Unlike with randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in clinical research, little has been said about the ethical principles that should regulate the use of RCTs in experimental development economics. One well-known principle in clinical research ethics is the principle of clinical equipoise. Some recent commentators suggest that an analogue of clinical equipoise should play a role in experimental development economics. In this article, I first highlight some difficulties with importing the concept to experimental development economics. I then argue that MacKay’s (2018, (...) 2020) notion of policy equipoise avoids these difficulties and has a role to play in experimental development economics. (shrink)

Calls for increasing integration of ethical considerations into business education are well documented. Business graduates are perceived to be ethically naive at best, and at worst, constrained in their moral development by the lack of ethical content in their courses. The pedagogic concern is to find effective methods of incorporating ethics into the fabric of business education. The purpose of this paper is to suggest and illustrate role play as an appropriate method for integrating ethical concerns.

When they are first introduced to the ethical study of humor, students and colleagues alike sometimes react skeptically. They worry that doing ethics about humor is somehow antithetical to the nature of humor, or that it risks impinging on what makes humor valuable. In this paper, I attempt to explore and explain this intuition. I provide an account of humor’s contribution to the good life which helps to explain how and in what sense we might think humor is resistant to (...) ethics. I argue that humor, understood as a sort of play, is resistant to the introduction of practical ethical restrictions, which I call ethical taboos. This is because one of humor’s central contributions to the good life is in relieving us of the burdens of our social, moral, and political obligations. In this way, humor’s value is liberatory. Ethical taboos are exactly the sort of thing we engage in humor to escape, and so they counteract our reasons for engaging in the activity in the first place. I conclude this paper by discussing what some implications might follow from my account on humor ethics more generally. I argue that there may be ways to both preserve the integrity of humorous play and take deal with ethical issues unique to humor. (shrink)

In the late 1980s, I wrote up some notes on the play of pick-up basketball and sent them to Harold Garfinkel, who incorporated them into an un-published monograph in 1988. They were motivated by an interest in exhibiting the sense of "detail" for ethnomethodological studies. An edited version is presented below. They follow a front piece of recollection and discussion about Garfinkel's distinctive interests in matters of "detail," their tie to structure and structure's circumstantiality, and their place in EM studies.

Science has made a mighty advance since it originated in ancient Greece more than 2500 years ago. Yet we still live in Plato's cave today; we think everything around us moves continuously, but continuous motion is merely a shadow of real motion. This book will lead you to walk out the cave along a logical and comprehensible road. After passing Zeno's arrow, Newton's inertia, Einstein's light, and Schrodinger's cat, you will reach the real world, where every thing in the universe, (...) whether it is an atom or a ball or even a star, ceaselessly jumps in a random and discontinuous way. In a famous metaphor, God does play dice with the universe. Discovering motion is not continuous but discontinuous and random is like finding the Earth is not at rest but moving. The new discovery may finally solve Zeno's paradoxes and the quantum puzzle, and it will lead to a profound shift in our world view. (shrink)

We are little accustomed in modern times to think of philosophy in terms of play. With few exceptions, philosophers in the last few centuries are conspicuous for their gravity. If a lighter touch enters their writings it is rather as a douceur with which to punctuate argument. To charge a philosopher with playing games is to condemn his activity as trivial and futile.

This article examines the first-century c.e.Laus Pisonis, an anonymous panegyric for a certain Piso that lays particular emphasis on his skill at lyre-playing, ball games and the board game, the ludus latrunculorum. Whereas this focus has often been a cause of consternation among critics, this article argues that play is a crucial element of the poem's poetic and political operations. The first section shows that the poem employs images of poetic maturity and of temporality in order to justify a light (...) or ludic topic for an allegedly young poet. The second section identifies a hitherto unobserved telestich in the passage describing the ludus latrunculorum and argues that this letter game defines a positive period of play within the poem. The third section further demonstrates that this letter game is aimed specifically at the patron Piso as he is represented within the poem. That is, the poet parallels Piso's potential to uncover the telestich in the text and his ability to uncover the poet's hidden talent. The concluding fourth section explores the wider impact of this reinterpretation of the Laus Pisonis for the literary history of the Early Principate. It proposes that the poem's playfulness should not be seen as reflecting the progressive disempowerment of the political elite. Rather, the poem is an early case of Roman political discourse encroaching on the value of the trivial and the boundaries of otium. The Laus Pisonis makes play political. (shrink)

Research has revealed how inherent self-organizing tendencies in athletes and sports teams can be exploited to facilitate emergence of dynamical patterns in synergy formation in sports teams. Here, we discuss how game models, and associated tactical principles of play, may be implemented to constrain co-existing global-to-local and local-to-global self-organization tendencies in team sports players during training and performance. Understanding how to harness the continuous interplay between these co-existing, bi-directional, and coordination tendencies is key to shaping system behaviors in sports training. (...) Training programs are traditionally dominated by designs, which shape the self-organizing tendencies of players and teams at a global-to-local scale by coaches imposing a tactical/strategical plan with associated tactical principles of play. Nevertheless, recent research suggests that performers also need to be provided with opportunities to explore self-organizing tendencies that emerge at the local-to-global scale in training. This directional tendency in synergy formation can be facilitated by players being given opportunities to actively explore different adaptive and innovative performance solutions, coherent with principles of play circumscribed in an overarching game model. Developing methods (coaching sessions rooted on principles of dynamical systems theory that foment the development of such local-to-global relations) to exploit the continuous interplay between these co-existing tendencies within sports teams may promote more effective and efficient athlete skill training programs, in addition to enhancing performance. (shrink)

