For Bill, who showed me the deep friendship between rhetoric and philosophy When Is an Anal Bead Like a Baggins? The late American philosopher Daniel Dennett1 (1942 - 2024) has forwarded the term “thinking tools” to impress that thin...
Abstract: Just days before the 2026 Candidates Tournament, a statement by Garry Kasparov, former World Champion and widely regarded as GOAT of chess, indicating the winner of the upcoming championship does not really matter, resurfaced online...
Special thanks to Dalton Perrine “It is not unimportant how we are habituated from our early days; indeed it makes a huge difference—or rather all the difference.”—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics “Plop, plop, ...
For Joseph, kind communicator at and away from the board “If one must summarize the power of discourse, we will discover that nothing done prudently occurs without speech, that speech is the leader of all thoughts and actions, and that the...
“Imitate […] Socrates.”—Benjamin Franklin, inventor, statesman, diplomat, moralist, chess player He Would Have Loved Chess My father-in-law is an avid puzzle guy, meticulous carpenter, impeccable gift wrapper, and lo...
Chess Category: InstructionRhetoric Category: Invention, Framing In my last entry, I shared a vision of Parallel Universe Chess, where the parameters and rules are precisely the same as in our chess, only players speak of “placements&rdquo...
Chess Category: InstructionRhetoric Category: Invention, Framing “A chess player is nothing without patience.”—IM Jeremy Silman, The Amateur’s Mind "Moving" Isn't Necessary Do you make moves too fast? Maybe step awa...
Rhetoric is about sending the right message, and chess, in no small part, is about finding the right reply. The chess masters call a move that puts a stop to an opponent’s plans a “refutation,” a label that would trip any rhetori...
