Ryle’s Unfair Criticism of Collingwood’s Notion of Understanding

Abstract

In the context of 20th-century philosophical discussions on the nature of the mind, intelligence, and understanding, divergent conceptions about the explanatory status of mental phenomena have become established. Within this framework, Gilbert Ryle developed a non-intellectualist conception of understanding as a form of know-how, according to which understanding consists primarily in the possession and manifestation of capacities and dispositions that can be evaluated according to the performance of the action. From this perspective, Ryle, especially in The Concept of Mind, formulated a systematic critique of intellectualism and introspective and idealistic conceptions of action. The problem that structures the research consists of determining whether some of these criticisms can be understood as specifically directed at Collingwood's conception of historical understanding. The thesis defended argues that Ryle's notion of understanding provides the conceptual framework from which criticisms are articulated that come into direct tension with R. G. Collingwood's theory of understanding as re-experiencing past thought. To support this thesis, Ryle's conception of understanding as know-how and his critique of the intellectualist explanation of intelligent action are reconstructed, his treatment of dispositional predicates and ordinary language is analyzed, and these elements are contrasted with the epistemological and ontological commitments implicit in Collingwood's conception of historical understanding.