[lit-ideas] Re: Teaching Chess to the Illiterate Deaf
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 14:45:30 -0400
Eric Yost wrote:
"Pawns do have standardized initial locations, from a to h along the second
rank on each player's side of the board."
That may or may not be the case but the question was whether one could use
the concept of a pawn without using a name. Clearly the above description
uses a name. My argument is that there can be no 'standardized initial
locations' without using a name.
Eric continues:
"The rules are the moves. It's what you do with the rules that are the
strategy and tactics of chess."
Rules are not moves. Rules determine what constitutes a move in chess.
Moving a pawn backgrounds is a move but not a move in chess. There is no
move for winning a game though there is a rule concerning what constitutes a
winning move.
Eric again:
"I can easily imagine someone gesturing across the second rank--say to an
illiterate deaf person--and indicating the moves possible. Similarly when
the deaf person made a mistake in learning the moves, one would pat his or
her hand, gesture "no," and indicate the possible legal moves. By
repetition, the deaf person could became a strong and competent player
without having a single name for any of the pieces, or without even having
names for special cases like "en passant," "pawn promotion," "queenside
castling," etc. Now this illiterate deaf person could teach other
illiterate deaf people how to play chess because he or she had internalized
the rules of playing chess."
A name, though, need not be something that must be heard or read. Somehow
the illiterate deaf person must be able to identify the different pieces,
understood according to the rules of playing chess, regardless of their
shape or position on the board. It is my argument that such an
identification is the function of naming. That is, a name is not a tag we
hang on a concept but rather a constitutive element of the use of that
concept. It is the functioning of a name that allows the pawn to be a pawn
even after it has been moved from its starting position.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Toronto, ON
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