Bernard Suits Research Articles

Bernard Suits on capacities: games, perfectionism, and Utopia

ABSTRACTAn essential and yet often neglected motivation of Bernard Suits’ elevation of gameplay to the ideal of human existence is his account of capacities along perfectionist lines and the function of games in eliciting them. In his work Suits treats the expression of these capacities as implicitly good and the purest expression of the human telos. Although it is a possible interpretation to take Suits’ utopian vision to mean that gameplay in his future utopia must consist of the logically inevitable replaying of activities we conduct in the present for instrumental reasons (playing games-by-default), because gameplay for Suits is identical with the expression of sets of capacities specifically elicited by game rules, it is much more likely that he intends utopian gameplay to be an endless series of carefully crafted opportunities for the elicitation of special capacities (playing games-by-design), and thus embody his ideal of existence. This article therefore provides a new lens for understanding both Suits’ definitional work on gameplay and its connection to his utopian vision in the last chapter of The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia.1

Ludic Constructivism: Or, Individual Life and the Fate of Humankind

In The Grasshopper, Bernard Suits argues that the best life is the one whose essence is game-play. In fact, only through the concept of game-play can we understand how anything at all is worth doing. Yet this seems implausible: morality makes things worth doing independently of any game, and games are themselves subject to moral evaluation. So games must be logically posterior to morality. The current paper responds to these objections by developing the theory of Ludic Constructivism.Constructivist theories such as Kant’s explain normativity in a way that is both objective and cognitivist but also mind-dependent. Roughly, constructivists ground normative structures in rational procedures. But rational agency is diverse: it is realized in different ways and to different degrees by different agents. Yet Kantian Constructivism requires a strong identity of rational procedures across rational agents.Ludic Constructivism avoids this challenge by rejecting this strong identity of agency, instead building a normative framework out of the ingredients of Suits’s definition of game-play. We want to play the best games we can. In order to do so we must play games with a certain structure: they must be nested multiplayer games in which everyone who is capable of self-originating activity is engaged as a fellow player rather than a plaything. Nested games – games that are constructed out of other games – go best when each game contributes to the value of each other game in the nest. Such game nests are “reciprocating value-maximization structures”. Our lives go best when we design, play, and revise the game of our Individual Life and we also embed that game within the highest-order nested game of Fate of Humankind.In this way, Ludic Constructivism delivers a normative system that expands Kant’s Kingdom of Ends, and a life that meets Aristotle’s conception of pleasure.

Review of the book by Bernard Suits "The Grasshopper. Games, Life, and Utopia" (in the translation of Filip Kobiela)

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Endless summer: What kinds of games will Suits’ utopians play?

I argue that we have good reason to reject Bernard Suits’ assertion that game-playing is the ideal of human existence, in the absence of a suitably robust account of utopian games. The chief motivating force behind this rejection rests in the fact that Suits begs the question that there exists some possible set of games-by-design in his utopia, such that the playing of (a sufficient number of) its members would sustain an existentially meaningful existence for his utopians, in the event of a hypo-instrumental culture of material superabundance obtaining. But the set of utopian games is unknown and unknowable. Thus any implications of Suits’ vision for the utilization of our leisure time in the present are vitiated by the collapse of his normative ideal: his ‘metaphysics of leisure’ misses its mark.

“Games with learning”: adpositions and the lusory attitude

Purpose Games and learning research has diverged into “games for learning” and “games as learning” research. This paper aims to provide a third framing, “games with learning”, that can help address the lived experiences learners have with these media outside of formal, instructional contexts. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a critical analysis of the current games and learning field, considering what has been missed by recent research in the field and how we might benefit from further consideration of what Bernard Suits calls the “lusory attitude” or voluntary choice to accept inefficiencies in achieving goals. The paper analyzes dominant rhetoric of educational game research, with the intent of revealing the implicit assumptions about play and choice that much recent “games for learning” and “games as learning” work may have ignored. Findings The paper reveals that the further consideration of learning through extant play with games (characterized here as “games with learning”) can be a means of shifting the direction of educational games research toward investigations of how games are played “in the wilds” of out-of-school contexts. The paper advocates for a shifting of focus from compulsory contexts to the study of voluntary game play. Social implications The paper argues for the complex value of games and gameplay in non-institutional settings, and advocates for further research to understand games in non-institutional spaces. Originality/value The key argument is that games and learning to date has focused inordinately on how games can further educational design, rather than how the use of games can reveal important new contexts for learning.

How to justify ‘militant democracy’

Decisions in democracy are binding not in virtue of being true or good, but on account of being an outcome of the majority voting procedure. For some, this is a proof of an intricate connection between democracy and moral relativism. The ‘militant democracy’ model, on the other hand, is premised on the idea that certain political actors and choices have to be banned for being fatally bad for democracy. This gives rise to the claim that protected democratic fundamental values of freedom and equality enjoy the status of absolute moral standards. This article dismisses the intuition that justification of ‘militant democracy’ depends on unpacking the relation between democracy and meta-ethics. Instead, following Bernard Suits’ analytical exposition of the important features of games, it demonstrates, first, how democracy is like a game and, then, it argues that a plausible justification of ‘militant democracy’ stems from its game-like character.

