A Kantian view of Suits’ Utopia: ‘a kingdom of autotelically-motivated game players’
Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 44 (1):138-151 (2017)
Abstract
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.DOI
10.1080/00948705.2016.1266907
My notes
Similar books and articles
The Grasshopper - Third Edition: Games, Life and Utopia.Bernard Suits, Thomas Hurka & Frank Newfeld - 2014 - Broadview Press.
Utopia is Intelligible and Game-Playing is What Makes Utopia Intelligible.Deborah P. Vossen - 2016 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 43 (2):251-265.
Game as Paradox: A Rebuttal of Suits.David Myers - 2012 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 39 (1):155-168.
Suits, Autotelicity, Temporal Reallocations, Game Resources and Defining 'play'.Richard Royce - 2011 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 5 (2):93 - 109.
Games as Pastimes in Suits’s Utopia: Meaningful Living and the “Metaphysics of Leisure”.M. Andrew Holowchak - 2007 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 34 (1):88-96.
Games as Pastimes in Suits’s Utopia: Meaningful Living and the “Metaphysics of Leisure”.M. Andrew Holowchak - 2007 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 34 (1):88-96.
The Intelligibility of Suits’s Utopia: The View From Anthropological Philosophy.R. Kretchmar - 2006 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 33 (1).
A Critique of Mr. Suits' Definition of Game Playing.Frank McBride - 1979 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 6 (1):59-65.
Analytics
Added to PP
2016-12-14
Downloads
33 (#356,269)
6 months
4 (#184,465)
2016-12-14
Downloads
33 (#356,269)
6 months
4 (#184,465)
Historical graph of downloads
Citations of this work
Suits’ Utopia and Human Sports.Steffen Borge - 2019 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 13 (3-4):432-455.
Sport as a (mere) hobby: in defense of ‘the gentle pursuit of a modest competence’.R. Scott Kretchmar - 2019 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 46 (3):367-382.
Bernard Suits’ Response to the Question on the Meaning of Life as a Critique of Modernity.Francisco Javier Lopez Frias - 2018 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 13 (3-4):406-418.
The Paradoxes of Utopian Game-Playing.Deborah P. Vossen - 2017 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 44 (3):315-328.
A critique of mutualism’s combination of the Aristotelian and Kantian traditions.Francisco Javier Lopez Frías - 2018 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 45 (2):161-176.
References found in this work
Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals.Immanuel Kant - 1785 - In Elizabeth Schmidt Radcliffe, Richard McCarty, Fritz Allhoff & Anand Vaidya (eds.), Late Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary. Blackwell.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.Immanuel Kant - 1785/2002 - In Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 37-108.