SAE Exercises and Games of Judgment · II: The Competitive Game
SAE 判断力练习与游戏·二：竞争之局
When two people race, play chess or play ball, there is one more person on the other side: he too is judging, he too wants to win, and only one side can win. This paper asks where judgment falls in such a case. The answer is that the remainder gains a layer: it can show itself in his next move, in how he anticipates me, and in how I anticipate his anticipation; my anticipations of these are material for the judgment to use. Seeing that "this game still has such a remainder" is still that judgment; what move one actually makes is another matter.
The layer this kind of game newly opens is 14DD: the competitive game sets up winning and losing as something to contend for, and invites "I want to win" to become one's purpose at this moment, but does not guarantee it. A casual wish to win is only a passing intention; only when the wish to win lies on the line of "what I should become" does it reach 14DD. Cheating is violating, or covertly altering, the rules both sides acknowledge, so that the game the opponent entered diverges from the game actually being played: when one side cheats, his share is non-play-directed and no longer counts as play, while the opponent's share is still play; when everyone cheats together, it is no longer play. A professional match is both play and work; sportsmanship is a direction, toward treating the match as play.
There can also be 15DD in the competitive game: taking the opponent as an end is the player's stance, not the structure of the game. This paper illustrates the point with a game of chess, and points out that a handshake, applause and the post-game review cannot, any of them on its own, prove it. In contrast with Caillois: he classifies games by the principle that predominates in the game, this paper by the relations between persons in the game, and the two classifications cross.
Keywords: Self-as-an-End, SAE, play, judgment, the competitive game, 14DD, intention and purpose, cheating, sportsmanship, acknowledging the opponent, Caillois
Writing statement: This paper was co-drafted with Claude (Anthropic). All intellectual decisions, framework design and final editorial judgments were made by the author.
0. Introduction
Two people are in a park. One says, "Race you to that tree," and off they both go. Halfway there, the one in front glances back and slows by half a step. The one behind sees it: the outside has opened up; one can still pass here.
When one runs alone, what one faces is only the road and one's own legs. Once two people race, one faces another person as well: he too is watching, he too is judging, he too wants to get there first. This paper asks where judgment falls when another subject stands opposite, wanting the same thing I want, so that the two wants exclude each other and only one side can have it; and which layer such a game newly opens.
1. Another Person on the Other Side
1.1 The Additional Remainder
In the solo game, the remainder shows itself in the move the rules have not fixed and in how the material responds. The competitive game adds a layer: his next move, which the rules have not fixed and which I cannot fix either; his watching, too, how I will move; and my watching, in turn, how he thinks I will move. I reckon that he thinks I will pass on the inside, and that is why the outside is left open.
These three are where the remainder can show itself; my various estimates of them are anticipations, and they are material (Overview 7.2). That judgment is still seeing that "this game still has such a remainder" (Overview 2.3).
1.2 Back to the Race
"Race you to that tree": one sentence sets up the rules, a start, a finish, and whoever gets there first wins. A race struck up on the spur of the moment like this also counts as play in the broad sense (Overview 6.1, condition 1). On the other side is another subject; he wants to get there first, so do I, and only one side can.
The rules do not fix when he speeds up or which side he runs on. The moment when he looks back, slows, and the outside opens up is something the rules have not fully taken in, and yet it is right there before one's eyes: this is the remainder. Noticing him look back and slow down is material; the one behind seeing that "one can still pass here, on the outside" is that judgment. Whether the other will speed up again, and whether a pass would succeed, are anticipations, and they are material. Whether to pass, and when, is the action that is his to take. That judgment belongs to the one behind; judgment has been put to use in this game, and he owns it himself (Overview 5.3).
At which layer he stands at this moment depends on which kind of wish to win he actually holds. A casual wish to win is a passing intention and does not yet reach 14DD; only if the wish to win lies on the line of "what I should become" does it reach 14DD (Section 2). On the strength of the few actions written out above alone, one cannot yet tell what he actually holds at this moment; one can only say that the material is insufficient.
2. Wanting to Win
2.1 The Game Sets Up Winning and Losing as Something to Contend For
The competitive game sets up winning and losing as something to contend for inside the game, and on the other side stands another subject, who wants the same thing I want, the two wants excluding each other. In establishing the possibility of losing, it is like the solo game that has set a yardstick; that another subject stands on the other side is what the competitive game adds (Overview 7.4). The game thereby invites "I want to win" to become one's purpose at this moment, but an invitation is not a guarantee.
