Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter.
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
    and clever in their own sight.

• Isaiah 5:20-21

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

• 2 Timothy 3:1-7

“Born in Brighton on the south coast of England, Gilbert Ryle studied and taught at Oxford University He believed that many problems in philosophy arise from the abuse of language. He showed that we often assume expressions that function in a similar way grammatically are members of the same logical category. Such ‘category mistakes’, Ryle stated, are the cause of much philosophical confusion, so careful attention to the underlying function of ordinary language is the way to overcome philosophical problems.

• Sam Atkinson (senior editor), The Philosophy Book, Big Ideas Simply Explained

Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) was a British philosopher.  His idea of a category mistake stems from his arguments against Cartesian dualism.  Rene Descartes proposed that mental activity was either non-physical or the mind and the body were separate entities that could function independent of each other.

So, in Ryle’s thinking, Descartes’ mistake was that he defined the “mind” improperly or the body or the brain or some other terms regarding thought processes.  In muddying the water about language and definitions, Descartes could easily go down the wrong path.

But does this resolve Descartes’ philosophy regarding the mind and the body?  What is consciousness?  What is a thought?  Is that a physical activity?  Can the mind and the body exist apart from each other?

Well, under life support, the body can continue to function when the patient is brain dead, but is that life?

There is that scientific myth that one day we will have the capability to copy our brain into a computer and our mind can live forever.  Really?

But while all Ryle did with Descartes’ philosophy is to muddy the waters, it seems that modern left-wing philosophers have jumped on his argument and to prevent rational thought getting in the way of their insanity, they use modern technology to constantly change the meaning of words.

Can any politician that leans just a little left define what a woman is?

Isaiah pronounces a woe upon people who call good evil and evil good.  But is Ryle a whistle blower of this practice or a perpetrator there of?

Paul tells Timothy that those that are very proud of their confusing language will be constantly learning but never understanding.  Hmmm.  That sounds like many professional students that I have known and many philosophers.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.