1Gilbert Ryle took over the editorship of Mind from G.E. Moore after the war in 1947 and he retained the office until the end of 1971, when I became Editor in his place. It was a long stint, and it was a very distinguished editorship. Ryle had become Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford two years earlier, after military service; one year after assuming the Chair he had instituted the B. Phil, degree at Oxford, an innovation which was of fundamental importance for the 'training' of philosophers both in Oxford and elsewhere and for the filling of university posts in philosophy in Great Britain; in 1949 he published The Concept of Mind, another event of great importance for the philosophy of the period, the influence of which lasted many years, and the book became a classic. So both for Ryle and for philosophy in general (and I do not mean just British or analytical philosophy) these were great years. Anthony Flew used to call Ryle 'the Headmaster', and there is an element of truth in such a characterization of his role. His position was a dominant one.
2As far as Mind is concerned it is, I believe, widely held that it was under Moore's editorship that the journal reached its Olympian heights. William Gerber, writing on 'Philosophical Journals' in Paul Edwards' Encyclopaedia of Philosophy published in 1967, well before Ryle gave up his editorship, so commented and hinted at some of the reasons for what he saw. Moore's editorship was very personal and was conducted, I believe, mainly by means of letters written in handwriting. But those were in the days before the great inflation in the number of practising philosophers in Britain, an inflation in which Ryle was very much involved. Geoffrey Warnock, writing about Ryle's editorship in the centenary number of Mind in 1976, pointed to, among other salient things, the fact that the membership of the Mind Association (which was responsible for the journal) more or less tripled during the editorship. Philosophy became something of an industry, in which Oxford initially played the leading role. (Geoffrey Warnock also commented on the fact that in spite of this Ryle's Mind never confined itself to Oxford, despite Oxford's dominance, nor indeed even to Britain; but Oxford was something of a Mecca even for Americans in the early period of Ryle's editorship, although the pendulum eventually swung in the opposite direction.) In spite of the growth of the philosophy industry, Ryle edited Mind with the minimum of fuss, though not exactly as Moore had done. When I took over Ryle relied on a part-time secretary, but had more or less no other support; correspondence generally took the form of brief and crisp typewritten notes.
3He read all contributions himself and made all the decisions by himself, without seeking advice from anyone else, except, as he told me, in the case of papers on technical issues of logic. He also carried out all the business of proof-correcting and the like by himself. He also gave his reasons for his decisions. When I took over I did the same in spite of some advice from elsewhere to the contrary. While contributors do not always agree with the reasons offered for the rejection of papers, most appreciate the fact that they are given, and Ryle's practice in this respect was one that I gladly continued. When an editor functions in this way by him or herself there are no doubt likely to be some mistakes, and sometimes quite distinguished people have to be faced when the editor thinks for some reason that their work is unsatisfactory. On the other hand, when papers are commissioned, as perhaps they rarely were in Ryle's time, there is no choice but to accept what is sent in; Ryle was definite about that. There used to be a story which was passed around that someone once said to Ryle that he had heard that he used to make a decision about a submission after reading the first two pages; whereupon Ryle was said to have replied that this was only in the early days and that later he read only the first page. It has the spirit of a Rylean remark, but I doubt whether it was true. I myself came to see an element of truth in it; one could generally see early on something of the quality of the paper. But I myself never made the actual decision without reading it all, and I am sure the same was true of Ryle.
4A consequence of all this is that, unlike what must be the case with journals run by an editorial board (a function never performed by the executive committee of the Mind Association), the character of Mind was determined by the editor, as indeed was the appearance of the journal. (There were frequent requests by members of the Mind Association that the journal's grey and rather dowdy appearance should be changed, but Ryle had for some reason an affection for it, and though he sometimes went through the motions of considering the matter, he never did anything about it.) I think that he knew that I would change the look of the journal when I took over, and he gracefully accepted the fact. (One of the first requests which I received from the Managing Director of the Aberdeen University Press which printed the journal was that I should bring the appearance of the journal into the 20th century !) Whatever the appearance of the journal, its contents were never a close reflection of Ryle's own philosophical views, though contributors, as I discovered myself when I became Editor, naturally send their papers where they suppose they will get a sympathetic philosophical response. Moreover, when The Concept of Mind was published it attracted such an interest that discussion of Rylean themes was natural also. But Ryle's editorial policy was of a piece with the other concerns that he had at the time and which I mentioned earlier — the encouragement of younger philosophers and the provision of the means to further the subject through their academic careers. He told me when I took over that he tried to publish the first piece that a young philosopher submitted to him, whatever happened after that to subsequent submissions. I must confess that my own experience with my first publication in 1951 is consistent with that. I now find it unreadable and unconscionably tortuous, but Ryle accepted it without any fuss whatever, apart from one thing. I had put in what I thought was the statutory note of thanks to the editor, but he would have none of that !
