Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:09:32.882Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chess, Imagination, and Perceptual Understanding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2013

Paul Coates*
Affiliation:
University of [email protected]

Extract

Chess is sometimes referred to as a ‘mind-sport’. Yet, in obvious ways, chess is very unlike physical sports such as tennis and soccer; it doesn't require the levels of fitness and athleticism necessary for such sports. Nor does it involve the sensory-governed, skilled behaviour required in activities such as juggling or snooker. Nevertheless, I suggest, chess is closer than it may at first seem to some of these sporting activities. In particular, there are interesting connections between the way that we use our perceptual imagination in sports, and also in chess. The same distinction between calculation and natural instinct applies in chess as it does in many physical sports.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Binet, A. (1966) ‘Mnemonic virtuosity: A study of chess players’, Genetic Psychology Monographs 74, 127162. Translated from the Revue des Deux Mondes (1893), 117, 826–859.Google ScholarPubMed
Chase, W. & Simon, H. (1973) ‘Perception in ChessCognitive Psychology 4, 5581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabris, C. & Hearst, E. (2003) ‘Visualization, Pattern Recognition, and Forward Search: Effects of Playing Speed and Sight of Position on Grandmaster Chess ErrorsCognitive Science, 27, 637648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coates, P. (2007) The Metaphysics of Perception: Wilfrid Sellars, Perceptual Consciousness and Critical Realism, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esfeld, M. (2003) ‘Do relations require underlying intrinsic properties? A physical argument for a metaphysics of relations’, Metaphysica. International Journal for Ontology & Metaphysics, 4, 525.Google Scholar
Fish, W. (2009) Perception, Hallucination and Illusion, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gobet, F. (2012) ‘Concepts Without Intuition Lose the Game: Commentary on Montero and Evans 2011Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 11: 2, 237250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groot de, A. D. (1965) Thought and Choice in Chess (1st Ed.), The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Hobson, K. (forthcoming) ‘In Defense of Relational Direct Realism’, European Journal of Philosophy.Google Scholar
Josten, G. (2010) A Study Apiece, Homburg: SAAR- Schach-Agentur.Google Scholar
Kasparov, G. (1987) London-Leningrad Championship Games, Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Kasparov, G. (2003) On My Great Predecessors, Part I, London: Everyman Chess.Google Scholar
Lane, P. & Gobet, F. (2011) ‘Perception in Chess and Beyond: Commentary on Linhares and Freitas’, New Ideas in Psychology 29, 156161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladyman, J. (1998) ‘What is structural realism?Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Science, 29, 409424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langton, R. (1998) Kantian Humility, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (2009) ‘Ramseyan Humility’, in Braddon-Mitchell, David & Nola, Robert (eds) Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lowe, J. (1995) Locke on Human Understanding, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Martin, M. (2006) ‘On Being Alienated’ in Gendler, T. and Hawthorne, J. (eds) Perceptual Experience, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maxwell, G. (1970) ‘Theories, Perception and Structural Realism’ in Colodny, R. (ed.) The Nature and Function of Scientific Theories, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Maxwell, G. (1972) ‘Russell on Perception’ in Pears, D (ed.) Bertrand Russell: A Collection of Critical Essays, New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. H. (1982) ‘Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge’, Proceedings of the British Academy.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. H. (1986) ‘Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space’, in Pettit, P. and McDowell, J. H. (eds) Subject, Thought, and Context, Clarendon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Nabokov, V. (1964) The Luzhin Defence, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson (With thanks to the Nabakov Estate).Google Scholar
Robinson, H. (1994) Perception, London: Routledge.Google ScholarPubMed
Russell, B. (1927) The Analysis of Matter, New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Sellars, W. (1978) ‘The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience’ in Johnstone, H. W. (ed.) Categories: A Colloquium, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Snowdon, P. (1981) ‘Perception, Vision and Causation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81, 175–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valberg, J. J. (1992) The Puzzle of Experience, Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar