The Philosophy of Chess

[Mutakalim]

Hi folks

 

The following is a post regarding the phenomenology of chess; it is written by a freind of mine. You can find this article on the Philosophy Forum. A basic understanding of existentialism would help.....

 

 

Chess and metaphysics, no no, don't run away, at least not just yet (run after you saw the length of forthcoming post ). I know that this choice of subject has a chance of finding a very little audience. People who are interested in metaphysics might not give a iota about chess and people interested in chess might cringe at the sound of metaphysics. But maybe here there is something here for chessl overs as well as metaphysicians

 

I was wondering about this question: Does the game of chess have any philosophical value? There certainly are many books on 'psychology and chess', but not much on philosophy and chess. I found some bits and pieces and some worth wile insights on the connection between chess and life. Especially the Arabs were fond of chess and connected it to the world. One of the most known ones is this poem:

 

"'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays. "

- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

 

Still a purely philosophical investigation of chess is unknown to me. In this post I want to use the chess game as a metaphor for the world and by doing so shed light on and maybe even find some common ground between the metaphysical views of Nietzsche, Hegel and Heidegger.

 

 

Lets picture the chess game as a model of the world:

"The chess-board is the world,

the pieces are the phenomenon of the Universe,

the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature,

The player on the other side is hidden from us." - T.H. Huxley

 

What can we say about this little world:

I will start with a chessplayer and amateur philosopher. The Dutch grandmaster H. Donner, 1929- 1984.

 

In one of his earlier articles Donner says about chess ''chess is an age-old culture-monument of the ontological conception of truth. Truth in chess is that true is what is as it is''. In chess everything is uncovered, the rules are clear. If you make a game in which knights go like this, bishop like that, and pawns move so and so, than some moves are simply better than others.

 

The future (what is unknown) in this world is made by the opponent. He makes moves, upon which you make moves, the unit of time in chess is the move, with each move we encounter a new world in which again, true is what 'is as it is'.

 

1. Heidegger

 

materialism, Understanding and Fear

 

Now lets take Heideggers materialist philosophy and see if chess can be used as a metaphor for his world. For Heidegger dasein is in-the-world. In chess terms, 'dasein' is the player. The player encounters a position and reflects upon it like dasein reflects on his own being. The chess game itself is the 'concern' of the player. The pieces are its equipment. They are 'ready at hand'. The worldhood of the world, yes that is the chessboard. What happens when we encounter (not playing chess) a chess piece? It is merely present at hand and fills us with conspicuousness. a chesspiece 'belongs' on a chessboard.

 

Likewise when playing chess, we often find we cannot make a move. A piece we need is missing. All of a sudden we become disappointed. the other pieces seem of no use at all, ahhrg why is there no knight on D4! We become angry, just as we become angry at the real world when we cannot find something and dismayed we throw all other things aside.

 

When do we 'see' the chessboard in chess? Precisely, at the end of it. When we have some piece stuck in a corner, yes then we see the finitude of the chess-world. The piece wants to move but cannot, it is trapped, that which is not the world surrounds the world. What is that famous 'nothingness' in Heidegger, that decor on which being shines itself out? That is the opponent. The opponent is unknown. We do not know what he will do and because of that we intently look at our position, trying to find out what he 'might' do. He is not just another Dasein, no way, he is the Other! The frightning one.

 

And the END, what about death in chess? The end in chess is the 'mate' (which means 'death' in Persian) It is symbolised by the contradiction. The King has to move but is not allowed to move.

 

So far things seem to check out. Chess can, with modifications here and there of course, take the role of the world. Can we now conclude that also in the world true is that which is as it is? That the world is only more complex as the chess game, but that in itself it can be 'read' like one?

 

2. Nietzsche

 

Chess as Will, victory

 

Well maybe the world can be read as a chess game, but there is another dimension to 'truth' in chess. In chess 'truth' seems to be simple, like the above suggested. It is not that simple. The chess games have meaning for the players. Chess properly can only be played between meaning giving individuals. Winning and losing means something, but what it means is not in the rules of the game. The rules do not state that winning is preferable to losing, that is what we think. And out of this first attachment of meaning there follows all interpretations of the chess positions.

 

This is the idealistic dimension. In the chess world two 'wills' are opposing each other. What is their aim, their aim is power, absolute power! The power to enforce the contradiction of the 'check mate' on each other. It doesn't matter how this end is achieved. That is why grandmaster Lasker could say ''not the objectively strongest move is the best one, but the one that causes most problems to your opponent''. This is the Nietzschean side of chess.

