Ryle’s Conceptions of Emotional Behaviour

Abstract

Although Ryle avows admiration for Jane Austen’s treatment of our emotional life, his own work on emotion in The Concept of Mind is somewhat primitive. He talks about pangs, glows, flutters, and throbs, on the one hand. And he considers character traits like vanity, patriotism, and indolence as well as commitments, like interest in symbolic logic, on the other hand. But what of things like glowing with pride that one’s daughter has won a prize, feeling angry with one’s friend for betraying a confidence, being terrified of a librarian’s disapproval, being overwhelmed by a wave of adoration for a person, or being covered with embarrassment having been discovered having fast asleep at a seminar? While Jane Austen valued emotional restraint and mocked overly expressive displays of emotion, she never underplayed the significance of passionate emotional responses.