In the mid twentieth century the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asserted that games are indefinable; there are no common threads that link them all. "Nonsense," says the sensible Bernard Suits: "playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." The short book Suits wrote demonstrating precisely that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is delightful. Suits not only argues that games can be meaningfully defined; he also suggests that playing games is a central (...) part of the ideal of human existence, so games belong at the heart of any vision of Utopia. Originally published in 1978, The Grasshopper is now re-issued with a new introduction by Thomas Hurka and with additional material (much of it previously unpublished) by the author, in which he expands on the ideas put forward in The Grasshopper and answers some questions that have been raised by critics. (shrink)

In his recent address to the Aristotelian Society, Aurel Kolnai suggests that games exhibit what he calls a “genuine paradoxy.” I do not believe that he has shown this to be the case, even on the most permissive interpretation of what it means to be a paradox. Kolnai has, however, called attention to an aspect of games which invites further investigation, and I should like to advance the following considerations not so much as a criticism of Kolnai as an attempt (...) to take the investigation along a path which Kolnai has indicated, but which he has not himself, in my opinion, followed. It is not that Kolnai does not say many interesting, indeed penetrating, things about games, for he does. That Kolnai's inquiry is an important contribution to the philosophy of games is not in question. What is questionable is whether paradox has very much to do with that contribution. (shrink)

Aurel Kolnai; X—Games and Aims, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 June 1966, Pages 103–128, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/66.

Aurel Kolnai; X—Games and Aims, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 June 1966, Pages 103–128, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/66.