2.2 An Intention Is Not a Purpose
Laughter III says, "An intention is not a purpose" (2.2): a laugh caused by a passing intention suddenly being fulfilled is not the laughter of triumph that section speaks of, and is to be looked at by where the laugher stands at that moment. Competition can be looked at in the same way. A casual wish to win is a passing intention and does not yet reach 14DD; as regards this item of what is held, a person often stands at 13DD; at the same moment he may also be holding other things. Only when the wish to win lies on the line of "what I should become" (Laughter III, 1.1) does it reach 14DD. Suppose, for example, that for years someone has taken becoming a fast runner as what he should become; then whether he wins this race lies on the line of what he is to become.
This distinction concerns the layer, not the focal point. With both kinds of wish to win, the focal point lies inside the game, and both are play-directed (Overview 3.1).
2.3 Laughing on Winning, Weeping on Losing
The laughter of triumph on winning must carry Laughter III's restriction: "this laugh comes only if the thing is accomplished while the frame is still taut" (2.2). If the wish to win was only casual, the laugh after winning is not of this kind.
Weeping on losing can be weeping of the self or weeping of one's own purpose, of the kind "I have lost something in it" (Judgment and Weeping, Section 3, the 13DD, 14DD row). Which it is depends on his operation at this moment; the fact of having lost cannot by itself fix the layer.
3. Cheating, Throwing a Match, Conceding
3.1 Cheating
Cheating is violating, or covertly altering, the rules that both sides acknowledge, so that the game the opponent entered diverges from the game actually being played.
When one side cheats, the cheater's share is non-play-directed and no longer counts as play; the opponent is playing by the game he entered, and his share is still play. Whether, toward the opponent, this counts as colonization is another question. When all participants cheat together, it is no longer play.
Cheating does not necessarily close off the remainder; it may change only the odds. Someone who has peeked at one of his opponent's cards can still see that "this hand can still be played like this"; having seen it, how he plays it is yet another matter.
On which condition is the cheater's share said to be no longer play? And how is cheating together to be told apart from everyone openly agreeing to change a rule? This paper does not answer these two questions, which are left to Section 9; on the latter the Overview has not reached a conclusion either (Overview, Section 13). As the Overview has said, the boundary of play serves only to hold the scope and is not load-bearing (Overview 0.2).
3.2 Throwing a Match and Conceding
One who deliberately loses a match for the sake of stakes has a share that is tied to the stakes; it is non-play-directed and no longer counts as play (Overview 4.2, 4.3).
Conceding, admitting defeat, is accepting that the other side has won. This paper's reading is that accepting it is an action. What he saw before accepting it, the action itself cannot say; conceding, like a handshake or applause, cannot on its own fix the layer (5.1).
4. One Match, Two Shares
Matches of professional players and matches with prize money are both play and work, and the two shares are looked at separately (Overview 3.3, 4.3). While the match is in progress it leans toward play: every action is taken up by the construct of the game, and prize money and contracts are tied only to the result. Sportsmanship is a direction, toward treating the match as play. The world of sport may demand it of competitors, and that is the field's own convention; this series does not write an "ought" for those who play (following the limit of Judgment and Weeping 1.4). When a player bets on his match, it is no longer play for that player himself, while the match, proceeding normally, is still play (Overview 4.2).
A military exercise is structurally both play and work; for the share of one who takes part under orders, see the separate treatment in Overview, Section 13. In boxing, both sides entered the game of their own accord, yet the injuries are carried outside the game (Overview 6.1, condition 4). League points reach across games with respect to a single match, and may yet be part of the constitutive rules with respect to the league as a whole (Overview 3.3).
Spectators are also inside the game of the match: in the competitive game, or in a mixture of competition and cooperation, not in the performing–watching game. Hoping one side will win is, when casual, an intention and does not yet reach 14DD; only when it lies on the line of "what I should become" does it reach 14DD. If a spectator has placed a bet, his share is gambling. Matches between teams belong structurally to Paper III, Section 7; here only their competitive side is taken up.
5. 15DD in the Competitive Game
5.1 A Stance, Not a Structure
Taking the opponent as an end is the player's stance, not the structure of the game. The game is still a competitive game, yet the player may at this moment be at 15DD. A handshake, the post-game review, applauding the opponent's good move: none of these can on its own prove that he is at 15DD; what is to be looked at is still acknowledgment and not co-opting (Judgment and Weeping 4.1, conditions 3 and 4). Those two conditions in Judgment and Weeping are said of another's loss; extending them here to an opponent's move is this series' extension.
5.2 A Game of Chess
Two people sit down to chess. Across from me is another subject, who wants the same thing I want, the two wants excluding each other, and only one side can have it: this is the competitive game. No stakes, prize money, contract or demands of others are tied to this game; each player's share is tied to what lies inside the game, and is play-directed (Overview 3.1).
