CSP 80 Games, Play, and Rationality

What is play, what are different forms of playing, and how are they related? What is the moral content and phenomenology of play? For instance, is it rational to want to win in a game, or is it always a sign of irrational obsession? Is the capacity to play a human universal that cuts across cultures, or are there essentially different and unrelated forms of play and playfulness (including ones which we perhaps do not understand)? Are digital games forms of genuine playing or do they merely provide the illusion of it?

While the main aim of the course is to engender debate and articulate our own convictions about play relying on such questions, we will also survey ways in which philosophy, cultural theory and criticism, as well as the arts have found it instrumental to invoke the concept of play to achieve their aims. Authors to be considered include Plato, Pascal, Castiglione, Shakespeare, Schiller, Kant, Fourier, Marx, W. James, Huizinga, Dostoevsky, Wittgenstein, Berne, von Neumann, etc. Our discussions will also be informed by engaging in and learning about actual games (such as GO, chess, and bridge, as well as others to be suggested by participants in the course).