Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Philosophy and Play: On Realities, Rules, and What Comes Next

Philosophy and Play: On Realities, Rules, and What Comes Next

McLennan, Matthew R.

Hardcover

PhilosophyGames & Activities GeneralSports General

ISBN10: 1350469041
ISBN13: 9781350469044
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: Jul 23 2026
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.85
Height: 0.50 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

Is philosophy a playful pursuit?

This book's central argument is that playfulness is an essential quality of philosophical practice, and that there is something essentially philosophical about play. Ways of doing philosophy well invariably require the same wonder, hope, co-operation and positive freedom that define healthy modes of play.

Matthew McLennan explores this intrinsic connection in the way that philosophy and play shed light upon one another through three core concepts: the realities of play define what it is and how it manifests; the rules of play determine how it functions; the 'what comes next' of play depends on what we want or hope to find in it. Together, these meditations explain how both play and philosophy are essentially oriented towards the indefinite, the infinite and the possible. Working across disciplinary boundaries and calling on an eclectic range of thinkers, this paradigm-shifting approach redefines how we understand the doing of philosophy and how we perceive the traditions that underpin it.

Also from

McLennan, Matthew R.

View All

Also in

Philosophy

View All