Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Play: In psychology, play is defined as any activity that is enjoyable, voluntary, and intrinsically motivated. It is often characterized by its spontaneity, creativity, and lack of purpose-driven goals. Play is essential for healthy development in children. See also Stages of development._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Hans-Georg Gadamer on Play - Dictionary of Arguments
I 107 Play/Aesthetics/Art/Gadamer: [for the context of aesthetics] it is important for us to detach this term from the subjective meaning it had with Kant and Schiller, which dominates the entire newer aesthetics and anthropology. When we speak of play in the context of the experience of art, play does not mean the relationship or even the state of mind of the creator or enjoyer and not at all the freedom of a subjectivity that is active in the game, but the mode of being of the work of art itself. Certainly the behaviour of the player can be distinguished from the game itself, which as such belongs together with other forms of behaviour of subjectivity. Thus, for example, it can be said that for the player the game is not serious and is played precisely for this reason. Seriousness/purpose/game: Playing has its own relation to seriousness. Not only that it has its "purpose" in it. Play/Aristoteles: It happens "for the sake of recreation" as Aristotle says(1). Gadamer: It is more important that playing itself has its own, yes, a sacred seriousness. And yet, in the behavior of play, all references to purpose, which determine the active and caring existence, have not simply disappeared, but come to hover in a peculiar way. The player knows for himself/herself that the game is only a game and stands in a world determined by the seriousness of its purposes. But he/she does not know this in such a way that as a player he/she still meant this reference to seriousness himself/herself. Only then does playing fulfil the purpose that it has, when the I 108 player finds himself/herself completely immersed in playing. Seriousness/purpose/game/Gadamer: Not the reference to seriousness in the game, but only the seriousness in the game lets the game be completely a game. Someone who does not take the game seriously is a spoilsport. The way of being of the game does not allow the player to behave towards the game as towards an object. The player knows what a game is and that what he/she is doing "is only a game", but he/she does not know what he/she "knows". Cf. >Play/Huizinga. Aesthetic Play/Art Experience/Gadamer: We had seen [in connection with the question about the >truth of art] that not the >aesthetic consciousness, but the >experience of art and thus the question about the way the work of art is to be the object of our reflection. But this was precisely the experience of art that we have to hold against the levelling of the aesthetic consciousness, that the work of art is not an object that is opposed to the subject being for itself. Rather, the work of art has its actual being in that it becomes the experience that transforms the experiencer. The "subject" of the experience of art, that which remains and persists, is not the subjectivity of the one who experiences it, but the work of art itself. This is the point where the way of being of the game becomes significant. For the game has a being of its own, independent of the consciousness of those who play. Play is also there, indeed actually there, where no being by itself of subjectivity limits the thematic horizon and where there are no subjects who behave in a playful manner. The subject of the game is not the players, but the game is merely represented by the players. Cf. Buytendijk(2). I 109 The mode of being of the game is (...) not of the kind that there has to be a subject who behaves in a playing manner so that the game is played. [Cf. "Play of Waves," etc.] Rather, the most original sense of games is the medial sense. I 111 Play/Nature/Art/Gadamer: Above all, it is only from this medial sense of play that the reference to the being of the work of art emerges. Nature, as long as it is a constantly renewing game without purpose and intention, without effort, can almost appear as a model of art. Friedrich Schlegel: "All sacred games of art are only distant imitations of the infinite games of the world, the eternally self-forming work of art.«(3) Subjectivity/Freedom/Game/Gadamer: the primacy of the game in front of the players who play it is now, where human subjectivity is involved and behaves playfully, is also experienced by the players themselves in a special way. [The player] is not yet committed to such opportunities as serious goals. He/She still has the freedom to choose one way or another. On the other hand, this freedom is not safe. Rather, the game itself is a risk for the player. You can only play with serious possibilities. I 112 All playing is being played. The attraction of the game, the fascination it exerts, consists precisely in the fact that the game becomes master of the player. I 113 Mission of the game/Purpose: Apparently the peculiar lightness and relief that stands for the playful behaviour is based on the special character of the task, which is due to the game task, and it arises from the success of its solution. One can say: the success of a task "represents it." The game is really limited to representing itself. Its mode of being is therefore self-representation. Sense of the game: Although the self-representation of human play is based, (...) on a behaviour bound to the apparent purposes of the game, its "sense" does not really consist in the achievement of these purposes. Rather, giving oneself over (German: "Sichausgeben") to the task of the game is in reality a playing oneself off I 114 in the play (German: "Sichausspielen"). The self-presentation of the game thus causes the player to achieve his or her own self-presentation, as it were, by playing something, i.e. representing it. Only because playing is always already a representation, the human game can find the task of the game in the representation itself. Cf. >Representation/Art/Gadamer. 1. Aristot. Pol. Vlll 3, 1337 b 39 u. ö. vgl. Eth. Nic. X 6, 1176 b 33. 2. F. J. J. Buytendijk, Wesen und Sinn des Spiels, 1933. 3. Friedrich Schlegel, Gespräch über die Poesie (Friedrich Schlegels Jugendschriften, hrsg. v. J. Minor, 1982, Il, S. 364). IVgl. auch die Neuausgabe von Hans Eichner in der kritischen Schlegel-Ausgabe von E. Behler 1. Abt., 2 Bd., S. 284—351, dort S. 324._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
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