Calculations, reasons and causes

John V. Canfield

pp. 179-195

in: Donald Gustafson, Bangs Tapscott (eds), Body, mind, and method, Deventer, Kluwer, 1979

Abstract

Suppose we are allowed to put a question to Botvinnik at the point in his win against Capablanca in 1938 when he sacrificed his bishop by placing it on the same diagnoal as Capablanca's queen. The question "Why did you make that move?" could evoke, in answer, a detailing of the ensuing combination, some eleven moves deep. It is plausible to think that Botivinnik's envisaging of this combination, his belief that further play must follow these lines, was part of the cause of his moving as he did. Here one's reason is what one had in mind; and one's beliefs about the results of one's actions appear to be part of the causal antecedents of those actions.