WILLIAM LYONS

R Y L E A N D D I S P O S I T I O N S *

(Received 18 January, 1972)

(1) I wish to dispute a fundamenta l tenet o f Ryle 's account o f dispositions

in The Concept o f Mind. Ryle distinguishes two fundamental ly different

types o f disposition. I will argue that there is no t really two types but only

one. After briefly suggesting why Ryle 's distinction m a y have been left

unmolested, and after answering some possible objections to my analysis and suggesting some valid distinctions between dispositions, I will outline

what may be entailed for a reductionist enterprise based on a disposifional

analysis.

(2) Ryle holds for the following two types o f dispositions:

(a) determinate dispositions or dispositions which are parasitic on

similar occurrences or episodes

To possess a dispositional property is not to be in a particular state, or to undergo a particular change; it is to be bound or liable to be in a particular state, or to undergo a particular change, when a particular condition is realised .... My being an habitual smoker does not entail that I am at this or that moment smoking; it is my permanent proneness to smoke .... (Op. cir., p. 43).

In short, this sort o f disposition means that for a person to have a dis- posit ion to be or do x is for that person to have been observed to have

done x in circumstances y a sufficient number o f times to make it a fairly

safe bet to forecast that when circumstances y next occur then the person

in question will again do x.

(b) determinable dispositions or dispositions which are not parasitic

on similar occurrences or episodes Dispositional words like 'know', 'believe', 'aspire', 'clever' and 'humour- ous' are determinable dispositional words. They signify abilities, tenden- cies or pronenesses to do, not things of one unique kind, but things of lots of different kinds. Theorists who recognise that 'know' and 'believe' are commonly used as dispositional verbs are apt not to notice this point, but to assume that there must be corresponding acts of knowing or appre- hending and states of believing; .... (Op. cit., p. 118).

Philosophical Studies 24 (1973) 326--334. All Rights Reserved Copyright �9 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordreeht-Holland

R Y L E A N D D I S P O S I T I O N S 327

The temptation to construe dispositional words as episodic words and this other temptation to postulate that any verb that has a dispositional use must also have a corresponding episodic use are two sources of one and the same myth. (Op. eit., p. 119).

A n d now, in suppor t o f this type o f disposition, Ryle contrasts greed with

cigarette smoking, and then goes on to give the fur ther example o f 'being

a solicitor'.

... there is a wide range of different actions and reactions predictable from the description of someone as 'greedy', while there is, roughly, only one sort of action predictable from the description of someone as 'a cigarette smoker'. (Op. cit., p. 118). A similar assumption would lead to the conclusion that since being a solicitor is a profession, there must occur professional activities of solici- toring, and, as a solicitor is never found doing any such unique thing, but only lots of different things like drafting wills, defending clients and witnessing signatures, ... (Op. cit., p. 119).

Here Ryle is saying that there are dispositional terms, such as greed,

such that if you say so-and-so has a disposition to be or do x then it

does not imply that the person in question has been observed to have

done a part icular act ion x in circumstances y on two or more occasions

such that when circumstances y again occur the person will predictably

do x. With determinable dispositions one can be said to have a disposition

to be x but have been observed to have done m or n or p or q. . . ilz

circumstances y.

In other words, to talk about a disposition o f this type is not to comment

on or forecast about the occurrence or likelihood o f future occurrences

o f a definite type o f personal episode. I t is more like using an umbrella

word which is a convenient cover for various occurrences o f different

types and the likelihood o f further such occurrences in similar circum- stances.

(3) The posit ion I want to argue is that all dispositions are really o f

type (a), tha t is "determinate dispositions or dispositions which are parasitic on occurrences or episodes o f a certain type". Type-(b) dis-

positions are really covert examples o f type-(a) ones and for impor tan t logical reasons.

