[lit-ideas] Re: Sounds right to me
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:55:40 +0700
Eric Dean wrote:
"Finally, the 'meaning' in a game is not to be found by examining the
rules nor even, generally, in examining how the rules constrain the
choices before the players. It is, instead, to be found in how the
players interact with one another through the actions offered by the
rules -- the meaning is in what they're doing, not in syntactic
analysis the rules might offer."
However, consideration of the rules is also part of the game. It
seems to me that Wittgenstein makes the distinction between rules and
actions that follow rules a little less absolute by showing that when
one learns a rule, one is learning how to follow a rule. A rule is
meaningful only in the context of examples of how to follow that rule.
If that is the case, then analyzing the rules might be thought of as
consideration of the examples that constitute a game. One might
consider here the designated hitter in baseball, drug testing, or
instant replay. Each of these involves what I would take to be
something like a syntactic analysis of rules in order to arrive at
decisions regarding what examples of actions do or do not belong to
the game. Each of these brings into discussion the nature of the game
and how the rules of the game relate to each other. Each of these
alters the game through analysis of the rules and examples of the
rules.
I am not sure I can make any sense of there being meaning _in_ a game,
but it seems to me that doing syntactic analysis, or transcendental
deduction, can be meaningful insofar as it involves reflection on what
examples are to count as being examples. Furthermore, and continuing
with the analogy of games, denying the role of syntactic analysis
seems to deny the manner in which games are intentionally changed in
order to bring about specific results.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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