1909. “Pragmatism.” Reprinted in Philosophical Essays, pp. 79–111. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1910.
———, 1914. The Philosophy of Bergson. Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes.
———, 1928. “On the Value of Scepticism.” Reprinted in Russell (1996), pp. 279–89.
———, 1935. “The Ancestry of Fascism.” Reprinted in Russell (1996), pp. 422–35. First published under the title “The Revolt Against Reason” in 1935.
———, 1996. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. 10, A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927–42, edited by J. G. Slater. London and New York: Routledge.
Ryle, Gilbert, 1932. Review of Ralph Eaton, General Logic, Philosophy 7: 235–39.
———, 1937. “Taking Sides in Philosophy.” Reprinted in Ryle (1971), pp. 160–77. First published in 1937.
———, 1940. “Conscience and Moral Convictions.” Reprinted in Ryle (1971), pp. 194–202. First published in 1940.
———, 1945. “Knowing How and Knowing That.” Reprinted in Ryle (1971), pp. 222–235. Originally delivered in 1945.
———, 1947. Review of Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies. Mind 56: 167–72.
———, 1949. The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson and Co.
———, 1968. “Paper Read at the Oxford Philosophical Society 500th Meeting, 1968.” In Aspects of Mind, edited by R. Meyer. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
———, 1970. “Autobiographical.” In Ryle: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by O. Wood and G. Pitcher, pp. 1–15. New York: Anchor Books.
———, 1971. Collected Papers, volume 2, Collected Essays 1929–1968. London: Hutchinson and Co.
———, 1972. “Can Virtue be Taught?” In Education and the Development of Reason, edited by R. F. Dearden, P. H. Hearst and R. S. Peters, pp. 434–47. London: Routledge, 2010. First published 1972.
Schiller, F .C. S., 1903. “The Ethics of Metaphysics.” In Humanism: Philosophical Essays. London: Macmillan.
Severo, Richard, 1992. “Max Lerner, 89, is Dead; Humanist on Political Barricades.” New York Times (6 June 1992).
Stanley, Jason, 2011. Know How. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stanley, Jason and Timothy Williamson, 2001. “Knowing How.” Journal of Philosophy 98: 411–44.
Stebbing, L. Susan, 1914. Pragmatism and French Voluntarism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———, 1930. A Modern Introduction to Logic, 2nd ed. London: Methuen, 1933. 1st ed., 1930.
———, 1934. Logic in Practice, 3rd ed. London: Methuen & Co., 1948. 1st ed., 1934.
———, 1939. Thinking to Some Purpose. Hammondsworth: Penguin Books.
———, 1941. Ideals and Illusions. London: Watts & Co., 1948. First published 1941.
———, 1943. A Modern Elementary Logic. London: Methuen.
Stout, G. F., 1898. A Manual of Psychology, 2nd ed. London: W. B. Clive, 1901. 1st ed., 1898–99.
Wallas, Graham, 1908. Human Nature in Politics, 3rd ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921. 1st ed., 1908.
———, 1914. The Great Society: A Psychological Analysis. New York: Macmillan.
———, 1926. The Art of Thought. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.
Wasmann, Eric, 1903. Instinct and Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom: A Critical Contribution to Modern Animal Psychology, authorized translation. B. Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau.
Wundt, Wilhelm, 1907. Outlines of Psychology, 3rd English ed., translated by C. H. Judd. London: Williams & Norgate. First published in 1897.
Akehurst, Thomas L., 2010. The Cultural Politics of Analytic Philosophy. London: Continuum.
Bengson, John and Marc A. Moffett, 2011. “Two Conceptions of Mind and Action: Knowing How and the Philosophical Theory of Intelligence.” In Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action, edited by J. Benson and M. A. Moffett, pp. 3–56. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bergson, Henri, 1911. Creative Evolution, translated by A. Mitchell. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Ryle owned this book in the original French.
Carter, J. Adam, 2012. “On Stanley’s Intellectualism.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20: 749–62.
Cohen, G. A., 2013. Finding Oneself in the Other, edited by M. Otsuka. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Connelly, James, 2014. “Collingwood, Gentile, and Italian neo-Idealism in Britain.” Collingwood and British Idealism Studies 20: 205–34.
Cook Wilson, John, 1926. Statement and Inference. Bristol: Thoemmes Press. First published in 1926.
Dewey, John, 1910. “Some Implications of Anti-Intellectualism.” The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods 7: 477–81.
Fantl, Jeremy, 2012. “Knowledge How.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First published 4 Dec. 2012. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-how/, accessed 12 May 2015.
Frege, Gottlob, 1918. “The Thought: A Logical Inquiry,” translated by A. M. Quinton and M. Quinton. Mind 65 (1956): 289–311. First published in 1918–19. Ryle owned the original German publication.
Gallie, Ian, 1948. “Intelligence and Intelligent Conduct.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 48: 187–204.
Gentile, Giovanni, 1922. The Theory of Mind as Pure Act, translated by H. Wildon Carr. London: Macmillan.
———, 1928. “The Philosophy of the Modern State.” The Spectator 141.5236 (3 Nov. 1928): 36–37.
Ginsberg, Morris, 1921. The Psychology of Society. London: Methuen.
Gottlieb, Gabriel, 2015. “Know-How, Procedural Knowledge, and Choking Under Pressure.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14: 361–78.
Hobhouse, Leonard T, 1915. The World in Conflict. London: T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd.