The rules of chess, together with the position now on the board, are the construct of this game. My opponent plays a good move I had not reckoned with: he gives up a piece and in exchange opens a path that had been blocked. The rules of chess do not make saving that piece the only response; giving up a piece to open a path is something the rules have not fully taken in, and yet it is right there before one's eyes: this is the remainder. Until then I had calculated only along the line of saving the piece; that was my former grasp, and it is material, not the construct.
I see that "so here one can still move like this"; what I see is the remainder his move has brought out, and this is that judgment, and it is mine. Whether this path will go on to gain the advantage is anticipation, and it is material; how I reply is action.
Where I stand at this moment has to be looked at in its separate parts. If I think only of how to win back the ground, that is the wish to win: if casual, it does not yet reach 14DD; only on the line of "what I should become" does it reach 14DD. If I do not occupy his place in advance, if I acknowledge that the move is his and is his judgment, and if I do not turn it into material for my winning, then I can be at 15DD. That at the same moment I am still answering this move and wanting to win back the ground is another thing held in parallel; it is looked at separately from this one and is not used to deny this one.
But how is one to know which it is? On the strength of actions such as a handshake or applause alone, one cannot yet tell; revising one's own understanding in line with his account is something a person set only on winning would also do. So two things must be looked at: in the post-game review, is the thinking behind his move treated as his, or only turned into intelligence for beating him in the next game; and is what I revise my understanding of him, this person playing chess, or only my anticipation of his lines of play. Words and deeds in the post-game review are later material, and the review can itself be a cooperative game; when it is used to look at that moment in the earlier game, it must be stated that the earlier game is being looked at by way of later material. Where there is only self-report and no words or deeds that can be checked, one can only say that the material is insufficient.
That judgment is mine, and is owned by me; his move is his judgment, and is owned by him, and I do not claim it on his behalf (Overview 5.3). The game has not thereby turned into a cooperative game.
6. Contrast with Caillois
6.1 His Classification
In Les jeux et les hommes (1958), Roger Caillois divides games into four kinds: "Je les appelle respectivement Agôn, Alea, Mimicry et Ilinx" (p. 27), that is, competition, chance, imitation and vertigo; he also distinguishes two poles, paidia and ludus (pp. 27–28).
6.2 Crossing, Not a Dichotomy
He classifies by the principle that predominates in the game, each of the four kinds being linked with a basic attitude; this series classifies by the relations between persons in the game. The two classifications cross: chess is agôn for him and a competitive game for this series; the two players doing the post-game review together after the game is, for this series, a cooperative game. It is not that one classifies activities and the other classifies structures; rather, the two classifications are not asking about the same thing.
6.3 Stakes and Chance
Caillois criticizes Huizinga for excluding stakes and games of chance (pp. 15–16). On stakes, this series stands on the same side as what Huizinga's definition in Chapter 1 says (in Chapter 3 Huizinga also says that stakes can have material value; see Overview 11.2), but on different grounds: the exclusion of gambling is a scope convention of this series, the reason being that stakes tie this share to what lies outside the game (Overview 4.3).
Games of chance this series treats only as a boundary condition, without reaching a conclusion (Overview 2.4). Speaking of games of chance, Caillois writes, "Le joueur y est entièrement passif" (Caillois 1958; page in the book to be verified): the player there is entirely passive. This can serve as collateral evidence for the Overview's sentence that pure chance does little to help the practice of judgment. This is the author's observation, not a proof.
The vertigo class lies at the perceptual layer: the jolt of vertigo is at 10DD; how high to swing, whether one dares to let go, how to coordinate with others, is already a game with a subject in it. The boundary between the two is left to Section 9 (Overview, Section 8).
7. Some Difficulties
When there is a large gap in strength, there is little suspense about who will win; where, then, is the remainder? In the moves, the responses, the conceding, the acknowledging. One cannot say, on the ground that there is little suspense, that this game no longer counts as play; when a strong player plays a beginner and the beginner sees that "this move can still be made like this", it is that judgment all the same.
An adult deliberately letting a child win is discussed in Paper III, 5.4.
Winning without being glad does not, for that reason, fail to be play: whether it is play depends on structure, not on gladness. Gladness, if it comes, is an emotion that comes along with it (Laughter Overview, 5.1); Laughter III, speaking of the laughter of triumph, likewise says that "this delight is an emotion that comes along with it" (2.2). Which layer the player stands at depends on what he holds.
When entry fees are pooled into a prize, the money coming from the competitors and the winner taking it, whether this counts as stakes the Overview has not concluded.
8. Terms
- The competitive game (竞争之局): across from me is another subject, who seeks the same as I do, the two excluding each other; only one side can have it (Section 1).
- Anticipation (预判): an estimate of his next move, and of how he anticipates me; it is material, not that judgment (Section 1).
- Intention and purpose (意图与目的): following Laughter III, 2.2. A casual wish to win is a passing intention and does not reach 14DD; a wish to win that lies on the line of "what I should become" is a purpose and reaches 14DD (2.2).