5Ryle always liked short pieces and abhorred footnotes (as The Concept of Mind and other Rylean publications indicate). He thought that it was possible to deal with most philosophical issues in a paper which it would take not much more than half an hour to read, and the paraphernalia of scholarship were, with a few exceptions, foreign to how he thought that the subject should be pursued. When I was preparing the centenary number of Mind I asked him to write something for it. He produced a piece entitled 'Improvisation', which was in its way a contribution to the series of papers concerned with thinking that he was involved with at the time. I asked him if he could add something more editorial and he produced as an addendum to the original paper a piece entitled 'Ex-editorial afterword' which was a diatribe about philosophers' use of initials to refer to philosophical positions or the like — such as TMA for Third Man Argument. That kind of avoidance of technicality or pseudo-technicality was very close to his heart, and it was central to how he thought philosophy should proceed. I fear that that battle now seems lost, with the closer assimilation of philosophy to what is supposed to be science, particularly in American eyes.
6The emphasis on brevity led to an encouragement of the idea of the discussion-note, and what gradually became evident in Mind was the number of discussion-notes that were published in it by comparison with substantial articles. That was also another way of encouraging young philosophers who, he said, often had enough of an idea to fill a short note without having sufficient to make up a main article. That view of things held good even more in relation to books, and while Ryle held sway philosophically it was the article rather than the book which was the main philosophical tool, and the shorter the article the better. It was this sort of policy which led to the view that Mind under Ryle lost the Olympian standing which it had under Moore, though I doubt whether Ryle himself would have agreed. He would have thought that the policy that he had adopted was better for the subject. When I took over, I fear that I cut down the number of discussionnotes that were published, though I generally tried to keep them to about half a dozen.
7Still, it cannot be denied that Ryle did have certain eccentricities in his editorial policy. When I was about to take over my secretary and I were invited to go to see him in Oxford. I have no idea whether I would have been his choice of successor — perhaps not — but he was kindness itself, and at a dinner given to him after one of the Joint Sessions of the Mind Association and Aristotelian Society at Hull he made a speech in which his references to me could not have been more graceful. At the meeting in Oxford, apart from explaining how the editing and production of the journal usually went, including relations with the publishers, Basil Blackwell (indeed he took us to see Basil Blackwell himself), and the printers, Aberdeen University Press (who, incidentally, had printed Mind since its beginnings, while the publishers had changed), he gave some indications of things that determined his editorial decisions. He said, for example, that, except for Greek Philosophy, he tended not to accept papers on the history of philosophy, and he also said something about what was normally the desirable maximum length of papers. I must say that I found what he had to say on the first point rather odd, though he was absolutely right on the second. When I edited the journal I often had to ask contributors to shorten papers, and most, though not all, were willing to agree.
8I fear, however, that this point about the length of papers represents another battle now lost, as does the point about technicality; most papers in contemporary journals, including the present-day Mind, seem to me too long and too concerned with technicality, often thereby missing the central philosophical issues.
9One point that distinguishes Ryle's editorship is that he probably knew most, if not all, those who submitted papers to him. This was in part a consequence of the 'headmaster' role that he played in Oxford, and thereby, because of the dominance of Oxford philosophy at any rate in the earlier part of his editorship, of Anglo-Saxon philosophy generally. It has often been remarked that Ryle had some interest in continental philosophy, particularly Husserl, though in conversation he could be cutting about some things that went on in the name of philosophy, particularly perhaps in France. (He could be very entertaining about the attempts to bring British and French philosophers together at Royaumont.) He also had very definite views about any philosopher, including British philosophers, whom he thought boring or pretentious. These attitudes were generally, however, a product of an acquaintance with those concerned, not mere prejudice, whether or not he was right in adopting them. The Editor of Mind is by reason of his office a member of the Mind Association Executive Committee which meets at the Joint Sessions of the Mind Association and Aristotelian Society, the main philosophical conference held in July each year, and is responsible together with the parallel committee of the Aristotelian Society for determining the programmes of the conferences, including those invited to give papers. Ryle was a regular attender of these conferences and was willing to talk to anyone there. This, therefore, provided a means of getting to know philosophers, particularly younger philosophers, from outside Oxford, apart from those who sought him when visiting Oxford (and this was especially important, given the tendency of Oxford philosophers not to go to Joint Sessions, except perhaps to hear or discuss Oxford papers). The period in which Ryle began his editorship was one, as I have already indicated, when hosts of philosophers from Englishspeaking countries (and occasionally elsewhere) visited Oxford. But Ryle was, in any case, well acquainted with what had been going on at Cambridge under the influence of Wittgenstein, and he was equally well acquainted with much that was going on in the USA. I suspect that few editors have had the benefit of so much knowledge of that kind.
