Gilbert Ryle’s dispositional analysis of the concept of intelligence makes the error of assimilating intelligence to the category of dispositional or semi-dispositional concepts. Far from being a dispositional concept, intelligence is an episodic concept that refers neither to dispositions nor to ‘knowing how,’ but to a fashion or style of proceeding whose significance is adverbial. Being derivative from the function of the adverb ‘intelligently,’ the concept of intelligence does not have essent…
Read moreGilbert Ryle’s dispositional analysis of the concept of intelligence makes the error of assimilating intelligence to the category of dispositional or semi-dispositional concepts. Far from being a dispositional concept, intelligence is an episodic concept that refers neither to dispositions nor to ‘knowing how,’ but to a fashion or style of proceeding whose significance is adverbial. Being derivative from the function of the adverb ‘intelligently,’ the concept of intelligence does not have essential reference to specific verbs but rather to the manner or style of proceeding of nearly any verb that is descriptive of the proceedings of an agent. Intelligence- words are expressive of a manner of doing things that may be narrated in one of two ways. The first takes the form of a series of contrasts which, when put together as a list of disjuncts, may be called the contrast-criteria of intelligence. The second may take the form of the characteristic activities which comprise the criteria of intelligence.