Abstract

This paper is a phenomenological inquiry into the notion of 'heed', posited by Gilbert Ryle as a 'dispositional' alternate to the traditional philosophical notions of the 'Will', and of 'volition'. Ryle admits, however, that this notion is problematic in that, as a reference to an episodic 'frame of mind', it threatens to entail the illicit features of inaccessibility to observation, implicit dualism, and infinite regress, which his general refutation of Cartesian mind-body dualism in The Concept of Mind was intended to eliminate. By supplementing the Concept characterization of heed with statements drawn from other of Ryle's essays in which the notion of heed is invoked, an illustration of the general nature of a heedful frame of mind will be presented, in order to address these problematic features. In turn, this will allow for an inquiry into the notion of 'voluntariness', whose characterization the Concept appears to be contradicted elsewhere in Ryle's work. The reconciliation of these characterizations will invoke the question of that which underlies our sense of a situation as 'moral'. Finally, the adequacy of the notion of 'heed' as an alternate to that of 'volition' will be evaluated.