10How did all this affect the contents of Mind ? It is difficult to be sure, except that, as Geoffrey Warnock remarked in the centenary number of the journal, many of the contributions accepted came from less well-known names than had perhaps previously been the custom. I suppose that the majority of the papers had an attitude to philosophy which was in a broad sense 'Rylean', in that they were part of what has come to be called, perhaps misleadingly, analytical philosophy. But they were rarely Rylean in a narrow sense; Ryle was never concerned to propagate his own views. Soon after I took over the editorship I received a letter from someone from what shall be a nameless country in Europe, saying that he was giving up his subscription to the journal because it had become a 'generalist' journal. I did not really understand the point, but he must have seen some common purpose in Ryle's Mind. If that purpose was a philosophical one it is difficult to see what it was. If any criticisms of the journal were made to me when I took over it was that it did not take sufficient account of what was becoming the rule in English-speaking philosophy because of what was by then the increasing influence of American philosophers. This is not the place for any diagnosis of that phenomenon, but I suppose that even if, as Warnock allowed, the pages of Mind were fully open to Americans, the journal might still be mainly regarded as a British one. (For my part I think that the pendulum has now swung too far in this respect also...). However that may be, the circulation of Mind must certainly have increased to a vast extent during Ryle's editorship and the same is true of the number of putative contributions. When I took over, Ryle left me with a back-log of two years' worth of accepted material, and I used to receive roughly one paper a day of new material to consider. Even allowing for the natural tendency of people to try out a new editor, I do not think that the situation can have been vastly different at the end of Ryle's editorship. In that sense, even if Mind did lose its Olympian status under Ryle it gained in circulation and standing as a place to which new contributors (and some old ones, though these now had other places in which to publish) could send their papers.
11Over reviews I doubt whether Ryle had any substantial policy except to try to see worthy books reviewed and to commission longer critical notices of books which he thought to be of particular note. There is of course a large element of subjectivism in such decisions and I remember that when we went to see him on my taking over the editorship he pointed to one particular book which he was going to put aside without commissioning a review of it saying that he thought that the author was boring. No doubt many such decisions were a matter for argument, but an editor had to make such decisions because publishers send far more books for possible review than can possibly be acted on. There is also the further point, as I soon discovered, that many academics are extremely unreliable about actually producing reviews. An editor has to build up a dossier of people who can be relied on in this respect and a corresponding list of those who cannot. This explains to some extent why some books are never reviewed and why in other cases a review seems unconscionably delayed. My own view is that it is just bad manners for authors to complain publicly about such matters, as it is equally bad manners for them to complain publicly about the contents of reviews, whatever private thoughts they may have on these subjects, unless there is clear evidence of systematic prejudice in the reviews policy of the journal.
12I make this last point because of the controversy that occurred when the accusation was made, and supported by Russell, that Ernest Gellner's Words and Things was not reviewed in Mind because of an attempt to suppress criticism. As Geoffrey Warnock said in the article on Ryle's editorship previously referred to, it is difficult to think of 'anyone in reference to whom that allegation would be more grossly absurd'. I do not know what was the explanation of the failure to review that book; it could have been because of one of a number of things, including some that I have mentioned above. Warnock was, however, right in what he said about the issue. Suppression of criticism was never something that was likely to enter Ryle's mind. As I have repeatedly said, the overriding consideration in Ryle's editorship was what was likely to benefit the profession of philosophy.
13I do not think that there is any doubt that Ryle enjoyed editing Mind. He even enjoyed what some would consider the more tedious chores that result from editorship, like proof-correcting (something that he tended to go on doing with things he was asked to read even when he had given up the editorship — a habit which I, from my own experience, can well understand !). I think too that he was reluctant to give up the job, although it has to be said that many thought, though perhaps with no very good reason except the belief that a change was required, that he had gone on too long. If Mind changed when I took over, and kept for a period which was approximately half the length of Ryle's editorship, it would have been, apart from differences in particular judgements, because of a different sensitivity to the way in which philosophy was going and my belief that, although furthering the careers of young philosophers was an important consideration, it was not necessarily the vital consideration in promoting the overriding aim of the journal — the pursuit of philosophy via philosophical argument. But that too was close to Ryle's heart. The style of argument was no doubt one that was characteristic of the period, but it was none the worse for that. One of the curiosities of philosophy, I fear, is the way in which beliefs about what constitutes an adequate philosophical argument also change. There can be no doubt, however, that, as I said at the beginning, Ryle's editorship of Mind was a most distinguished one. If it was not as Olympian as Moore's this was largely because the institutional geography which underlaid the subject had changed in a way that made an Olympus less obvious. Philosophy was now a bigger subject, as was the number of philosophers taking part in it. But that too was something in which Ryle had a major part to play.
