Abstract

Ryle, in The Concept of Mind and in his later papers, has formulated views on the notions of thinking and intelligence. In the first part of the thesis I argue that Ryle's dispositional and adverbial account of intelligence is mistaken. I provide an analysis of the notion of intelligence that shows it to be related to the notion of intention. Ryle's position is vindicated, however, in that in calling an act intelligent we are not implying that it is the outcome of a process of thinking. ;In a second part I address Ryle's views on thinking. I argue that Ryle's adverbial account of thinking is mistaken, but that another thesis of Ryle, that thinking is heterogeneous, is correct. I review six different forms of thinking and show that they do not share any property except the property of being intentional episodes. This shows that almost any thesis that historically has been held about thinking is false. The analysis of the different forms of thinking, moreover, provides a precise formulation and defense of Ryle's claim that thinking isnot sui generis, but that there is a conceptual relation between the various forms of thinking and human capacities or skills other than thinking. Finally, I argue that thinking is not a form of computation and that thinking a thought, contrary to what certain philosophers have held, can be a genuine action on the part of the agent