Play and Value in the Philosophies of Aristotle, Schiller, and Kierkegaard
About this book
Play and Value in the Philosophies of Aristotle, Schiller, and Kierkegaard is the seed from which The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia eventually grew.It is Suits’ first attempt to treat play not as leisure’s leftover but as a serious philosophical problem, one that cuts across ethics, aesthetics, and human freedom.Here, Suits reads Aristotle, Schiller, and Kierkegaard as three distinct but converging attempts to understand the non-instrumental activity of play. Aristotle sees it as a subordinate good, Schiller raises it to the defining expression of humanity, and Kierkegaard inverts the moral order entirely by making play a way of life. Suits’ own project begins to take shape between these poles in a search for unity among the moral, aesthetic, and existential dimensions of play. The text is at once historical and exploratory, marking Suits’ first articulation of themes that would dominate his later philosophy.