 

In chess all things are as they are because the players 'willed' it. The positions arise out of Will to Power'. The whole interpretation, the whole essence of the game is that. Without it, there would be no better and worse. Players would just randomly pick a move and there would be no game at all. In chess, the players are themselves beyond Good and Evil, they decide Good and Evil. They keep playing because they know every position has arisen out of what they willed 'Amor Fati' and make the best of it.

 

The players are like 'overmen'. They are playing with their pieces without morals but with an eye for them. A prime example of this 'meaning giving' or interpretative chess is Grandmaster Aaron Nimzowitch who said ''it sounds odd, but for me a pawn has a soul, he has slumbering desires and wishes and I have to understand them and help him on his way''

This sounds odd to people that see chess as mathematics, but to people who play chess as a battle of interpretation it doesn't. The overman will play with humans like men play with chess pieces, Nietzsche might have said.

 

Nietzsche's ideas seem exeptionally well suited for the chess game, but he was describing the world. Chess has stood the test of Nietzschean thinking.

 

 

Hegel

 

Historicity, contradiction and overcoming

 

 

We have now two ways of understanding the chess game. Chess as material, a world governed by natural laws and in which the players uncover truth and chess as will, as a game in which interpretation of one will will triumph over the interpretation of the other. Still a third way of understanding is needed for the full picture. We need to know how chess came into being and on what fundament, in what spirit, the battle is fought.

 

We turn now explicitly to the players. In the first Heideggerian interpretation I gave the other player was the cause of fear. In the Nietzschean interpretation the other was one to be subdued, eliminated even. But chess is a game after all, why all that fear and violence? For an answer we need to consider the union of opposites, the seeming paradox which comes to life in chess. Sure, the object in chess is to win the game, but this is only half true. No chess will be played by opponents so unequal in capacity that one will always triumph over the other. Than the game is 'not fun' and one of the players will stop playing.

 

If I play someone who has no chance beating me, I will teach that person chess. The only pleasure than is to see the other getting better. Why do I do that? The conclusion seems inevitable, in order to be able to get beaten by him or her. So 'we play to win is only half true', we play to win only if we also can loose.

 

So chess is a struggle, but a paradoxical on in which opponents are locked in a dialectic relation. There can only be chess if people are prepared to be in a struggle. The Other is only seemingly threatening, in fact he affirms your 'right' to interpret by offering you his counter interpretation. In the game the idea of One and Other are overcome.

 

The dialectic lesson of chess is that the Self / Other distinction is overcome precisely by entering in a struggle with you. A formalized struggle in which both are offered equal chance to interpret the world, is a relation in which people can find each other. (Not all participation in struggle has this character, for instance the essence of crime is that it is a struggle in which the other is not allowed interpretation).

 

One final ingredient must be added that is the spirit or 'meta meaning' of the struggle.

 

We saw the Hegelian dialectic overcoming and Nietschean battle of interpretations, but in what backdrop is this played out? Chess is a game of winning and losing, those interpretations are fixed, but the style of the struggle is not.

Also in this style we see a constant overcoming, and an overcoming that seems to follow trends also visible in the 'big' world.

 

In the romantic era chess was seen as art. The matches included spectacular attacks, flows of combinations and dazzling moves. One did not just win, one wanted to win in the most spectacular manner. Because the other complied and tried the same, beauty arose. Chess was played Nietzschean, im Groszen Stil.

 

Untill one didn't want to play like that anymore.... Wilhelm Steinitz went on to analyse chess in a scientific manner. He defeated all romantics and became the first world champion. His scientific ideas soon took hold and chess became decidedly boring. Yes, the winning move did indeed seem to be the 'objective' best one. The world champion Jose Raul Capablanca declared that chess would soon be dead, because it was known how it should be played. Chess was science.

 

He didn't have to wait long to be proven wrong. The modern movement came, spearheaded by aforementioned Nimzowitsch and his interpretive chess. The old scientific ideas were replaced by a line of play that was both scientific, but also had flair. Nimzowitsch is yet read by nearly all grandmasters in the world.

 

In today's world chess is ruled not by romantism, not by scientism, but by sports. Not defeating opponents in a beautiful way is required, not correct, scientific play either. What is required is training, good health, fitness and determination, than just plain winning. Maybe romantism and scientism have been overcome...

 

Can the world be compared to chess? Are there immutable laws of nature which shape the arena in which people going about their business wage a eternal battle against each other? Do they in their battle yet affirm each other and so create something like ethics, a mutual searching and challenging? Is this game silently rocked back and force by a historical 'spirit', like rationality, mysticism, enlightnment and so on?

 

Might material, will and historicity be not only forces that shape the small world of chess, but also our big bad human sized world?

