Distinguished for the game-parabling expressed in The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, Bernard Suits is revered as the author of the unorthodox claim that Utopia is intelligible and game playing is what makes Utopia intelligible. Reasonably embraced as a game in itself, the purpose of this metaphysical brainteaser is to present the reader with an enigma, with the challenge of its resolution serving as the very means by which one is to be brought into line with the logic of the (...) Grasshopper’s Utopian thesis. Appreciating the fine intricacies of this challenge, the purpose of this essay is to advance the quest for resolution via a consideration of play as a necessary element of the Grasshopper’s game playing Utopia. As foundational to the enigma, I begin with a portrayal of the Grasshopper’s tangle of riddles about play, games and the good life. Converging upon the insights of the Grasshopper and/or his disciples in respect to the nature, meaning and significance of play in its conceptual relati... (shrink)

In The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, Suits maintains the following two theses: game-playing is defined as ‘activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity’ and ‘game playing is what makes Utopia intelligible.’ Observing that these two theses cannot be jointly maintained absent paradox, this essay explores the (...) logical possibility that if is true, then must be false. More specifically, in the tradition of conceptual analysis it is argued that Suits’ definition of game-playing is too narrow inasmuch as it excludes really magnificent Utopian games of significance. (shrink)

Via the existential questioning outlook supplied by the Grasshopper’s three visions as relevant to the fate of humankind – oblivion, delusion, and really magnificent games – this article seeks to alleviate some of the ambiguity surrounding Bernard Suits’ provocative claim that Utopian existence is fundamentally concerned with game-playing. Specifically, after proposing an interpretation of Suits’ parable designed to enrich the logical intelligibility of his Utopian thesis, I advance the suggestion that the Grasshopper’s picture of people playing really magnificent games is (...) reasonably interpreted as a clue that the philosopher’s quest to discern games worthy of a Utopian might very well be that which saves humanity from the desolate oblivion-delusion paradox erected as a consequence of the initial two visions. (shrink)

Bernard Suits bequeathed a rich legacy of philosophical insights contributing to our developing a deeper understanding of sport-related issues, and his work has attracted much attention and stimulated valuable controversy over many years. However, the interest it has stimulated appears uneven. In this context and with reference to the former claims above, I focus on a part of his work that has received relatively less commentary, in the hope that it too will yield work of value. Given the imaginative quality (...) of Suits's writing, it is pessimistic to assume that attention to a relatively neglected part of his work will fail to bear fruit, if not as a result of my labours here, then perhaps of someone else's in further discussion. My concern is his account of ?play?, by which he meant to toy, fiddle or trifle with something or other, written over 30 years ago, and it stems from reflection on one recent effort to examine this part of Suits's work, namely Morgan's discussion of ?play?. My article attempts an analysis of the definition Suits gave and an evaluation of efforts he made to defend his understanding, alongside brief exploration of Morgan's work. Both of these tasks are undertaken against a background of Suits's broader concerns with the place of games in an ideal life. The conclusions I reach are that Suits's account embodies too many issues to be acceptable; that Morgan's attempt to rescue him from one of them is misdirected; but that even if my criticisms are damaging to the account of ?play? I examine, they leave Suits's main work on playing games seriously as sports unscathed. (shrink)

This article is an examination of the recent contribution in this journal by Kreider. In that publication he argued against formalist and non-formalist positions concerning our understanding of game-player and game-playing, focusing his discussion around game rules and their relationship to the two key concepts. This led him to produce alternative conceptions of game-player and game-playing, and it is these conceptions tied closely to the idea of commitment, and Kreider’s arguments surrounding them, which are the subject of my article. Following (...) an introduction, I summarize and evaluate Kreider's dissatisfaction with earlier accounts. Then I present and examine key aspects of his proposals for a different understanding of game-players and game-playing. While I remain uncertain about some of his claims, overall my conclusions are characterized more by disagreement with him than by a sense that he has overcome problems previously expressed theories contain. (shrink)

‘“That son of a bitch”, Skepticus muttered. With a snap he closed the book, he had been reading and glared at the title The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia’ (Suits 2021b, 1). These lines serve...

