ERIC Number: EJ1474142
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1357-3322
EISSN: EISSN-1470-1243
Available Date: 0000-00-00
On Making One's Way through Chess
Gustavo G. Brigante1; Carl T. Woods2
Sport, Education and Society, v30 n5 p635-648 2025
This paper explores the relation between thinking and making in the context of chess. Historically, this relation has been examined through an intellectualist tradition, which reduces chess to a series of calculations, connected up and isolated to the mind of a master. Here, we speak to this tradition through the voice of a theorist, and suggest it is to put thinking ahead of making. What, though, if this relation was re-imagined? What if master chess players did their thinking, not before a move was made, but in the midst of its making? In response to these questions, we explore the conditions and potentials of chess spoken through the voice of a craftsperson. To do so, chess is first grounded, not intellectually, but ecologically. Then, weaving in Tim Ingold's perspectives of making, we propose that the unfolding form of a game is attributed, not to the computations of a detached master, but to the attentive responsiveness of players attuned to the ebb and flow of a game, anticipating a way forward by looking, along with listening and feeling. This is to put thinking, not ahead of making, but in its midst. We round out by considering the attentive, corresponsive and temporal characteristics of chess situated as a crafted endeavour.
Descriptors: Games, Cognitive Processes, Responses, Attention, Intellectual Experience, Creative Activities
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil; 2Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia