tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post2503101861834796164..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: WinningAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-16777584381585753642009-05-20T16:13:46.647-05:002009-05-20T16:13:46.647-05:00I'm starting to believe in Kantinan anomolies read...I'm starting to believe in Kantinan anomolies reading this :)Just another mad Catholichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10503510474554718305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-85430446058607834282009-05-20T07:45:11.380-05:002009-05-20T07:45:11.380-05:00My own view of language is much more instrumental ...My own view of language is much more instrumental than practice-based (basically: it's just a tool for causing others to have the true beliefs I do, etc.--the "etc" is hard to work out), but it is too inchoate to express.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-27950394499067017602009-05-20T07:41:33.268-05:002009-05-20T07:41:33.268-05:00I don't think it's any less puzzling how we can as...I don't think it's any less puzzling how we can as a group create an end than how we can individually create an end. Anyway, a single person can design and write a computer game and then play it, with no one else involved. Happens quite commonly. So even if some games, like checkers, have socially maintained rules, that is not essential to the nature of a game.<br /><br />Nonetheless, if the games are socially maintained, that leaves one additionally thing to be explained: <EM>What it is to be a participant.</EM> On the other hand, on my view, to be a participant is simply to create that end for oneself. <br /><br />Of course, one can create that end by reference to rules that are already existent. But notice that there is a whole slew of options here. I can choose to play with a friend by the rules of the American Checkers Federation. Or I can choose to play with a friend by the rules of the American Checkers Federation with such-and-such a local modification. I can even choose to play by a set of rules that are not socially defined by anybody: maybe there is a piece of paper on which monkeys have typed up something that looks like a set of rules, and I can adopt that as my rules. (I can even do that without having read the rules.) I think we should handle these cases uniformly, and the individual approach lets me do that.<br /><br />In the case of Catch, I guess there is a success condition: to catch as many times as you can. <br /><br />Still, my account does leave a puzzle: What is the difference between the following two types of failure--breaking the rules and losing? I could simply assimilate breaking the rules to losing, but that's a bit strained.<br /><br />Maybe one can distinguish between two kinds of success conditions as follows: those whereupon one no longer has any end left (as when one has checkmated one's opponent) and those whereup one still has an end left (as when one has caught in Catch, but there is still more catching to do).Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-48062359144519431422009-05-20T06:54:18.052-05:002009-05-20T06:54:18.052-05:00I’ve thought about the same question but come to a...I’ve thought about the same question but come to a different conclusion. My thoughts were initially inspired by Wittgenstein on games and rule-following.<br /><br />Games have rules. It is a mistake to think that these rules are the creations of individuals, especially every time they sit down to play. Rather, the rules are socially maintained: “we” set the rules. That is the Wittgensteinian observation. But games also tend to have a point or telos. In checkers, for example, it is bringing it about that your opponent has no move; in chess it is checkmate. The point of the game is also not an individual creation, it too is socially maintained. These two sorts of guidelines, rules and telos, are of course two different ways of being guided in other endeavors too, e.g. the moral life. <br /><br />I think this observation has some consequences for philosophy of language too, a la Wittgenstein again. There are plenty of people ready to understand language as a system of rules. But we lose something if we fail to understand that language has a point, too. And not merely that token utterances have points, i.e. that there are speech acts. Rather, the whole institution of language has a point. I think this is the starting point for a correspondence theory of truth.<br /><br />As far as the definition of ‘game’ goes, I think there are games without goals. (Witt is good on this too.) Playing catch has (loose) rules but there is no sense of winning to it.Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.com