“A Pleasant Place for the World to Hide”: Exploring Themes of Utopian Play in Ready Player One

Abstract Ernest Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One offers an imaginary world that is simultaneously utopian and dystopian, because it portrays an immersive game-obsessed world that fuses high-tech virtual reality with 1980s nostalgia. Characters contrast their grim apocalyptic reality with escapism through worldwide gaming in the OASIS, a massively multiplayer VR world allowing players to travel into space, experience high fantasy, attend lavish parties, or simply socialize with friends. Cline's novel achieved significant acclaim, but few writers have considered the scholarly merits of the book, particularly as an example of the overlapping functions of gaming and utopianism. This article examines Ready Player One alongside Bernard Suits' philosophical approach to defining games and utopia. Ready Player One explicitly plays with ideas of eutopia and dystopia, games within games, reality and escapist play. As such, it is an excellent environment to examine Suits' philosophy of games and showcase why gaming is essential to utopian fiction, particularly in the early twenty-first century. For Cline, games are equally necessary for a dytopia for much the same reason—they allow a creative and social “escape hatch” from the grim realities of futuristic decline.

Utopia is Intelligible and Game-Playing is What Makes Utopia Intelligible

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.

On Judged Sports

Whereas Bernard Suits argued that judged sports such as diving and figure skating are aesthetic performances rather than games, I argue that they’re simultaneously performances and games. Moreover, their two aspects are connected, since their prelusory goal is to dive or skate beautifully and the requirement to do somersaults or triple jumps makes achieving that goal more difficult. This analysis is similar to one given by Scott Kretchmar, but by locating these sports’ aesthetic side in their goals rather than in their rules, it better captures the importance of beauty in them.

The Grasshopper’s Error: Or, On How Life is a Game

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 inThe Grasshopperby 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 withinThe Grasshopperitself. In the process, I offer a new interpretation of that enigmatic and challenging book.

Finding Wilderness through Games

In forms of physical recreation associated with ‘wilderness experiences’, such as backcountry hiking or mountain climbing, technology is omnipresent. As a result, some may wonder whether genuine wilderness experiences are possible. In this essay, I argue that wilderness experiences are possible and that they can be enhanced through games. That is, I contend there are often physically challenging aspects to wilderness experiences that certain games can help to promote. This analysis will stress the fact that Bernard Suits delineated two comparable but distinct ways to engage in games. Following Suits’s logic, I explain how ‘literal skills’ like walking or climbing can function as the ‘constitutive skills’ of games. I then consider how games predicated on ‘literal skills’ can help promote the meanings available in wilderness experiences.

What is the state of play? The Grasshopper's game replayed

In Aesop’s fable, the industrious ant works hard to stockpile food for the forthcoming winter whereas the improvident grasshopper spends all summer singing and so dies for lack of food when winter comes. Philosopher Bernard Suits appears to turn this cautionary tale on its head in his seminal work ‘The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia’ (originally published in 1978 and reissued in 2005). His Grasshopper playfully engages disciples Skepticus and Prudence in a Socratic dialogue to address a number of riddles. One of these takes up most of the inner section of the book and is a riposte to Wittgenstein’s (1958) assertion that the concept of games cannot be defined. But that’s not all the book is about. Not only does it propose and defend a definition of games that can meet analytical philosophy’s requirement of necessary and sufficient conditions, it also considers the value of playing games – indeed, it seems to suggest that game-playing is the ultimate human good, the only thing that makes life worth living. Yet this presents a paradox. If, in Utopia, there is no need to work because everything is provided, then all that remains is playing games. However, this eventually becomes unsatisfactory so people begin to do unnecessary things that previously had instrumental value but are now carried out for their own sake (like building houses or solving scientific problems). This is the final riddle, according to Kolers (2014): perhaps it is not that the good life consists in playing games, but that it is the life that is itself a game. These riddles and paradoxes turn on the question of value. In this piece, and with deep and sincere apologies to Suits, I appropriate his play frame and rearrange it in a way to suit the issue at hand: the state of play. Here, the interlocutors are descendants of the originals: KATYDID (a particularly noisy bush cricket) and two disciples: PRAGMATICUS (a play campaigner and practical realist) and LUTROTES (a leading light in the Save Children’s Play campaign). Glossing over the issue of defining play (for reasons that emerge), it explores the contradictions inherent in discussing play’s value and ends with a riddle that readers may or may not wish to attempt to solve.

