Wittgenstein lectures, Cambridge 1930-32 : from the notes of John King and Desmond Lee

Babel," is a partly appreciative, but mostly critical, review (reprinted
from Philosophy) of Vendler's Res Cogitans.
Perhaps the most dated feature of these discussions is their total in-
nocence of the possibilities of computational functionalism as a sophis-
ticated philosophy of mind. Ryle rejects,-contemptuously and without
serious discussion, the suggestion that "the best thinkers in their best
moments are doing in their heads the sort of things that computing
machines do... " (52). And his only consideration of mental representa-
tion, an exciting topic in very recent philosophy of psychology, comes
in his dismissive treatment of (alleged) introspectibles.
Here is a nostalgia trip for Ryle's old admirers and an enticing
sampler for readers as yet unacquainted with Ryle's engagingly de-
flationary way of doing philosophy. But it is not a ground-breaking
work; it does not really advance our understanding of thinking much
beyond the stage of enlightenment that his earlier writings helped us
to attain.