a game of chess

A Game of Chess

I want to explicate the game of chess as an exemplar of the basic structure as socially constituted.  I am not making special claims for the game of chess, per se, except to say that it is familiar enough that one can lay bare one or two crucial points.  The first point, one that I have already made, is that any particular game is governed by intentionality, and the moves in the game are instrumental to that end.  The whole game, of course, is arbitrary -- that is to say, it could have been otherwise -- and one could easily imagine a history of the game where the rules and expectations of play might have had one trying to capture the queen, not the king.  The arbitrariness of chess suggests what might be called its intermediacy -- that is to say, the game in its entirety serves the purpose of another intentionality, which in turn suggests a basic structure for the intentional as we might typically understand it, a point I will return to later.  In the end, however, there is nothing or little in chess or its governing intentionality that might suggest a "natural" or a "basic" need.  Once engaged in a game of chess, however, checkmate becomes the governing intentionality, and one makes moves to arrive at a state of affairs, a condition of the world (at least that portion of it represented by the chess board) that "counts as" checkmate.

Here it might be useful to note that in chess one has an opponent.  While it strains credulity a bit to think that the originating framers of the game could imagine a situation where the opponent is a machine, it is not particularly difficult for us, in this day and age, to imagine the same, and so it is not necessary to think of one's opponent as another subjectivity beyond the confines of the game, but it is necessary to this of it as subject to the same imperative to reach checkmate.  In this respect, I and my opponent are the same, and when I think of my opponent, I think of him it in terms of a "desire" to reach checkmate, knowing full well that it is, so to speak, merely a programmed desire captured in its hardware and software.  If we confine ourselves to the game, and only the game, it is unnecessary to think of one's opponent in any other way -- unnecessary to think of one's opponent as anything other than an automaton -- but of course we do think of our human opponents in other ways, and this too suggests the intermediacy of chess.  In a tournament setting, for example, the game itself might well be instrumental to the additional end of receiving the cash prize and the recognition that comes of being a "winner."  It is the intermediacy of chess, as a social constituted game, that allows for its instrumental application to another governing intentionality, and here again of course the instrumental act may have more or less utility relative to that end.  One might, for example, lose the match and fail to gain either the prize money or the recognition, in part because lacks cognitive capacity relative to one's opponent.

Here too, it might be useful to note that one's opponent is actively trying to prevent one from achieving checkmate or, perhaps more precisely, is attempting to reach checkmate first.  It is presumptive to the game, and allows one rationalize the opponent -- that is to say, to ask "why?" of its moves and assign a "because" to it.  This is not so much a psychological claim as a logical claim.  One does not necessarily proceed through the game asking "why did he move his pawn there?" and answering one's own inquiry, "ah because he wanted to threaten my knight and weaken my attack."  Indeed, such questions are often asked and answered, not as running commentary, but retrospectively as explication, but it is sufficient at the moment to note that one can ask and answer such questions if one "knows" the governing intentionality.  Imagine, for example, watching a game of chess, not knowing that the opponents are pursuing checkmate.  One might imagine it as a game, not unlike checkers, where the governing intentionality is to remove the opponents pieces from the board and have the last piece standing.  The game would appear irrational both in its progress and its end, leading one to believe (perhaps) that one missed the point (though not necessarily so).  I am suggesting, of course, that the basic structure "rationalizes" our lives -- provides, as it were, the formal element in a form of life.  This is an important point, and I will advert to it often, but for the moment it is enough to point it out.

Along that line, however, one might expect to find the rules of chess set out, quite literally, in a rule book that defines and prescribes the game.  This need not necessarily be the case for all forms of life, insofar as the instrumental act is chosen, not solely for its utility, but as a signifier to a signified intentionality -- a choice that prescribes limits on those acts potentially instrumental to a given intentionality.  Within chess, however, it is clear enough that the rules of the game -- that is to say, the restrictions on the moves of the various pieces -- rationalize the game in quite another sense.  If there were no limitations on the various pieces and allowable limitations on their moves, the game itself, as a game, is inconceivable.  It is an instructive mental exercise to imagine what a game of chess might be like were there no division of labor, so to speak, among the pieces, and no prescriptive limitations on their movements.  For the players, there is no ontological reason, as it were, to follow the rules and move the bishop only diagonally across the board, but there is a deontological reason to follow the rules.  Once one enters into a game of chess, as a game of chess, one is more or less obliged to abide by the restrictions on the various pieces.  I say "more or less" obliged, because it is always possible to imagine cheating, moving a piece impermissibly, say, when one's opponent is out of the room, but it is only possible to imagine cheating, breaking the rules, if there are rules in the first place, including the rules that set out the governing intentionality of checkmate.  It is likewise an instructive mental exercise to imagine watching a game of chess as a spectator and detecting one of the players in the act of cheating.  One can ask, "why did he cheat as he did?" and answer "because in two moves he will be able to escape his opponents attack and mount his own."  Intentionality, in short, rationalizes even the act of cheating.

