Chess and the conscious mind: Why Dreyfus and McDowell got it wrong

Is it possible to deliberate consciously during a 1‐min‐per‐player chess game? I argue that, in contrast to views of the philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and John McDowell, even 1‐min‐per‐player chess games involve conscious thought and deliberation. In making my case, I rely on experimental results from...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMind & language Vol. 34; no. 3; pp. 376 - 392
Main Author Montero, Barbara Gail
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2019
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Chess
chess intuition
Consciousness
de Groot
Dreyfus
Exhibitions
Games
Philosophers
Philosophy
skill
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Summary:Is it possible to deliberate consciously during a 1‐min‐per‐player chess game? I argue that, in contrast to views of the philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and John McDowell, even 1‐min‐per‐player chess games involve conscious thought and deliberation. In making my case, I rely on experimental results from two small‐scale studies I conducted on chess players, chess players' first‐person reports, and theoretical considerations that distinguish automatic skills from consciously controlled skills. This work bolsters Yu‐Hsuan Chang and David Lane's 2016 study suggesting that simultaneous chess exhibitions and speed chess allow time for calculation. It also aims to inspire future, larger‐scale studies investigating the role of declarative thought in 1‐min‐per‐player games.
ISSN:0268-1064
1468-0017
DOI:10.1111/mila.12209