- Cheating (作弊): violating, or covertly altering, the rules both sides acknowledge, so that the game the opponent entered diverges from the game actually being played (3.1).
- Sportsmanship (体育精神): a direction, toward treating the match as play; not an ought this series writes for those who play (Section 4).
- Taking the opponent as an end (以对手为目的): the player's stance, not the structure of the game (Section 5).
- Other terms follow Overview, Section 12.
9. Questions Left Open
On which condition is the cheater's share said to be no longer play? One may consider the focal point (Overview 6.1, condition 3): what the cheater seeks is the outcome of the game both sides acknowledge, while the game he is actually playing is not that game. Overview 6.1, condition 1, does not require the construct to be "acknowledged by both sides", and so cannot be used as the ground. Yet whether divergence by itself can decide that a share is no longer play is also still a question: when an adult concedes covertly and lets a child win, there is divergence as well (Paper III, 5.4). How cheating together is to be told apart from openly agreeing to change the rules, Overview, Section 13 has not concluded either. How the laughter of triumph and the casual wish to win are to be read together is left for separate discussion, following Laughter III. Where the boundary lies between vertigo and a game with a subject in it is also left for separate discussion.
Conclusion
In the competitive game, across from me is another subject, who seeks the same as I do, the two excluding each other, so that only one side can have it. The remainder gains a layer: it can show itself in his next move, in how he anticipates me, and in how I anticipate his anticipation; my anticipations of these are material, and that judgment is still seeing that this game still has such a remainder. This kind of game newly opens 14DD: it sets up winning and losing as something to contend for, and invites "I want to win" to become one's purpose at this moment, but does not guarantee it; a casual wish to win is a passing intention, and only on the line of "what I should become" does it reach 14DD.
Cheating makes the game the opponent entered diverge from the game actually being played: when one side cheats, the opponent's share is still play; when everyone cheats together, it is no longer play. A professional match is both play and work, and sportsmanship points toward treating the match as play. Taking the opponent as an end is the player's stance, not the structure of the game; a handshake, applause and the post-game review cannot, any of them on its own, prove it; what is to be looked at is whether the thinking behind his move has been treated as his. In contrast with Caillois: he classifies by the predominant principle, this paper by the relations between persons, and the two classifications are not asking about the same thing.
References
SAE upstream
- Han Qin. SAE Exercises and Games of Judgment · Overview. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23609837. 0.2; 2.3, 2.4; 3.1, 3.3; 4.2, 4.3; 5.3; 6.1; 7.2, 7.4; Section 8; 11.2; Sections 12 and 13.
- Han Qin. SAE Laughter · Overview: Judgment and Laughter. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23286244. 5.1.
- Han Qin. SAE Laughter · III: Purpose Enters the Construct Laughed At (14DD). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23287629. 1.1, 2.2.
- Han Qin. SAE Laughter · Special Study: Judgment and Weeping. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23446536. 1.4; Section 3; 4.1, conditions 3 and 4.
External
- Huizinga, J. Homo ludens (1938). The definition in Chapter 1 and the remark on stakes in Chapter 3; for the basis, see Overview 11.2 and the Overview's references.
- Caillois, R. Les jeux et les hommes (1958). Pages 15–16 and 27–28 checked against the original through OCR of a scan of a later printing, short sentences only; of these, pp. 15–16 and 27 match the pagination of the 1958 first edition (secondhand). The sentence on games of chance, "Le joueur y est entièrement passif", checked against a third-party transcription of Caillois' article published the same year in Synthèses (nos. 140–141); page in the book to be verified (the Folio edition gives p. 56, secondhand).
Appendix Table: Connections and Contrasts
For reference. Sources are given at each point in the text; this table sets up no claim of its own.
| Point in this paper | Connection (within SAE) | Contrast (external) |
|---|---|---|
| The competitive game: the additional remainder; anticipation is material | Overview 2.3, 7.2 | — |
| Opening 14DD; establishing the possibility of losing | Overview 7.4 | — |
| An intention is not a purpose | Laughter III, 1.1, 2.2 | — |
| The laughter of triumph; weeping on losing | Laughter III; Judgment and Weeping, Section 3 | — |
| Cheating; throwing a match for stakes; conceding | Overview 4.2, 4.3 | — |
| One match, two shares; sportsmanship; spectators | Overview 3.3, 4.2; Judgment and Weeping 1.4 | — |
| Acknowledging the opponent in competition | Judgment and Weeping 4.1, conditions 3 and 4 | — |
| Classification: the predominant principle and the relations between persons | — | Caillois, Les jeux et les hommes |
| Stakes and chance | Overview 2.4, 4.3 | Caillois pp. 15–16; Huizinga |