Intelligent Capacities

In The Concept of Mind, Gilbert Ryle argued that a more sophisticated understanding of the dispositional nature of intelligent capacities could bolster philosophical resistance to the tempting view that the human mind is possessed of metaphysically occult powers and properties. This temptation is powerful in the context of accounting for the special qualities of responsible agency. Incompatibilists indulge the temptation; compatibilists resist it, using a variety of strategies. One recent strategy, reminiscent of Ryles, is to exploit a more sophisticated understanding of dispositional properties to account for these qualities. But new dispositionalists run up against a hard problem that threatens the approach. This paper argues that the threat may be averted by embracing a yet more radical Rylean view of the distinctive dispositional nature of intelligent capacities.