On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Phil Enns wrote: > Eric Yost wrote: > > "Does it make sense to say that within the game of chess, there are > constituent concepts, and the possible moves of the pieces on the second > rank form one concept? And that this concept can be grasped without > naming those pieces on the second rank? Or is the very act of referring > to "pieces on the second rank" a form of naming-by-location? What do you > think?" W: Let me make a few stabs at that, if I'm understanding Eric right here. I would say that the concept of a pawn is a constituive concept of the game of chess (as we presently understand it.) The concept of a pawn remains the same regardless of where pawns are located on the board. Knowing the original position of a pawn is only part of the concept of a pawn, clearly. In the course of a game, other pieces besides pawns may end up on the second rank, so without a name for the paticular piece involved, the location won't tell you anything other than where to look to find the piece being referred to. > I am not sure I understand Eric. Dividing concepts into constituent and > 'second rank' is not itself a part of the playing of chess but a way of > talking about chess. W: I think that by "constituent" (what I'm refering to as "constitutive") Eric is differentiating the term from regulative. "Second rank" refers to the second horizontal row of squares on a board. >Not that there is even here a clear distinction. > A good example given by Wittgenstein is whether the process of deciding > who plays first is or is not part of the game. Is this a constituent, > second rank or even a concept within the game? I would argue that games > are not comprised of constituent elements though there may be elements > that we can't imagine not being part of any particular game. One > example might be the forward pass in American football, an innovation > that has come to be central to the game today but was not present in the > game's early days. To make my argument even more confusing, I would be > willing to argue that discussing the rules of a game is itself part of > the game, though not a case of playing the game. The debate and > decision concerning the forward pass was about the game yet radically > altered the game. This would be an instance where the naming of the > rules of the game fundamentally altered the playing of the game. What > needs to be avoided is the idea that there are constituent elements that > are identified by and give meaning to names. > W: Lot of things can be part of the game of chess. I prefer a couple of drams of Talisker, myself. But scotch is not a constituive feature of chess (as we know it today); you can play it without the scotch (people tells me). The name "pawn" refers to its constituive rules of play. Or its inferential relations, as I have been putting it. )I.e.: the pawn can't capture the piece directly in front of it, because of the rule of capturing governing its play on the board. We can certainly make changes to the game, but then it wouldn't be chess as we understand it. The rules of chess are constitutive of the game, not regulative. Similarly, the social significances that comes to be attached to chess are not part of the rules constituting chess. > Eric continues: > > "I'm not sure I understand what Phil means by assigning an external, > cultural significance to "pawn." If every time I promote a pawn, I get a > million dollars, that's either (a) outside of the game of chess, or (b) > a local redefinition of the game of chess into some other game." W: I vote for Eric on that point. > The question I would raise is how Eric identifies something as an > external significance when it is part of the playing of the game. W: Some parts are adventitious to the game, such as the examples you have given. Eric is correct, I believe, when he remarks that the game of chess could be played without those parts. Phil's position here is somewhat confusing in that on the one hand, he grants that something being part of the game may be distinct from actually playing the game, but on the other hand he fudges the distinction with the expression "part of the playing of the game." The latter distinction conflates the valid distinction between the constitutive rules of chess and the contingently acquired, adventitious associations people and groups bring to the game. (I'm presently working out an account of the necessary conditions required for playing the game of giving reasons and the ways in which moral conceptions are derived from that game. So all of Phil's points here are quite germane.) Cheers, Walter President, Icelandic Chess Federation (Nizhniy Cherkask Chapter) ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html