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

  • From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:00:39 -0400

Eric Yost wrote:

"[A coin toss to decide who plays white is] part of the international
rules of tournament chess; not a way of talking about chess, but part of
the formal rules of tournament play."

How is it not a way of talking about chess?  It is one way of deciding
who plays white.  The decision has to be made or the game can't be
played.  It is the initiation of game play.  That is talking about
chess.  How the decision is made will differ, but that does not alter
the fact that the decision must be made for the game to be played.

Eric Yost wrote:

"Betting a million dollars on a pawn promotion is outside of the game of
chess because the game could go on with or without it, and it is
extraneous to the goals of the game itself whether for black or white."

Could the game go on if the pawn could not move two squares forward on
its first move?  if it could not be promoted?  if it could only capture
a piece immediately in front of it?  Surely the criterion of 'Could the
game go on with or without it?' is not suitable here because the game
could, with virtually any range of changes, still go on.

Returning to the point I wanted to originally make, there is no way of
distinguishing constituent and secondary concepts.  Such a distinction
is necessarily made apart from the use of the concepts in question.  To
make the distinction between constituent and secondary concepts is to
engage in a different activity leaving open the question of how the
distinction relates to the original activity.  The decision that the
coin toss is not a way of talking about chess is not itself part of
talking about chess.  What we encounter here is the fundamental problem
of what Heidegger called onto-theology.  Onto-theology claims to have
access to a deeper/higher/truer/clearer realm that articulates the true
nature of things.  On this account, there is the game of chess, and then
there is the true account, in this case the division of concepts into
constituent and secondary, of what is going on in the playing of the
game.  The problem is that it is not at all clear how such an account is
deeper/higher/truer/clearer.


Sincerely,

Phil Enns
Toronto, ON

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