One can imagine cheating in a different sense.  Here again, imagine watching a game of chess as a spectator and detecting one of the players in the act of cheating.  One can ask, "why did he cheat as he did?" and answer "because he has set his opponent up for checkmate in two moves.  Clearly he wants to lose!"  One can imagine the same even without "cheating," per se, by choosing moves that lack utility relative to the governing intentionality.  One can still rationalize the act, "because he wished to lose the game," but such a rationalization seems to beg the question and elicit a subsequent "why?" -- the answer to which points to the game's intermediacy, the instrumentality of the game itself within a broader social network of intentionalities -- "because he stands to make less on the prize money than the gambling bets he made on the side."  Insofar as chess is wholly prescribed within the rules of the game, and insofar as one chooses to enter into (or not enter into) the game, both forms of "cheating" are possible.  I am suggesting the difference between a form of cheating that violates the obligation to pursue checkmate -- that violates, so to speak, the given intentionality of the intentional act -- and a form of cheating that violates the obligation to do so within permissible limitations on the pieces -- that violates, so to speak, restrictions on the instrumentality of any instrumental act.

Neither form of cheating is permissible, of course, but the distinction enters into moral and political discourse around a question of banality.  Imagine, for example, a broadly conceived social game, the governing intentionality of which is "the extermination of the jews."  It is not, unfortunately, an uncommon game, and one could conceive it as "the extermination of the sunni muslims," or "ethnic Serbs," or the like.  Given the intentionality, one can further imagine means instrumental to the satisfaction of the given intentionality -- in the case of the social game aimed at the extermination of the jews, an extensive network of labor camps and railways to transport the jews to the labor camps.  Within that, one can imagine Adolf Eichmann, whose governing intentionality was to "keep the trains on schedule," a game that itself involved a range of acts instrumental to its satisfaction.  The banality of evil that Arendt points to is, perhaps, captured in my phrase, "broadly conceived social game."  At one level, of course, I want to argue that "the extermination of the jews" is no different than any other broadly conceived social game, at least insofar as its basic structure is concerned.  It is no different than, say, "maximize corporate profits," though I would also want to argue that the former is morally reprehensible, while the latter is morally neutral, at least within our current moral sensibilities.  We would expect, in other words, those in a position to do so, like Eichmann, to help throw the over-arching game aimed at "the extermination of the jews."  He did not, of course, and continued playing his particular role, "keeping the trains on time," with some managerial competence -- a role that would have been perceived in and of itself as morally neutral had the cargo been, say, potatoes for the troops and not jews for extermination.     

Freedom

Freedom

If the basic structure is meaningful, then it might be useful here to lay out more explicitly the implications for human freedom.  The basic distinction is one between freedom from and freedom to -- not a particularly startling distinction, but one that is often confused, particularly in a discussion of rights and obligations on the social scale.  I will return to both, but for the moment we can look at the basic correspondence between freedom from and intentionality -- that is to say, I must free myself from my subjectivity to the given imperative -- but then too, insofar as I must free myself, I must be free to act instrumentally.

We could look at the basic structure through a slightly different frame, as a matter of choice.  At one level, thinking of this physiologically constituted form of life, I do not choose intentionality.  I do not choose, for example, to become hungry.  I just do, and I must act on that imperative.  We would not normally think of the desire to satisfy an appetite as an obligation, per se, but let us just say that we are more or less obliged to go about the task of finding something that will serve as food.   At another level, thinking of this as a socially constituted form of life, I do choose, for example, to play chess, and in that sense give myself an imperative. There is an artificiality about the given imperative to seek checkmate, and I can simply quit playing at any time, but to do so for most leaves something unfinished. I suppose too that I could go through the motions of seeking checkmate and not really seek checkmate -- engage in a duplicity or hypocrisy -- but insofar as I am going through the motions of chess as a form of life, I am going through the motions of seeking checkmate.  Regardless whether I am given the imperative physiologically or I give the imperative to myself, it is a given imperative none the less.  Once I have chosen to play chess, I am obliged to seek checkmate.  In either case, freedom from the given intentionality predicates a future state, a not-yet, and to be free from predicates a future state of being in which one is no-longer beset with the given intentionality.  As an aside, speaking of the temporal frame implicit within the basic structure, we might think of it as eschatological.  Insofar as intentionality brings me into being and does so recurrently, again and again I grow hungry, and I must free myself from my subjectivity to its imperative recurrently, again and again I must go in seek of food, one can better appreciate the eastern eschatological imperative to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death or the more western imperative to free oneself from the trials and tribulations of this existence for a predicated future state of being once and for all free from subjectivity to intentionality.

