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Chess, philosophical systematization, and the legacy of the Enlightenment

Vauléon, Florian
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211904204

Abstract Details

2008, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, French and Italian.
In today's philosophical debates, due to the influence of postmodernism, it seems particularly important to reflect on the relationship between reason and rationality. By celebrating the notion of reason as a liberating agent and as the cornerstone of modern civilization, the Enlightenment gave rise to high expectations and to different forms of rationalities. But no sooner was reason rationalized and objectified, than it was denied its intrinsic promise; what was believed to extract humans from obscurantism eventually turned out to be an instrument of domination. From the Holocaust to modern totalitarian forms of subjection, the trust in reason has proven incapable of foreseeing the reality of technological advances and of controlling the immense powers that it initiated. Techno-scientific rationality has led humankind to envisage the possibilities of its own self-destruction in light of potential catastrophes brought about by global climate change and nuclear proliferation. Rationalized reason has thus veered from its initial concern for human welfare and prosperity. It has evolved instead into technologies whose hegemonic authority has sought to dominate and dehumanize individuals. Focusing on the individual and his/her manipulation, the use of chess as a metaphor for political and philosophical ideologies based on reason, is of specific interest in this study. This dissertation investigates the connection between chess and the Enlightenment project, and seeks more precisely to discern a narrative logic and a conceptual grammar that are both informed by the game of chess. The paradigm of chess helps appreciate the rationality of the eighteenth-century political thinking for which Nature and Reason were the absolute philosophical references. Analyzing the Enlightenment through the prism of chess reveals its excessive reliance on dehumanized reason and its emancipation from an essential human essence or a type of anthropocentric thought. Viewed from the perspective of twentieth-century critical theory such as that of Michel Foucault, the paradigm of chess may well constitute a more accurate description of what motivates and determines human thought and behavior than the Cartesian/Kantian model. In light of such interpretations, the notion of Reason and the ideals promoted by Humanism appear as convenient guises, masking the actual processes of control and domination at work in modern societies.
Karlis Racevskis (Advisor)
Judith Mayne (Committee Member)
Charles D. Minahen (Committee Member)
208 p.
Literature
Enlightenment; chess; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Michel Foucault

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Vauléon, F. (2008). Chess, philosophical systematization, and the legacy of the Enlightenment [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211904204

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Vauléon, Florian. Chess, philosophical systematization, and the legacy of the Enlightenment. 2008. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211904204.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Vauléon, Florian. "Chess, philosophical systematization, and the legacy of the Enlightenment." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1211904204

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.