In this analysis, I employ Husserl’s three-part description of intentionality to show how a player/play act/play object model for consciousness helps us see play more clearly. I review Suits’ logic-based attempts to amend Huizinga’s overly inclusive characterization of play. However, I do so on what I see as stronger phenomenological grounds by describing four kinds of experience embedded in Suits’ work-play dichotomy. I analyze two species of play-fortified work – namely, work that requires intrinsic enhancement and work that does not. (...) I also describe two species of play – namely, play that is compromised and play that is unfettered. I conclude by summarizing advantages of phenomenological analyses and underlining the important distinctions this philosophic method uncovers within traditional work and play categories. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I review Suits’ classic description of games and cite three kinds of problems—mischaracterizations, omissions, and ambiguities. I build on previous criticisms by myself and others leveled at his definition. However, in contrast to much of this previous work, I will present what I hope is an improved description. The latter part of the essay is devoted to defending this alternate characterization. I conclude by arguing that my revisionist work paradoxically both supports and undermines the merits of Suits’ (...) anti-Wittgensteinian efforts to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for games. (shrink)

I here defend the thesis that the best life is the life that one plays as a game—specifically, a ‘Suitsian’ game that meets the definition proposed in The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits. Even more specifically, it is a nested, open, role-playing game where the life’s quality as a game partly depends on there being no more people than players. To defend this thesis I refute two powerful challenges to it, one from Thomas Hurka (2006) and another from within The Grasshopper (...) itself. In the process, I offer a new interpretation of that enigmatic and challenging book. (shrink)

Given Bernard Suits’ stature in the philosophy of sport, his take on strategic fouling, surprisingly, hasn’t been given much attention in the literature. Rather than relying on a purely empirical or ‘ethos’ approach to justify the Strategic Foul he provides a mixed justification. Suits’ account combines a priori and a posteriori elements. He introduces a third kind of rule, which appears to be unlike rules of skill or constitutive rules, into his conceptual scheme. Suits claims that it is sometimes tactically (...) correct to break such a rule in order to gain an advantage. I will argue that the a priori element in his justification of strategic fouling is unconvincing because there is nothing special about ‘third type’ rule-violations, which incur a ‘fixed penalty’. Furthermore, the a posteriori element ultimately reduces to a rule of skill, and it is doubtful whether it has sufficient normative force to warrant breaking a rule. But, most importantly, the a posteriori element degrades the power of the a priori element. (shrink)

Since Sigmund Freud developed and popularized psychoanalysis, this psychological theory has significantly influenced contemporary thinking, particularly in philosophical disciplines focused on understanding human behavior and addressing social problems. Take the examples of political philosophy, race theory, and feminist thought, among many others. However, although sport philosophy qualifies as one such discipline, scholars in this field have given little to no attention to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical theorists. Remarkably, psychoanalytical notions, especially those of Eric Berne and Norman O. Brown, significantly shaped Bernard (...) Suits’ pioneering thoughts on games. Nevertheless, sport philosophers have largely overlooked the importance of psychoanalysis in Suits’ examinations of games and, more broadly speaking, rarely attempted to apply psychoanalytical concepts to their analyses of sport. In this paper, I explain the psychoanalytical roots of Suits’ theory of games and explore how much of his theory of games is indebted to psychoanalysis. Specifically, I first compare Suits’ analysis of unconscious gameplay to psychoanalytic concepts of repression and neurosis. Subsequently, I explore the alignment between Suits’ views on gameplay and psychoanalytic accounts of play and pleasure. To conclude, I examine the therapeutic and emancipatory character of Suits’ proposal, drawing parallels between his philosophical corpus and critical theorists whose critical analyses of modern society are heavily indebted to Freud. (shrink)

In this paper, I engage the debate on Suits’ theory of games by providing a Kantian view of Utopia. I argue that although the Kantian aspects of Suits’ approach are often overlooked in comparison to its Socratic-Platonic aspects, Kant’s ideas play a fundamental role in Suits’ proposal. In particular, Kant’s concept of ‘regulative idea’ is the basis of Suits’ Utopia. I regard Utopia as Suits’ regulative idea on game playing. In doing so, I take Utopia to play a double role (...) in Suits’ theory of games. First, it highlights the primary condition of possibility of game-playing, namely, the lusory attitude. Second, it provides a normative criterion that serves as a critical principle to evaluate instances of game playing and as a counterfactual assumption that makes game playing possible. I provide further support for my Kantian interpretation of Suits’ Utopia by bringing to light the anthropological assumptions upon which Utopia is built. In doing so, I argue that both Suits’ theory of games, in general, and his Utopia, in particular, lay out the conditions of possibility of game playing, not an analysis on the life most worth living. (shrink)

Bernard Suits’ account of play as an autotelic activity has been greatly influential in the philosophy of sport. Suits borrows the notion of ‘autotelicity’ from Aristotle’s ethics, formulating diff...

In this article, I consider Alkis Kontos’ and Allan Bäck’s critiques to Suits that his theory of games and good living lack ontological grounds or rests on the wrong foundations. Taking these criti...

ABSTRACTIn this article, I consider Bernard Suits’ Utopia where the denizens supposedly fill their days playing Utopian sports, with regard to the relevance of the thought experiment for understand...