Does Descartes commit a category mistake, as Ryle contends? Why or why not?

[Your name] [Professors] [Course title] [Date] Does Descartes commit a category mistake, As Ryle contends? Why or why not? Introduction Professor Ryle`s book, The Concept of Mind critiques the thoughts of Rene Descartes on Cartesian dualism that is referred as the category mistake, in which Descartes thinks the mind is above and over someone’s behavioral dispositions. In this essay, I will agree with Ryle’s argument on Descartes committing a category mistake. I will support my arguments first, by discussing Descartes` argument, discussing what category mistake is and how it arises. Then finally, from Ryle’s arguments on Descartes myth, I would justify how Descartes committed a category mistake. Descartes` argument In the famous work of Descartes, Meditations, he declared two independent substances: mind and matter. He perceived mind as an active and conscious substance that is capable of thinking and reflecting, and it is uninhibited by mechanical laws. The mind attributes to the different forms of thinking since it is unique, conscious, invisible, eternal, dynamic and different from the body. He attributes that a man’s soul and mind is different from his body and the body does not possess whatever is in the mind. With this, he advocated for dualism of the mind and the body (Descartes 161; Zaldivar et al). Descartes perceived the mind as free and simple, but the body as being its substratum in the gland (374). The mind and body relationship, questions the substratum in that, the soul could be merged with the body and so, it does not exist in exclusion of other parts because it is indivisible (371). His writings consider the soul as non-physical, but in some parts he considers the soul as physical. It is difficult to understand how the soul is connected to the whole body especially, the non-physical soul. Descartes established dualism, but he did not really explain the creation of the two substances (mind and matter), the relationship between them, and what caused them. This brings in the difficulty of dualism and the conception of category mistake (Zaldivar, et al). A category mistake A category mistake occurs on the presentation of facts of a particular kind, and in a manner that suggests it belongs to another kind. Ryle explains that a concept belonging to a logical category is set up in a way that it logically operates. For example, a foreign guest could be given a tour around Oxford, where he sees various colleges, sports fields, laboratories, and libraries, but he still asks where the university is. The answer to that is all the above (18). When someone does not properly employ the concepts that they are working with or working on, they commit a category mistake. They commit this category mistake from their incapacity to utilize some items in the human language. Ryle describes that, The theoretically interesting category mistakes are those made by people who are perfectly competent to apply concepts, at least in the situations which they are familiar, but are still liable in their abstract thinking to allocate those concepts to logical types to which they do not belong (10). Ryle`s argument Descartes` Myth In chapter one of the Concept of Mind; Descartes` Myth, Ry...