Let me first take the easier o f Ryle 's two quoted examples o f dis- posit ion terms which are not parasitic on episodes o f a definite type, the

case o f 'being a solicitor'. I t seems to me that unless there is something which is c o m m o n to the acts o f "draf t ing wills, defending clients and

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witnessing signatures" then Ryle should equally have said that solicitoring was to do with eating, driving a car, and sleeping. Unless Ryle can point to something which is unique to "drafting wills, defending clients and witnessing signatures" and which has no part in eating, driving and sleeping, then Ryle has no good reason for saying that 'eating' does not fall under the dispositional phrase 'being a solicitor' but 'drafting wills' does. It is clear that, wittingly or unwittingly, Ryle chose "drafting wills, defending clients and witnessing signatures" as being illustrative of solicitoring because they are typical examples of a solicitor's work or typical episodes in a solicitor's life. They are of a type. They are "o f one unique kind" rather than "o f lots of different kinds" and so it is true to say that one sort of action is predictable from the statement "He is a solicitor". Drafting wills, defending clients and witnessing signatures are all examples of 'practising law' or of 'being in law' as our ancestors would have said, and, further, they are all examples of work traditionally reserved for a solicitor rather than other functionaries of the law profession. That to be given the label 'being a solicitor' does not entail having been observed to have done repeatedly any more definite thing x than 'to have practised law by doing the work traditionally reserved for a solicitor' is an indication, as Les Holborow has pointed out to me, not that the phrase 'being a solicitor' is a non-determinate (or determinable) dispositional expression, but that it is probably not a real dispositional expression at all. To be a solicitor seems to include undergoing some sort of ordination and, I suggest, that this is the pertinent factor rather than the supposed possession of some sort of proneness. To draft wills, defend clients and witness signatures is not enough; a person with a certificate saying that he is a solicitor must do these things. To draft wills, defend clients and witness signatures is to do legal work; to do the same things while having a solicitor's certificate is to do the work of a solicitor.

Another dispositional factor missing in the case of being a solicitor is the part played by the circumstances. It seems odd to speak of someone doing the work traditionally set aside for a solicitor whenever circum- stances y occur. For one can take a holiday from solicitoring in a way that one cannot very easily take a holiday from smoking, because being a solicitor is more or less circumstance-disengaged while being an habitual smoker is not. An habitual smoker seems prone or liable to do certain things whenever certain circumstances arise (circumstances such as not

R Y L E A N D D I S P O S I T I O N S 329

having smoked in the last ten minutes); a solicitor does not seem prone

or liable in this way. Ryle's other example, greed, seems to be a truer example of a purely

dispositional term and so is a better candidate, from his point of view, for making out a case that there is a class of determinable dispositions. However, on close examination it will be found that there is a quite definite factor x which is common to all instances or occurrences of greed and which thus allows these occurrences to be given the common label 'greed'. Indeed logically this must be so if we are to say that both the man who eats all day and the woman who buys things for herself all day are said to be greedy whereas a person who recites poetry all day and the man who digs the garden all day are not. 'Greed' is defined or determined, not in terms of some action or specific piece of behaviour but in terms of a specific longing. To quote A New English Dictionary, 'greed' is defined as an "inordinate or insatiate longing, especially for wealth" and as an "excessive longing for food or drink", which might be combined into one as "an inordinate longing for wealth, food or drink". To be an instance of greed I suspect that a personal episode must also include some aspect of selfishness and can encompass possessions as well as food, drink and wealth. What is clear is that for certain actions to merit the common label 'greed', there must be something quite determinate which is common to those actions. And to establish this is to establish that these occurrences are similar in so far as they are determinate in some respect. And to have established that is to have shown that an example of a Rylean type-(b) disposition (supposedly determinable) is really a Rylean type-(a) dis- position (a determinate one).

(4) I suggest that Ryle's account of 'being a solicitor' and'being greedy' as being examples of dispositions which are not parasitic on similar occurrences or episodes has remained unchallenged precisely because it is much more difficult, as any lexicographer will tell you, to find what is common to all instances of greed or engaging in the work of a solicitor than to find it for all instances of being an habitual smoker. What is common to all in- stances of greed and being a solicitor is a complex thing; what is common to all instances of being an habitual smoker is a reasonably simple thing.

The complexity of the concepts 'greed' and 'being a solicitor' has obscured the fact that they have, indeed must have, the same basic logic as simpler dispositional notions.

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(5) There is a place for a determinable-determinate distinction of a different type, for there is a valid distinction, within dispositions of the same kind, between the generic and the specific. The generic disposition will be determinable in so far as it can be differentiated into a number of specific ways of being carried out. The specific will be any one of these ways. For example, the disposition to smoke is generic and so determinable in contrast to the specific or particular dispositions to smoke heavily or to smoke cheroots.

