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is now re-issued with a new introduction by Thomas Hurka and with additional material (much of it previously unpublished) by the author, in which he expands on the ideas put forward in The Grasshopper and answers some questions that have been raised by critics.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)

By means of a critical examination of a number of theses as to the nature of game-playing, the following definition is advanced: To play a game is to engage in activity directed toward bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by specific rules, where the means permitted by the rules are more limited in scope than they would be in the absence of the rules, and where the sole reason for accepting such limitation is to make (...) possible such activity. (shrink)

It has long been believed that if man had a special function appropriate to him, and that if we could discover what it was, then we would be in a perfect position to solve all of the basic problems of ethics. For if we were, for example, shovels, and knew ourselves to be shovels, then we would also know that to spend our lives in digging would best serve our fundamental interests, realize our highest aspirations, and be in every respect (...) the correct thing to do. Or so the theory goes; a theory which is shared, interestingly enough, by Aristotle and Sartre, even though they share little else, and even though one of them believes that man has a function and the other does not. (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)

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,” said 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. Through the jocular voice of Aesop's Grasshopper, a “shiftless but thoughtful practitioner of applied entomology,” 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, and so games belong at the heart of any vision of Utopia. This new edition of _The Grasshopper_ includes illustrations from Frank Newfeld created for the book’s original publication, as well as an introduction by Thomas Hurka and a new appendix on the meaning of ‘play.’. (shrink)