Kesarimalji Surana Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia, Dev Kothari
Publisher: Kesarimalji Surana Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 1287

66
Karmayogi Śri Kesarimalji Surāņā Abhinandana Grantha : Seventh Part
OD
contents there is nothing as such, hidden in the core of the human personality which can be called by the name 'mind'. It does not designate any mysterious or occult episode under the influence on which, the functions of body are occuring. Thinking, emotions, feelings, volitions and so on are the constituents of the mind which constitute its frame. Over and above these constituents it has independent status, "mind is invisible, inaudible, inner operator, controller of human activities, and only individuals have 'privileged access' to their minds etc", are statements based on false assumptions. Mind and bodies do not belong, on Ryle's own showing, to the logical type or category. They stand for two separate categories which are quite different from one another. Accordingly, it would be a big mistake to conjoin or disjoin them. For strengthening his claim Ryle has cited various paradigmatic situations. Consider following statements :
A foreigner visiting Oxford or Cambridge for the first time is shown a number of colleges, libraries, playing fields, museums, scientific departments and administrative offices. He then asked "But where is the University ? I have seen where the members of the colleges live, where the Registrar works, where the scientists experiment and the rest. But I have not yet seen the University, in which reside and work the members of your University. It has then to be explained to him that the University is not another collateral institution, some ulterior counterpart to the colleges, laboratories and offices which he has seen. The Univesity is just the way in which all that he has already seen is organized. When they are seen and when their co-ordination is understood, the University has been seen. His mistake lay in his innocent assumption that it was correct to speak of christ Church, the Bodlein Library, the Ashmolean museum and the University, to speak, that is as if the University' stood for an extra member of the class of which these other units are members. He was mistakenly allocating the University to the same category as that to which the other institutions belong (C. M. p. 16).
Ryle has clearly shown in this analogy that the University and its organs (i. e. libraries, playing fields, museums, scientific departments, administrative offices and so on) do not belong to the same sort of category but different types of categories. The stranger clearly did not understand these two distinct types of categories and has located the existence of the University in the same manner as their organs are which is not justifiable on logical grounds. The University has no independent existential status in isolation from its organs. Similarly, mind and body belong to two different sorts of categories rather than one and mind does not exist over and above the body. Does this analogy apply to the concept of mind and body ! Is it a correct and an appropriate analogy? All hese questions Ryle declares unhesitatingly in the positive way. But on our understanding, this cannot be the case. It is worth noting that on Ryle's own showing, minds and bodies belong to different logical types but they have quite opposite qualities like light and darkness. In case of the University there is no such case. The University has not distinct feature and qualities in isolation from its organs. Hence, the analogy of the University is insufficient and not applicable to the concept of mind and body and his argument never gets off the ground. In order to substantiate this observation, further, we may point out a similar difficulty with respect to the type of category-mistake. Mind is neither an organised set of feelings, emotions, volitions, ideas, thoughts, desires and so on;nor these are constituents of mind in virtue of which its existence is possible. Feelings, emotions, thoughts all these contents are activities or operations of mind, not mind itself. Their cognition is, of course, possible in virtue of presupposing a mind. Ryle unfortunately could not discriminate between mind and its occurrences and has wrongly identified