Beyond that, neither are we perfectly free to act instrumentally.  The first and perhaps most significant limitation is utility.  While in some respects, I might be free to eat sawdust, eating sawdust will exacerbate, not free me from my subjectivity to my hunger, and in this sense, utility has a sort of prima facia primacy as a first level consideration in choosing how to act.  This is not to suggest that the utility of the act is somehow self-evident or obvious.  If we imagine our hunting-gathering ancestors traipsing into new territory, coming upon an unfamiliar berry, it might suggest itself as food, but we might also imagine some hesitation, some trepidation among those who first raise it to their lips.  Not all things that suggest themselves as food turn out to be good for food.  For the moment, I don't want to make too much or too little of utility, and I am clearly considering it from an individual perspective where the proof is in the pudding so to speak -- whether or not it frees me from my subjectivity to the given intentionality.  As an aside, however, utility, this differentiation between those acts good for (over against all those not good for) the satisfaction of a given intentionality, also implies a primitive sort of semanticity.  If we consider hunger, for example, we come into being within a world already divided between those things which have utility as food (and many others things that do not have utility as food).  The dividing line between food (and all that is not-food) may not be immediately obvious, but the dividing line is there, is discoverable, and the objects of the world fall into place on one side or the other of the line.  I am suggesting, in other words, that intentionality brings me into being, but it is being already meaningful.

The second limitation is capability.  If utility relates to intentionality, whether or not a particular act satisfies my intentionality, capability relates to instrumentality, the range of acts available to me.   Here again, given my physiology, eating sawdust might not have much utility as food for me, but I do have the capacity to eat sawdust.  I could choose to eat sawdust, even though it would not have much utility, in ways that I simply cannot choose to flap my arms and fly, even though flying might have considerable utility on a number of occasions.  If we enlarge the discussion a bit, placing it in a more modern political economy, the distinction between utility and capacity takes on a greater significance.  For example, there are acts that might have perfect utility in the alleviation of an appetite -- e.g. stopping by a restaurant, ordering up some food, and eating it.  In some theoretical sense, I also have the human capacity to do so.  There is nothing in my make up as a human being that prevents me from ordering up food in a restaurant in the way that my physiology prevents flight without considerable mechanical help.  I can read the menu, speak clearly enough to get my preferences across to the wait staff, and in this sense, I have the given capacity to order up food and I am perfectly free to do so, supposing I have the money.  Because I am a bit impecunious at the moment, however, I lack what might be called the contingent capacity.  I am not free to engage in an act that otherwise would have considerable utility in freeing me from my hunger.  Here again, for the moment, I don't want to make too much or too little of capacity, and I am clearly considering it from an individual perspective where the proof remains in the pudding -- whether or not I have at my disposal the means to free myself from subjectivity to the given intentionality.

All of which brings us to the third limitation, contingency.  If intentionality brings us into being, it brings us into being here and now, into a contingency that is not of my choosing.   This, of course, is the existential conundrum.  We come into being as one who grows hungry, but what one can do and how one can do it are limited within the here and now.  I am not wholly free to act as I might want to act.  One can easily enough imagine being born into a famine where that which might have utility to alleviate my hunger is simply not available, or where I lack the capacity to engage in those means available to others and resort to other means -- e.g. rummaging through the dumpsters behind the restaurant.  As much as I might want to be the person in the restaurant, not behind the restaurant, I cannot choose to be other than who I am, such as I am, where I am, when I am.  There is much to say about contingency, and most post-structuralist philosophy is an examination of contingency -- what it means, so to speak, to be present in a world already meaningful, where the "already" points to being before and beyond my being, and my intentionality is felt, if I may pun a bit, a hole in what is whole -- a lack that must be filled -- a not-yet that must be fulfilled.  I am free to, but not perfectly free to, fulfill myself from within a given contingency, and there is of course a great injustice, a great inequity in contingency, one that will be repaired in the end times.