———, 1921. The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Husserl, Edmund, 1922. Logical Investigations, 2 vols., translated by J. N. Findlay. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2000. 1st ed., 1900; 2nd ed., 1913; trans. from the 2nd ed. in 1970. Ryle owned the 1900–01 German first edition as well as the 1922 German third edition.
James, William, 1890. The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. London: Macmillan.
———, 1909. A Pluralistic Universe. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Kremer, Michael, 2017. “A Capacity to Get Things Right: Gilbert Ryle on Knowledge.” European Journal of Philosophy 25: 25–46.
Laird, John, 1948. “Reflections Occasioned by Ideals and Illusions.” In Philosophical Studies: Essays in Memory of L. Susan Stebbing. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Langer, Suzanne K., 1951. “In Praise of Common Sense.” The Hudson Review 4: 146–49.
Lerner, Max, 1943. Ideas are Weapons: The History and Use of Ideas. New York: Books, Inc.
Martin, G. Currie, 1924. The Adult School Movement: Its Origin and Development. London: National Adult School Union.
McDougall, William, 1908. Introduction to Social Psychology, 2nd ed. London: Methuen, 1912. 1st ed., 1908.
———, 1912. Psychology: The Study of Behaviour. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
———, 1923. Outline of Psychology. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929. First published 1923.
———, 1960. Introduction to Social Psychology, 23rd ed., revised. London: Methuen.
Noë, Alva, 2013. “On Over-Intellectualizing the Intellect.” In Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, edited by J. K. Schear, pp. 178–93. London and New York: Routledge.
Perry, Ralph Barton, 1918. The Present Conflict of Ideals: A Study of the Philosophical Background of the World War. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.
Pitkin, Walter B., 1914. “Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 1912–13.” The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods 11: 298–304.
Popper, K. R., 1945. The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 vols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Price, H. H., 1933. Perception. New York: Robert McBride and Co.
Roback, A. A., 1952. History of American Psychology. New York: Library Publishers.
Royce, Josiah, 1912. The Sources of Religious Insight. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912.
Russell, Bertrand, 1909. “Pragmatism.” Reprinted in Philosophical Essays, pp. 79–111. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1910.
———, 1914. The Philosophy of Bergson. Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes.
———, 1928. “On the Value of Scepticism.” Reprinted in Russell (1996), pp. 279–89.
———, 1935. “The Ancestry of Fascism.” Reprinted in Russell (1996), pp. 422–35. First published under the title “The Revolt Against Reason” in 1935.
———, 1996. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. 10, A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927–42, edited by J. G. Slater. London and New York: Routledge.
Ryle, Gilbert, 1932. Review of Ralph Eaton, General Logic, Philosophy 7: 235–39.
———, 1937. “Taking Sides in Philosophy.” Reprinted in Ryle (1971), pp. 160–77. First published in 1937.
———, 1940. “Conscience and Moral Convictions.” Reprinted in Ryle (1971), pp. 194–202. First published in 1940.
———, 1945. “Knowing How and Knowing That.” Reprinted in Ryle (1971), pp. 222–235. Originally delivered in 1945.
———, 1947. Review of Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies. Mind 56: 167–72.
———, 1949. The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson and Co.
———, 1968. “Paper Read at the Oxford Philosophical Society 500th Meeting, 1968.” In Aspects of Mind, edited by R. Meyer. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
———, 1970. “Autobiographical.” In Ryle: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by O. Wood and G. Pitcher, pp. 1–15. New York: Anchor Books.
———, 1971. Collected Papers, volume 2, Collected Essays 1929–1968. London: Hutchinson and Co.
———, 1972. “Can Virtue be Taught?” In Education and the Development of Reason, edited by R. F. Dearden, P. H. Hearst and R. S. Peters, pp. 434–47. London: Routledge, 2010. First published 1972.
Schiller, F .C. S., 1903. “The Ethics of Metaphysics.” In Humanism: Philosophical Essays. London: Macmillan.
Severo, Richard, 1992. “Max Lerner, 89, is Dead; Humanist on Political Barricades.” New York Times (6 June 1992).
Stanley, Jason, 2011. Know How. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stanley, Jason and Timothy Williamson, 2001. “Knowing How.” Journal of Philosophy 98: 411–44.
Stebbing, L. Susan, 1914. Pragmatism and French Voluntarism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———, 1930. A Modern Introduction to Logic, 2nd ed. London: Methuen, 1933. 1st ed., 1930.
———, 1934. Logic in Practice, 3rd ed. London: Methuen & Co., 1948. 1st ed., 1934.
———, 1939. Thinking to Some Purpose. Hammondsworth: Penguin Books.
———, 1941. Ideals and Illusions. London: Watts & Co., 1948. First published 1941.
———, 1943. A Modern Elementary Logic. London: Methuen.
Stout, G. F., 1898. A Manual of Psychology, 2nd ed. London: W. B. Clive, 1901. 1st ed., 1898–99.
Wallas, Graham, 1908. Human Nature in Politics, 3rd ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921. 1st ed., 1908.
———, 1914. The Great Society: A Psychological Analysis. New York: Macmillan.
———, 1926. The Art of Thought. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.
Wasmann, Eric, 1903. Instinct and Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom: A Critical Contribution to Modern Animal Psychology, authorized translation. B. Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau.
Wundt, Wilhelm, 1907. Outlines of Psychology, 3rd English ed., translated by C. H. Judd. London: Williams & Norgate. First published in 1897.
Downloads
Published
2017-05-15
Issue
Section
Articles
License
The Public Knowledge Project recommends the use of the Creative Commons license. The Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy requires authors to agree to a Creative Commons Attribution /Non-commercial license. Authors who publish with the Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC license.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
