Wittgensteins, Heideggers, and Gadamers, Oh My!

Teleoaffectivity is one of the main means by which adult human life can be distinguished from that of other animals. Other animals, including human infants, have ends, as well as understandings. They lack, however, both explicit formulations specifying how they should behave and the complex and shifting interplay of ends and moods typical of adult human practices. This teleoaffectivity is the key to practice-based hermeneutics, as interpreting any given doing or saying involves discerning the practice or practices in which it plays a part, particularly the ends toward which it is directed and the moods it expresses. Our actions are transparent to ourselves and to others largely to the extent that the practices we are taking part in are familiar and apparent to all.

It can also be the case,  though, that other major practices are active here. Several of the players could be co-workers, for instance, and their playing could be an expectation of, and thus an extention of, their work. Some of the players could be prisoners on home release, with this activity serving as their primary opportunity to leave their houses. One player could be a doctor who will act as the team physician in a time of need.  Two or more of the players could be in-laws using Saturday mornings as a chance to improve their family relationship. One player could be a heart patient following his doctor’s orders to get more regular, medium-stress exercise. All of these practices contain ends, of any of which various participants may or may not be conscious at particular times, that signify the actions it makes sense to do.

In addition, it is typically the case that a particular series of human events takes part in multiple major practices. The practice of basketball itself of course can contain within it numerous minor practices, including such dispersed practices as asking questions, such more complex practices such as arguing attuned to basketball as arguing calls, and basketball specific practices such as setting picks that will most likely appear in other contexts only as jokes — setting ordinary actions in unexpected social settings is a simple and common comedic tool. Minor practices, however, are organized only by understandings and rules, and it is the teleoaffectivity expressed in major practices that most interests us here. In the practice before us winning need not be the only end. Staying in shape and making and maintaining friendships are other possibilities, and each can ultimately specify actions that conflict with the sole goal of winning, indicating safer plays for health’s sake and less competitive play in certain circumstances to maintain a collegial  mood.