Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) was a prominent British philosopher and a leading figure in the Oxford philosophy, or ordinary language, movement. He entered Oxford as a student in 1924 and stayed here throughout his academic career. He was a Senior Member of Linacre House, before it became Linacre College, and, worried about the new institution’s lack of a library, donated many of his own books. When he passed away, there was a further bequest of his papers including letters and miscellaneous notes extracted from the volumes in his library.
When we refurbished the Linacre Library in 2022, we also created a purpose-built room within the Library for the Ryle Collection to be housed, protecting these items for the future. Since then, we have had interest from researchers studying Ryle with several academics visiting the Collection to further their research. We are committed to making the collection as accessible as possible and would like to further promote the resource within the academic community.
We are currently undertaking a review of the whole of the Gilbert Ryle Special Collection with the help of an external conservator. The aim is to look at past research and to make use of this valuable information by making it more accessible. We want to check all holdings against the catalogues, review items with annotations and add this information to the item record, identify the most important items, prioritise conservation, and link themes across the collection. This would give us a deeper understanding of the Gilbert Ryle Collection and enable us to share this information more effectively.
To do this thoroughly, we will require further funds, so this is one of many things you could be supporting by giving to the Linacre Library Fund.
