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

Walter wrote:

I would have thought that the question to follow from Robert's thought
experiment is whether the two can still be said to be playing chess.
It seems clear they are playing a game. While hitchhiking through France,
my friend and I would play mental chess to pass the time between cars on
lonely stretches of road. I suppose that instead of saying "PXB" we could
use a gesture and grunt of some sort, after devising a language for this -
a language that would house the relevant concepts and names. We would be
playing chess since the signs in our language corresponded to, accorded
with the rules of chess.

I would have thought the same thing and was puzzled by Wittgenstein's question at the end. If there are rules of projection that lead unambiguously from moves and situations to yelling and stamping, what they do would not be what one might mistake for a Kant seminar, but a game of chess. If one can get from 'ordinary chess' to yelling and stamping, then the converse should be true. Would we though say that this was an odd way to _play_ chess or an odd form _of_ chess?

I don't think I have any stake in the outcome, although I suppose one could suggest that the yelling and stamping go on withought 'names.' This is though a hypothesis.

Robert Paul
Reed College


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