Critique of Pure Wargaming

I always enjoy the weekly wargaming blog posting by Polemarch, not least because he inhabits the same outer reaches of pretentiousness in which I myself like to paddle. The latest posting leaves his usual stamping ground of the written word for the possibly less fruitful field of aesthetics and the philosophy of the tainted Martin Heidegger, but is thought provoking nonetheless.

Purposive, but without any definite purpose

As an alternative I would draw readers' attention to Kant's concept of teleological judgement, that is a judgment concerning an object the possibility of which can only be grasped from the point of view of its purpose. Kant refers to parts which can only be viewed as part of the whole. Is the object whose aesthetics we are considering the individual figure or terrain piece or is it the fully laid out table? My own answer to that question has significantly informed my painting style over the years.