But this distinction between determinable and determinate dispositions does not make the disturbing claim, which Ryle made for his distinction, that determinable dispositions "are abilities, tendencies or pronenesses to do, not things of one unique kind, but things of lots of different kinds." A person can be said to have a disposition to smoke (the generic dis- position) only if he has been observed to engage in particular acts of smoking, that is in acts of one kind though there may have been many variations within this one kind. This is where the specific disposition comes in. The disposition to smoke heavily or to smoke cheroots is more determinate than the disposition to smoke in the sense that it is more specific or particular,.

So this determinable-determinate distinction in dispositions is not a distinction between dispositions to do things of lots of different kinds versus dispositions to do things of one unique kind, but a distinction be- tween dispositions to do things of one kind versus dispositions to do things of an even more specific kind.

(6) It might be objected that I have misinterpreted Ryle and that what he was about was the making of a distinction between:

dispositions parasitic on similar physical actions

and

(b) dispositions not parasitic on similar physical actions but on actions which have a similar non-physical or conceptual (?) part.

The obvious reply is that Ryle would have to be interpreted very gener- ously if one were to extract the meaning of 'similar physical actions' from his phrases "things of a unique kind", "one sort of action" and "unique thing". More importantly, if Ryle were to adopt the above interpretation of type-(b) dispositions, then he would have to give up his claim that such

RYLE AND DISPOSITIONS 331

dispositions "signify abilities, tendencies and pronenesses to do, not things of one unique kind, but things of lots of different kinds" (Op. cit., p. 118) for actions which fall under the same concept are actions of the same kind just as much as actions which fall under the same physical description.

(7) Again it might be objected that what Ryle was really about was the making of a distinction between:

(a)

and

(b)

Determinate dispositions or dispositions parasitic on similar occurrences or episodes;

determinable dispositions or dispositions which are parasitic on occurrences or episodes which have only a loose family resemblance between them.

The first quick reply to this move is to point out that it is impossible to interpret the relevant passages in The Concept of Mind in this way and that this is substantiated by recalling that neither of Ryle's two examples of determinable dispositions, greed and being a solicitor, seem to be good examples of family resemblance notions. For in the case of greed there is a determinate though complex conceptual factor x (an insatiate and selfish longing for food, drink or wealth or possessions) which is common to all cases of greed; and being a solicitor seems to involve a combination of a determinate conceptual factor x (legal work) with an additional ordination factor (as traditionally practised by one with a solicitor's certificate) thrown in.

But the above distinction deserves a much more detailed reply. So I will assume that this was the sort of distinction that Ryle was working towards.

Perhaps the best way to attempt to establish the determinable side of this distinction would be to take the paradigm example associated with the notion of family resemblance, the concept of a game, and to fashion a dispositional notion centred around this. In short, the clearest case of a disposition based on family resemblance would be the case of someone with a disposition to play games habitually. This disposition, so the distinction would go, is a proneness to spend every opportunity playing games as widely different as serious card-games, impromptu ball-games,

332 W I L L I A M LYONS

competitive athletic-games, amusing parlour-games and so on. Further it would seem that such a disposition would not be a disposition parasitic upon occurrences all of which have some factor x common to them; in more formal terms it is not a disposition to do x in circumstances y but is a disposition to do in or n or o or p or q in circumstances y, and so is just the sort of case that Ryle was after.

My response to this formulation of the determinable-determinate distinction is that it is, of course, a legitimate one but not a very central or useful one.

It is a legitimate distinction because it is based on the legitimate distinction between things all o f which have in common a determinate factor x and things all of which have in common some factor or factors drawn from the list v, w, x, y, and z. The distinction is between dispositions to do things of a certain type where the defining factor of that type cart be dearly isolated, and dispositions to do things of a certain type where the defining factor of that type cannot be dearly isolated because the things in question only form a type in some loose sense.

But this distinction does not deny that every disposition is parasitic on occurrences or episodes of a certain type, it merely points out and explores the two extremes in the classification of 'occurrences or episodes of a certain type'; namely the case where spelling out the type in question is clear and easy, and the case where it is blurred and difficult.