A Grasshopperian Analysis of the Strategic Foul

The question of acceptability in respect to the strategic foul in sport has provoked a rich and seemingly irreconcilable dispute with normative theorists currently divided amongst three schools of thought including formalism, conventionalism and interpretivism. In this paper, I seek to transcend the three-way intellectual stalemate portrayed in the literature via a consideration as to whether or not the strategic foul qualifies as ‘Utopian’. More specifically, after demonstrating that Bernard Suits’ theory of game-playing is fully capable of embracing all three rival accounts, I seek to end the normative debate altogether via a conceptual analysis of the strategic foul as unacceptable via the higher-order point of view afforded by essentialism.

A Justification of Militant Democracyy: Moral Truths and the Game-Like Character of Democracy

Decisions in democracy are binding not in virtue of being true or good, but on account of being an outcome of the majority voting procedure. For some, this is a proof of an intricate connection between democracy and moral relativism. “Militant democracy” model, on the other hand, is premised on the idea that certain political actors and choices have to be banned for being fatally bad for democracy. This gives rise to the claim that protected democratic fundamental values of freedom and equality enjoy the status of absolute moral standards. This paper dismisses the intuition that justification of “militant democracy” depends on unpacking the relation between democracy and meta-ethics. Instead, following Bernard Suits’ analytical exposition of the important features of games, it demonstrates, first, how democracy is like a game, and, then, it argues that a plausible justification of “militant democracy” stems from its game-like character.

On the Value of Make-Believe

Abstract The practice of make-believe has traditionally been viewed as valuable by psychologists and philosophers more or less exclusively as a mechanism for social initiation, a tool for everyday problem solving, or a method for children to learn about adult responsibilities. This instrumentalist approach has influenced the development of a wide variety of approaches to the pedagogical use of make-believe, from classroom experiments in play therapy to the influential "New Games" movement. This article examines the alternative hypothesis that games of make-believe should be conceived of as ends in themselves. It is suggested that a general explanation of the inherent value of imaginative play would provide support for Kendall Walton’s claim that to describe any artwork as representational is just to treat it as a prop in some game of make-believe. Also discussed are attempts made by Ron Edwards and Bernard Suits to provide general accounts of the value of make-believe. Their work hints at the existence of some surprising connections between this issue and certain broader and more fundamental philosophical concerns about the human good.

Sport as a drama

Argument of this text is that: to develop aesthetics of sport, we should not begin with aesthetics as philosophy of art but with aesthetics of everyday life; to start with aesthetics of sport, we should not begin with beautiful of ‘pure aesthetics’ but with the dramatic; to analyze the dramatic in sport, we should not open the analysis with analogy between theater and sport, but with sport as a sort of performance; to get at the meaning of sport as a drama, we have to discuss different meanings ‘drama’ has in theory and everyday communication; to map the dramatic in sport as performance, we have to discuss some features of sport which determine its dramatics first, and its potential as spectacle later. To proceed with the argument, we have to take into account contemporary state of aesthetics, recent development of aesthetics of everyday life, and theory of performance, together with Bernard Suits’ definition of game, Gadamer’s idea of play, and Lévy-Strauss’ account on conjunctive and disjunctive ritual.

Game as Paradox: A Rebuttal of Suits

Here I examine Bernard Suits’s definition of games and explain why that definition is in need of reference to representation or, put more generally, to semiosis. And, once admitting the necessity of the representational in games, Suits’s definition must also then admit the essential paradoxy of games.

On the Concept of a Game

AbstractIn an essay for Brian Leiter's turn‐of‐the‐millennium The Future for Philosophy, Thomas Hurka writes: [A]n anti‐theoretical position is properly open only to those who have made a serious effort to theorize a given domain and found that it cannot succeed. Anti‐theorists who do not make this effort are simply being lazy, like Wittgenstein himself. . . . [I]n one of the great underappreciated books of the twentieth century Bernard Suits gives perfectly persuasive necessary and sufficient conditions for something's being a game. In this note, it is shown that the conditions Suits and Hurka celebrate are neither necessary nor sufficient for something's being a game.

Suits, Autotelicity, Temporal Reallocations, Game Resources and Defining ‘play’

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.

A Pluralist Conception of Play

The philosophical and scientific literature on play is extensive and the approaches to the study, description, and explanation of play are diverse. In this paper I intend to provide an overview of approaches to play. My interest is in describing the most fundamental categories in terms of which play is characterized, explained, and evaluated. Insofar as these categories attempt to describe what kind of reality we are talking about when we make claims about play, I hope to clarify the metaphysics of play. Once this categorical scheme is made clear, we will be in a better position to evaluate the task of definition, claims about the relation of sport and play, and assertions about the significance of play. First, I place the discussion in the context of Bernard Suits's account of play and some other recent approaches to play. Next, I distinguish the following approaches to play: (a) play as behavior or activity; (b) play as motive, attitude, or state of mind; (c) play as form or structure; (d) play as meaningful experience; (e) play as an ontologically distinctive phenomenon. There is a natural progression in the way the analysis unfolds. In the final section I argue that my analysis generates a pluralist, nonreductive account of play.