Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!satisfied.elf.com!news.mathworks.com!uhog.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!minsky
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re:  Opinions
Message-ID: <1995Jan31.221424.24248@news.media.mit.edu>
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Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <3glnqv$5a1@newsbf02.news.aol.com>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 22:14:24 GMT
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In article <3glnqv$5a1@newsbf02.news.aol.com> jrstern@aol.com (JRStern) writes:
>In  <3gl061$diq@agate.berkeley.edu>  <jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
>writes:
>
>>jrstern@aol.com (JRStern) wrote:
>>] I only know Ryle from second-hand sources.  The times I've picked up

>(standing at someone's bookshelf) to get the feel for it.  With
>respectable secondary sources, who seem pretty sure of _their_ opinions, I

I think this is a special case.  Ryle's way of writing is unique, and
you just won't get his way of thinking from secondary sources.

There are many thinkers whose ideas can be better explained by others,
but there are a few who are too hard to do this for.  In particular,
Ryle has a way, when there's no good English word for an idea, or even
a suitable phrase, to capture the idea with a long list of related
words, like a sort of power series approximation.  The secondary
explainers don't know as well how to do this.

Umm, for what it's worth, Dan Dennett agrees with me about this--that
is, that Ryle has not had any more expressive successors.
