A while ago I attempted to remove any ideas of Kant from
wargaming. The problem with Mr Enlightenment Philosopher is, of course, that he
keeps sneaking back into our thinking, however postmodern or post enlightenment
we might like to think we are.
Some of you might remember the ‘wargame houses’ post, as
well, in which I tried to show that no one can have an overall view of a house,
let alone a battle. The example came from Bernard Lonergan, who, as I might
have mentioned, is what is described as a ‘transcendental Thomist’. Without
wishing to delve into what that actually is, suffice it to say that traditional
Thomists view transcendental Thomists to have yielded too much ground to (you
have probably guessed it already) Immanuel Kant.
I dare say that you can see the point. I suggested that we
can have no knowledge of a house as a house from our senses. All we have are
different impressions formed from our view of the house from different angles.
We cannot know the inside of the house and its outside at the same time. All we
can do is synthesise an overall house from our impressions. That is not the
house in itself, which is, after all, closely parallel to Kant’s view that we
cannot know the thing in itself.
As the house, I suggested, so the battle. No-one can know
the battle as a battle, a thing in itself. We cannot know the historical event,
the battle as it was. This is also inaccessible to anyone who was there. Let me
call the battle in itself Battle 1. It is to Battle 1 that we have no access.
Now, obviously those present at a battle will have some
experience of it, or at least, their part of it. They do have access to this
layer, let me call it Battle 2. This is knowable by the participants, although
they have no access to the overall battle, Battle 1.
Some of the participants, those with Battle 2 knowledge, may
write down their impressions of the battle in diaries, letters, battle reports
and so on. This I shall call Battle 3. Battle 2 is only accessible to those who
were present, but Battle 3 is accessible to us, given that we can read their
accounts of Battle 2. However, we are already two layers away from “the battle”
Battle 1 level.
There are other things which can happen at this sort of
level, of course. Archaeology can take a turn, as with Naseby and Bosworth, to
name but two. This gives us further information which can be interpreted to
provide an account of the battle, or parts of it. Similarly, historians can
come along and create accounts of the battle from the sources. These secondary
sources are also available to use. I could call these a different level of the
battle, but for simplicity I shall lump this is with Battle 3. We have access
to this level.
Now, consider the complex of a set of wargame rules, two
armies and a wargame table set with terrain. This provides a further level in
the battle, let me call it Battle 4. The wargame is a model of the battle,
which we hope will provide a similar sort of outcome, within a reasonable
margin of error from the original.
The point about the model (Battle 4) is that is
self-consciously not the Battle 1 event itself. It cannot be. But the question
then arises as to whether it has any relation with Battle 1 at all, and whether
Battle 4 can show any insight into Battle 1 (or, for that matter, Battle 2).
One of the interesting things about models is that they can
throw up all sorts of spurious intermediate results. For example, a model of an
aeroplane flying has, in its simplest form, four forces acting on it: thrust,
drag, lift and gravity. These balance out so the aircraft can continue to fly.
However, it is not actually possible to isolate these forces. All we can
measure is the outcome, the fact that the aircraft continues in the air going
in a certain direction. The forces are, to a greater extent, fictitious; they
help us to model the situation, but do not actually exist.
As with scientific models so, I suggest, with Battle 4 models.
The point about the forces in the aircraft model is that they do not exist, on
their own. They are not ontological forces. The outcome is ontological, it does
exist; the others simply help us to reach that point.
In Battle 4 models, the Battle 1 level is unobtainable, and
so is Battle 2. But, from Battle 3 we have a certain amount of outcome
information. We know that this charge worked ad that one did not, that this
unit stood firm while that one fled, and so on. The point is that the Battle 4
mechanics are expected to achieve this outcome, without knowing what the
internal mechanics of the result are.
The upshot of this ramble is that most of the mechanics of
our Battle 4 models are fictitious. I can, for example, include a reaction roll
for a unit that is being charged. However, I can scan the Battle 3 accounts for
a sentence that says ‘the unit reacted’ in vain. It is a fiction, a part of our
model that has no counterpart in real life, in Battle 2 or even, presumably, in
Battle 1.
Does this matter? I am really not sure it does, because all
we can ever have access to are the outcomes anyway. In the aircraft model I do
not really care if my forces exist or not, so long as the aeroplane remains
airborne. Similarly, all I can really say
about Battle 4 is that the outcomes match those given in Battle 3 within some
margin of error.
So, I contend from this analysis that the mechanics of
wargame rules are fictitious, and there is nothing we can do about that. All we
can hope to do is match outcomes.