 

By Tobias

[Salma]

This is very nice topic, i enjoyed reading it. Someone once told me that CHess is not a normal game, its linked to some philosophy. Just Like the Yoga, Mediation, Feng Shui, Zen...etc they are all related to metaphysics & philosophies. But i think one can play chess without believing in this metaphysics, he/she can practice Yoga but without believing with its philosophy or Ideology.

 

Its like drinking a glass of water, someone can drink it easily and simply without linking it to any philisophies while another one can make a complicated and weird story about it :confused:

[Mutakalim]

Originally posted by Emmy:

Just Like the Yoga, Mediation, Feng Shui, Zen...etc they are all related to metaphysics & philosophies.

 

I have been reading philosophy for some time and I do not see the relation and the significance of the above-mentioned "philosophies". Would I see you expound in what manner the yoga and the like are "metaphysics". Also, have you any formal education in philosophy.

 

With Salaams

 

PK

[Salma]

1- Mr.Mutakallem, Chess is based on Persian Philosophy and thats why i mentioned to you the others games or physical practices which are based on philosophies in the East: The YOGA is based on Indian Philosophy and the Feng Shui & Zen are based on Buddist Philosophies.

 

2-"Also, have you any formal education in philosophy". Well, yah i studied a philosophical book in grade 11 only, but that was for Greek philosophylike Plato & Socrates,Western philosophers like Rene Decarte and Arabic Philosophers like Ibn Rushd, Ibn Khaldoon & Al Ghazali. I didnt study anything about the Eastern Philosphies but i read about it too, besides even the Indians know that the Yoga is an old religious ritual that became a philosophy later on.

 

3- I dont think that studying philosophy or reading philosophy books makes the person understand fully what philosophy is all about or make him as a Philosophy King.

 

Iam telling you what i read also, so its yours to find out if there is any link or to disagree with it,all right?!

============================================

Yoga is a way of life. It is predominantly concerned with maintaining a state of equanimity at all costs. All yoga schools of thought emphasize the importance of the mind remaining calm, because as the saying goes, only when the water is still can you see through it. Yoga Darshan or Yoga Philosophy also happens to be a valid discipline of Indian metaphysics (Brahma Vidya)(Do you know the Brahma Vidya, or who are the Brahmas in India??!!) . It is the result of human wisdom and insight on physiology, psychology, ethics and spirituality collected together and practiced over thousands of years for the well being of humanity.

 

The basic idea of yoga is to unite the atma or individual soul with the paramatma or the Universal Soul. According to Yoga philosophy, by cleansing one's mind and controlling one's thought processes one can return to that primeval state, when the individual self was nothing but a part of the Divine Self. This is the sense encapsulated in the term samadhi. The aim of the yogi is to be able to perceive the world in its true light and to accept that truth in its entirety.

 

In Sanskrit, the term 'yoga' stands for 'union'. A yogi's ultimate aim is to be able to attain this 'union' with the Eternal Self with the help of certain mental and physical exercises. It is often said that Hiranyagarbha (The Cosmic Womb) Himself had originally advocated the traditional system of yoga, from which all other yoga schools have evolved. But for all extant knowledge of yoga and its practices, such as yogasanas and pranayama, the entire credit goes to Maharishi Patanjali.

 

Patanjali systematized the various yogic practices and traditions of his times by encapsulating them in the form of aphorisms in his Yoga Sutra. In this momentous work, he describes the aim of yoga as knowledge of the self and outlines the eight steps or methods of achieving it. These are:

 

• Yamas or eternal vows,

• Niyamas or observances,

• Yogasanas or yoga postures,

• Pranayama or breath control exercises,

• Pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses from distractions of the outside world,

• Dharana or concentration on an object, place or subject,

• Dhyana or the continuance of this concentration-meditation and

• Samadhi or the ultimate stage of yoga meditation.

 

The collation of these eight steps is known as Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga.

 

 

Peace

[Mutakalim]

[rudy-Diiriye]

i am doing the game of life so chess can wait till i finish the current one i am in!! where is my wife tonite!! i guess the queen is on a horse some where! hope its not the bishop!! i will crack his head!!

 

homie how come i see only retired ole folks and lonely harts playing chess all the de time!! and how come philosphy never solves any of the mankind problems but gives all kind of solutions no 1 follows!! :confused:

[Mutakalim]

Originally posted by rudy:

and how come philosphy never solves any of the mankind problems but gives all kind of solutions no 1 follows!! :confused:

Would I see you expound your assertion?

[Viking]

I remember learning chess at the age of 13. It was quite a challenge to play; until a hierarchy was formed in the neighbourhood. Everyone knew who they could beat and who they couldn't beat in chess. Things just got boring from that point on...until someone brought scrabble.

 

 

Khodâfez

[NGONGE]

I once challenged Gary Kasparov to a game of chest. I was seventeen years old and very very sure of myself. He politely declined.