Dilemmas

Common sense tells me I can control my life to some extent; should I then, faced with a logical argument for fatalism, reject common sense? There seems to be no place in a physical theory of the universe for the sensory experiences of colours, taste and smells, yet I know I have these experiences. In this book, Gilbert Ryle explores the conflicts that arise in everyday life and shows that the either/or which such dilemmas seem to suggest is a false dilemma: one side of the dilemma does not deny what we know to be true on the other side. This classic book has been revived in a new series livery for twenty-first-century readers, featuring a specially commissioned preface written by Barry Stroud.

'The great merit of this book is that it grasps philosophical problems at that critical stage when they are just casting off their connexions with everyday life, just about to launch on their long academic flight, and that it attempts to deal with them then and there, before they can become airborne. Brisk, homely and almost practical, it really challenges everyone to try to be his own philosopher … the peculiar, penetrating simplicity of this kind of philosophy is exceedingly hard to achieve.' The Times Literary Supplement

Gilbert Ryle (1900–76) published widely on a variety of philosophical topics, including philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, but was perhaps best known for his work on philosophical behaviourism and his critique of Cartesian dualism.