Hi, Ross,
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:I am failing to see how my explanation is not sufficient.
As an explanation, it is not very explanatory. Yes, it might be correct, but if so then the inventor didn't do a very good job. Rather than explaining the choices and their sequence, your "explanation" says the details don't matter. Tarot was just a game, so the specific selections or arrangement don't matter.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:In the most generic terms, the designer picked groups, according to the commonplace Three Worlds structure, and picked subjects to fill them, arranging them logically within the groups.
You try to have it both ways. They were arranged logically, but not so that you can actually spell out any overall logic. Just a little logic here and a little logic there, sort of. Maybe that's correct, but I think there's more.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:The groups can be pointed out and grasped instantaneously, and the subjects and order within them memorized in a short time thereafter. They are all bold subjects that make an immediate impression on the mind.
As I've argued emphatically for well over a decade, that is a good position. You do remember having read that a few dozen times, right? The whole "null hypothesis" thing? Sometimes it seems as if we've just met. I'm saying the exact same thing about your presentation as I have about Dummett's -- great parsimony, maybe correct, but lousy explanatory power. That's the trade-off.
The only way to overcome that parsimonious position is to offer a more detailed explanation which is sufficiently plausible. No one has done that yet, making the null hypothesis the winner, and still champion.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Our disagreements (Michael) seem to come back to what I said a few posts ago, that you assume the sequence was designed to be read as a stand alone work (and that therefore only a strict, card-by-card allegorical programme can acceptably explain it), while I think its context as a game is essential to understanding it, and to not overreading it.
Your current fascination with this false argument baffles me. First, understanding the iconographic composition has nothing to do with whether it was used in a game or not. There is just no sensible connection, unless the trumps incorporated the suit signs in some fashion, or something like that. If they did, then that aspect would obviously need to be taken into account. Yes, it can be read as a stand-alone work. Why not?
You seem to be arguing that a vague hodge-podge is somehow better for a game, in some as-yet unspecified manner, than a coherent design. That seems backwards. A collection of subjects without a clearly defined, card-by-card hierarchy, loosely grouped into three ranks, is
adequate for the game. However, a collection of subjects WITH a clearly defined, card-by-card hierarchy, neatly divided into three macro groups, each of which is neatly sub-divided into micro groups, seems much
better. It is
because the work was used in a game that there is even more reason for there to be a detailed and coherent narrative (or other systematically meaningful hierarchy) to the design.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:My favorite analogy is the game of Monopoly, where the designer picked streets, businesses and infrastructure around Atlantic City to fill the spaces of his game. They are not intended to be a guide to the layout of the city, they are salient aspects chosen for convenience.
Of course you would like an analogy to something that doesn't have a systematic design. And I have repeatedly offered period examples of board games which have a number of the trumps subjects but no meaningful design, while defending Dummett's position.
Over the years I have emphasized our basic agreement, and in particular my respect for the position which you are now presenting. Isn't that the way I started this recent series of posts? Let me try harder: I get it! (Would all caps help? I TOTALLY FUCKING GET IT!) That's why I have said, again and again, year after year, that Dummett's position is the strongest, most defensible one ever proposed. Seriously. You don't have to sell me on Dummett's position, and yours, which is one step better than his, is... well, slightly better.
But my job is to argue
against his position, to try to make sense of the 22 selections and their ordering, to solve his riddle. For you to restate his position, or offer explanations or defenses for his position which I have made many times is not going to make any difference. I've always understood the strength of his position. You need to tell me why the Devil doesn't represent the Devil, why Lightning isn't Fire from Heaven, and why that pair don't clearly express one of the two great triumphs of God in the End Times. Because if these nuggets make sense, with eight pairs and two trios organized into the Three Worlds sections, then I've solved his riddle.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:This is why I never liked Dummett's analogy with the Animal Tarots:
[T]hose who originally designed the Tarot pack were doing the equivalent, for their day, of those who later selected a sequence of animal pictures to adorn the trump cards of the new French-suited pack. They wanted to design a new kind of pack with an additional set of twenty-one picture cards that would play a special, indeed a quite new role in the game: so they selected for those cards a number of subjects, most of them entirely familiar, that would naturally come to the mind of someone at a fifteenth-century Italian court. (Game of Tarot pp. 387-388)
The designer of the Tarot trump sequence did not make a random list and rely on large numbers on the cards to do the work - they were grouped in logical groups to facilitate recognition and memorization....
Yes, you have taken one step beyond his position, explaining a tiny bit more. It is what I have, again for many years, called the first step toward understanding the design of the trumps. But it only really explains three cards: Everyman, Death, Resurrection. All the other details are left out. It fails to explain the way in which Everyman is expanded, the way Death is shown as the culmination of an entire life cycle, the other subjects along with Resurrection to Judgment. Three Worlds explains three things, whereas we have 22 to be explained. That is what I mean by lack of explanatory power.
You are now arguing that there are these three sections, which are meaningfully arranged, which is great. However, within each section, within each type of subject matter, "they selected for those cards a number of subjects, most of them entirely familiar, that would naturally come to the mind of someone at a fifteenth-century Italian court". He had one group while you have three, but the basic idea is the same. That's what I mean by lack of explanatory power: no detail.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:That's really all, and I think it is sufficient.
Sufficient to explain three cards. The rest of the details are the same as in Dummett's version, unexplained.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:I wouldn't qualify it is as a "moral" game, in the sense that it is intended to teach morality, or impart any lesson at all. The best that I think can be said about the choice of subject matter is that is not unworthy of good Christian players.
But who said it was intended to "teach" anything? Moral content does not mean didactic intent, (although it seems fair to call it didactic content). I have repeatedly argued just the opposite:
the design assumes that you already know (and value) these themes and subjects. That is one reason why they are
useful as tokens in a game. The other reason for such didactic/moral content is to
justify the game. Was that important? Marziano thought so.
You don't seem to think that a game can be anything but a game. The tragedy is that you
know that a game can be more. Hell, you translated the text about Bishop Wibold, and you've read Chess moralities, and Brother John's
Tractatus, and Meister Ingold, and so on.
If Tarot has a Three Worlds design, including various circumstances of life, virtues, death, and an ultimate triumph over death, then it is a moral allegory. It may or may not be a coherently designed one, but if the words have any meaning then it is indisputable that Tarot is a moral allegory.
Best regards,
Michael
We are either dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, or we are just dwarfs.