[lit-ideas] Re: Language, Justice and Social Practices (long)

  • From: Walter Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:34:16 -0230 (NDT)

I'm happy to refer to the "concept" of a chess pawn, rook, etc., in answer
to Eric's question. But I don't think one can learn to play chess without
learning the names of the pieces. The name identifies the set of
inferential relations given by the concept. So the name "pawn" refers to
its rules of play: capturing, original position, etc.. I don't think
locational notation of moves denies this. For "e2-e4" refers to some piece
on the board and it serves in the identification of which piece we mean.

Phil responds to Eric (edited):

> people who play chess, the game of chess comes to be identified with
> being civilized.  All children are taught chess and the moves of chess
> come to be identified with higher culture.  (This would be roughly
> similar to the role of the lottery in Borges' "The Lottery in Babylon".)
> When one captures a piece with a pawn, one gains social standing
> according to the piece captured and the one who loses a piece to a pawn,
> loses accordingly.  Here the concept of the pawn has a meaning more
> expansive than given by Eric and yet it still makes sense to talk about
> these people moving the pawn in a game of chess.
>
> If the above example makes sense, then it is not clear what Eric could
> mean by 'learning the concept of "pawn"' without the name "pawn".  In
> order to fix what is the 'concept of "pawn"', one would have to know
> what people mean by the word "pawn" because there could be no way of
> knowing whether one is using the word as the colonizers do or as the
> colonized.  Put differently, Eric assumes a sufficient description of
> the concept of 'pawn' but it isn't at all clear that there can be such a
> description because there is no way of determining which use of the word
> is sufficient.  The name 'pawn', or its equivalent, is not simply a flag
> for a concept but rather a necessary part of understanding the concept.

W:I'm not sure what Phil's example adds to the claim I am defending
that a concept needs a name in some symbolic form or other. I
understand Phil to be agreeing with my claim. (This by the
way is not exactly the original topic of discussion, as far as I can see.
I suggested that feelings and emotions are not possible independent of a
conceptual network (language). I later put it much too broadly, as Phil
correctlt pointed out. Only certain feelings and moods are so
constituted.) Whether "pawn" is conceptually individuated by the rules of
chess or whether "pawn" also includes the socio-cultural implications
identified by Phil, it remains the case that one needs to understand the
concept of a pawn to make a chess move with it and a name in some form or
another would seem to be required.

Cheers, Walter
Memorial U


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