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In The Concept of Mind, Ryle discusses dispositions in some detail both in the chapter on emotions, especially in relation to the concept of motive, and, of course, in the chapter entitled "Dispositions and Occurrences". These discussions show that he regarded dispositional concepts as central to a proper understanding of the mind and of behaviour. He held that "many of the cardinal concepts in terms of which we describe specifically human behaviour are dispositional concepts' (1949, p. 117) and he also thought that "the vogue of the para-mechanical legend has led many people to ignore the ways in which these concepts actually behave and to construe them instead as items in the description of occult causes and effects' (ibid.). In other words, Ryle thought that "the official doctrine" about the mind (see his 1949, 11ff.) tends to treat these psychological terms as "episodic words' denoting occurrences, or as terms used to report "particular but unwitnessable matters of fact" (117),¹ when in fact they express dispositional concepts. Moreover, according to the official doctrine, these occurrences are causes of behaviour, albeit ones that are not accessible for public inspection — hence the "para-mechanical" label. Much of the discussion in the two chapters mentioned above is devoted to bringing out the logico-grammatical features of these mental dispositional concepts in order to show how ill-suited they are to play the role of cause in the production of behaviour that the official doctrine traditionally ascribes to them.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137476203_5

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