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Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action

Glowing review of Bengson and Moffett’s edited book: edited works are very difficult to assess and often suffer from being uneven in quality. But as the reviewer says: “The wealth of its perspectives and accounts is not merely a blessing but also a nightmare for the reviewer.” So, nice one Marc! EpistemologyPhilosophy of mindsocial epistemology

Ryle and Oakeshott

At last here is the book in which my essay “Ryle and Oakeshott on the know-how/know-that distinction” appears, masterly edited by Corey Abel. A draft of the paper can be found here. Don’t get hung up by the use of the word “conservatism” in the collection’s title – Oakeshott’s conservatism bears no resemblance to those…

Ryle on Video

Thanks to this blog here is a five-part discussion between the wonderful Gilbert Ryle and James Urmson. (I notice from the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on Ryle that J.D. Mabbott must have known Ryle very well. Mabbott and Oakeshott were of course intellectual chums. According to Bob Grant, Oakeshott only ever communicated with two “official” philosophers,…

Koestler Biography

There is a glowing review in The Economist of Michael Scammell’s biography of Koestler. I do recall that the manner of Koestler’s death caused a great deal of controversy at the time. My knowledge of Koestler’s work is confined to his Darkness at Noon – given to me my an anti-Stalinist (and committed socialist) friend of…

Ryle

ryle, v. to give examples. “He ryles on and on without ever daring a conclusion.” Hence, n. An example. “His argument was elucidated by a variety of apt ryles.” “The original ryle has been chisholmed beyond recognition.” (2) A variety of smooth, lucid, thin ice that forms on bogs. The Philosophical Lexicon I chanced upon…

Ryle & Oakeshott on the “Knowing-How/Knowing-That” Distinction

Some two and a half years ago I previewed this paper. For several reasons, not least because of my faffing about and constantly reworking it in light of new reading, not to mention wrestling with some Quine and Frege, it only now has gone to press. Here are the first and last sections. Section II…

Being Heidegger

Simon Critchley has the first of an eight-part series of blog postings on Heidegger’s Being and Time. Will he discuss the influence Heidegger has had on non-Cartesian cognitive science? We will see. Unlikely as it sounds, Gilbert Ryle’s critical notice (Mind XXXVIII 1929, 355-370) warmly welcomed Sein und Zeit despite the inherent difficulties of the work…