And this distinction does not deny that the basic logic of dispositions is a proneness to do things of a certain type which in turn implies a search for a factor common to all those things, any more than the other possible determinable-determinate distinctions I drew attention to deny it (namely the distinctions between dispositions based on 'conceptually' similar actions and those based on 'physically' similar actions, and that between dispositions based on 'generic' activities and those based on 'specific' activities).

I think that this distinction is, however, not a very useful or central one. In the first place a disposition which is determinable in so far as the only factor which is common to the episodes it is parasitic upon is a vague family resemblance, is stretching to the limit the logic of dispositions so that such dispositions will be difficult to establish. For it is well nigh impossible to build up evidence that someone has a proneness to do x in circumstances y if x is really a loosely related conglomerate of activities

R Y L E A N D D I S P O S I T I O N S 333

m, n, o, p, q, and r, which in turn will make y a highly varied and so ill-defined context; and this difficulty in building up evidence about the proneness itself makes it equally hard to predict future occurrences of the disposition seeing that it is well nigh impossible to decide if the ill-defined concept of context y is now instantiated and, given that it is, to decide whether it is m or n or o or p or q or r that we should expect to see.

Indeed the very example I took, the disposition to habitually play games, where the notion of games encompasses serious card-games, impromptu ball-games, competitive athletic-games and amusing parlour- games, is a case that is more or less improbable. Only in the exceptional case of some person more or less continuously playing all these sorts of games more or less alternatively and more or less with equal enthusiasm and to the exclusion of most other activities, would we say that such a person had a disposition to play games in general rather than a disposition to play a particular game or games of a certain type (such as competitive sport or games of chance) or else merely a disposition to be frivolous or a disposition to loaf or the like.

Finally it is because this particular determinable-determinate distinction is based on cases of what must be called an exceedingly rare and difficult- to-establish type of disposition, and because none-the-less it is not based on any basic logical difference between the two sorts of disposition which are distinguished, that the distinction must be said to be a peripheral and not very useful one.

(8) We seem to be forced into the position that, logically, all that we are entitled to say about dispositions is that all of them must be parasitic on episodes which are similar in that they have some factor x (not necessarily a simple concept, not necessarily the description of a physical action, not necessarily a highly specific activity and not necessarily any dearer than a family resemblance concept); that is, that all dispositions have the same logical form and that they differ only in complexity. Whether the factor x can be described in purely physical terms, or purely abstract conceptual terms, or purely generic terms, or , more rarely, only by a family resemblance notion, or a mixture of some or all of these, is irrelevant. Strictly speaking to say that someone is greedy is just as determinate a statement as to say that someone is a cigarette smoker. It is just that the word 'greedy' is determinate in a different way from that in which the phrase 'being a cigarette smoker' is. There are no determinable

334 WILLIAM LYONS

dispositions in Ryle's sense of the term, they are all as highly determinate as is possible given the language in question. They only look determinable if you expect them to be determined in terms of something which is beside the point or impossible in their case.

(9) In conclusion, then, I feel that the basic logic of dispositional terms will force someone engaged in the reductionist type work of Ryle to still have to point to some factor x which is common to all the instances on which dispositions such as reflecting or thinking are parasitic. I f this factor proves not to be readily describable in physical terms alone, however loosely, then Ryle and other reductionists may well be forced to call the factor a non-physical event, act or occurrence. From here it is not a very large step to reinstating mental events, acts or occurrences. In a recent article, 'Some Problems About Thinking' (Mind, Science and History ed. Kiefer and Munitz), Ryle seems to be doing just that. He seems to be saying that to reflect is to engage in various activities in one's head, all of which activities are said to be similar in so far as they have in common the complex factor, being "circumstance-disengaged" and having "attention, intention and control".

He [Le Penseur] is, in a thin sense of the word, doing some such things as fingering the keys, hamming notes aloud, under his breath, or in his head, producing words .... All such "doings" are nearly or quite circumstance-disengaged, and all of them rank as reflecting, planning .... only if the doing of them is attentive, intentional and con- trolled .... (Op. cit., p. 51).

University of Dundee NOTES

* I would like to thank Professor Wilfrid SeUars for his help in developing the point of this note.