|
 |
Philosophy Looks at Chess
Edited by Benjamin Hale
Reviewed by
Rick Kennedy
Open Court, 2008
ISBN: 978-0812696332
softcover, 236 pages |
Would you like a great think?
No, I don’t mean thumbing through Richard
Palliser’s new book on the Siclian Najdorf, playing through a game annotated
by Robert Hübner, or reading one of Jonathan Rowson’s tomes – they’re all
challenging, for sure. I’m talking about something that is truly
mind-expanding.
Editor Benjamin Hale has gathered together
a wide range of deep thoughts in a dozen essays. They are bracketed at
the front by a look at the type of chess problem known as “retrograde
analysis” (a suitable lead-off) composed by a chess-playing philosopher; and
at the back by a reflection (a different kind of retrograde analysis) on the
act of seriously playing chess in a culture that does not take players
seriously, by an International Master turned philosopher.
|
 |
In between, authors discuss notions of
“artificial intelligence” – and by that they mean “artificial human
intelligence” – as well as chess’ appropriateness as its model. They
ponder our understanding of the concept of “understanding,” and in the
process the “Turing Test” (i.e. in a conversation with a person and with a
machine, if the speaker cannot tell one from the other, the machine has
passed the test) for example, seems to have been superseded by the “Chinese
room argument” (i.e. a person in a room receives a note in Chinese,
translates it using a two-language dictionary, and returns this response –
can the person be said to “understand” Chinese?) |
| The “chess as language” analogy is debated
as well, although, perhaps not surprisingly, without any reference to the
experience of the Polgar sisters. So, too, are the concepts of “games”
(described elsewhere as "passionate, profound, intense, and
dominating," Wittgenstein would have made an interesting chess master)
and “discourse”. For a while, as well, it looks like chess gallops to
the rescue of the Jesuits, at least in matters of ethics. |
.jpg) |
|
 |
Does “1.e4” mean something profoundly
different to GM Maurice Ashley than it does to GM Andy Soltis? IS Gary
Kasparov a cyborg??
It’s all heady stuff, but not beyond the
grasp of a serious pawnpusher. If philosophy is your thing, or if you
just like to argue (brilliantly) over beer and skittles – you might want to
give Philosophy Looks at Chess a try.
|
Introduction
-
To Know the Past One Must First Know the Future:
Raymond Smullyan and the Mysteries of Retrograde Analysis by Bernd
Graefrath
-
A Deep Blue Grasshopper: Playing Games With Artificial
Intelligence by Andy Miah
-
Playing Chess in the Chinese Room by Tama Coutts
-
Gary Kasparov Is a Cyborg; or What ChessBase Teaches Us
About Technology by John Hartmann
-
Chess-Playing Computers and Embodied Grandmasters: In
What Ways Does the Difference Matter? by Evan Selinger
-
The Difficult Ways of God and Caïssa: Chess, Theodicy,
and Determinism in Gadamer by Bill Martin
-
Who Plays Games in Philosophy? by Ahti-Veikko
Pietarinen
-
Hip-Hop Tactics: A Culturalogic Expressioin of the
African Aesthetic’s Role in Determining the Basis of Creativity on the
Sixty-Four Squares of Warfare by Tommy J. Curry
-
Quiet, Please! There’s a Game Here: Discourse and
Silence in the Formal Pragmatics of a Chess Match by Benjamin Hale
-
Causistry and Chess: Some Methodological Lessons for
Ethics by Peter Morriss
-
Chess Is Not a Game by Deborah P. Vossen
-
The Reviled Art by Stuart Rachaels
Contributors
Index
|
Chessville
logo by
ChessPrints
Ranked #1 by Google
"largest chess database''
The
Chessville
Chess Store
The
Chessville
Weekly
Newsletter
Subscribe
Today -
It's Free!!
The
Chessville
Weekly
Archives
Advertise
with
Chessville!!
Advertise to
thousands
of
chess
fans
for
as little
as $25.
Single insert:
$35
x4 insert:
@ $25 each
|