A great amount of literature documents young children’s innate interest in discovering their surroundings and gradually developing more complex activities and thoughts. It has been demonstrated that when environments support young children’s innate interest and progressive autonomy, they help children acquire a self-determined behavior. However, little is known about the application of this evidence in the daily practice of early childhood educational settings. This study examines Emmi Pikler Nursery School, a center that implements an autonomy-supportive educational approach. We conducted a (...) systematic observation of two experienced Pikler educators while they accompanied young children’s free play. Our objective was to assess: if educators’ instrumental action follows a systematic behavioral sequence; if each instrumental action is supported by specific relational behaviors; and if educators display differentiated intervention levels with regards to children’s free play through the adaptation of the relational dimension. We conducted lag sequential analysis in order to find behavioral patterns and concurrences between the observed behaviors. Our findings indicate that educators perform systematic action sequences and that each of the instrumental actions of those sequences has a specific relational value. We conclude that educators display three differentiated intervention levels depending on the child and the circumstances of the moment, providing an appropriate autonomy support and reinforcing children’s self-determination. (shrink)

Nicholson's political philosophy is distinctively grounded in history. The Play of Reason: From the Modern to the Postmodern argues that such "grounding" plays as much of the foundational role demanded of philosophy as can coherently be played by anything-and that such a foundation is, pragmatically, enough. I focus on two moves: (1) thinking historically as a model for thinking cross-culturally, and (2) historicizing "all the way down," as a way of exorcising the demand for the ahistorical grounding of epistemology.

Sport-related neurotrauma annually affects millions of athletes worldwide. The return-to-play protocol (RTP) is the dominant strategy adopted by sports leagues and organizations to manage one type of sport-related neurotrauma: concussions. RTPs establish guidelines for when athletes with concussions are to be removed from competition or practice, and when they can return. RTPs are intended to be neuroprotective, and to protect athletes from some of the harms of sport-related concussions, but there is athlete resistance to and noncompliance with RTPs. This prompts (...) consideration of whether RTPs, as employed in adult, professional sports, are paternalistic, and if they are, whether they are objectionably so. If RTPs are uniquely effective at protecting current or future athlete autonomy, they might be justified by paternalism. I conclude that RTPs are paternalistic in their effects, but are not adequately justified, and thus they are objectionable. (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche’s criticism of the Kantian theory of disinterested pleasure in beauty reflects his own commitment to claims that closely resemble certain Kantian aesthetic principles, specifically as reinterpreted by Schiller. I show that Schiller takes the experience of beauty to be disinterested both (1) insofar as it involves impassioned ‘play’ rather than desire-driven ‘work’, and (2) insofar as it involves rational-sensuous (‘aesthetic’) play rather than mere physical play. In figures like Nietzsche, Schiller’s generic notion of play—which is itself (...) influenced by Kant’s claim that aesthetic pleasure is orthogonal to desire-satisfaction—becomes decoupled from his (further) Kantian view that aesthetic play essentially involves a harmony of sensuous receptivity and rational spontaneity. The result, I suggest, is a self-standing opposition between desires and passions. This motivates a recognizably Romantic vision of aesthetic disinterestedness, as freedom from desire realized in a state of creative determination by passion. (shrink)

This article explores the idea of ‘play’ as a metaphor to understand the world as an always presupposed frame of all experiences and appearances. A large part of it is devoted to the work of Eugen Fink, who developed a notion of the world as play, as a speculative idea beyond phenomenology. This article argues firstly in favor of such an effort to understand the world as play, as an alternative to onto-theological metaphysics. However, it argues secondly, that a stronger (...) and more convincing concept of play can be found by elaborating on the views of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jan Patočka. Gadamer discussed ‘play’ as a metaphor for art, while Patočka worked on the notion of ‘world’ as a phenomenological idea that serves as a frame for all experiences. A combination of these two ideas may result in a better alternative to both Fink’s approach and to traditional onto-theological metaphysics. (shrink)

In the past decade a line of thought has developed that, in addition to the "fetishized sublime object" Judith Plotz describes in The Romantic Vocation of Childhood,1 there are other versions of "the child" at play in William Wordsworth's work.2 As Alan Richardson puts it, "If Wordsworth's 'Mighty Prophet' and Lamb's 'child angel' have lost their valence, other tendencies within the Romantic representation of childhood remain . . . vital, perhaps even indispensable."3 This essay focuses primarily on Wordsworth's more down-to-earth (...) accounts of childhood, accounts which, fully emerging in the 1799 Prelude, have affinity with work done by past and present evolutionary scientists. The biological concept of human .. (shrink)

Recent work has explored the extent to which intercollegiate athletics even belong at the university or meet the university’s mission. Just as play seems evident in athletics, it is also present in music, art, and theater. While these programs are popular targets when discussing possible cuts, few question their legitimacy at the university. In this article I argue that the justification for retaining the extracurricular status of intercollegiate sports should be based on their being especially playful. Indeed, on the basis (...) of this argument, I suggest that universities offer even greater and wider access to sport through club and intramural sports. However, while athletics might appear to be more playful, I hold that there is substantially more play present in university music, art, and theater programs than there is in intercollegiate sports. (shrink)

This paper was made as part of a wider research I made about rituals and their meaning and roles they are playing in the religious system of thinking. The way they are thought, displayed, precisely followed as instructed and believed, makes them a powerful social act that has been always provided by any religion, and also a tool for religion to make the human society what it is today. After I speak about what is a ritual and its religious content (...) in general, I am enumerating roles and functions of play and theatre in particular have, both for profane and religious purpose. Do we still use play/games as adults because they are rewarding, they give us pleasure? They are used as means of relaxation, or for continuing the age of childhood; or it is in our nature to play games in everything we do? In this paper I have emphasized play as adaptive potentiation or adaptive variability useful both in therapy, as in religious ceremony. The relation and comparison of rituals with play is due to the fact that playing is the most engaging behavior performed by man and animals, and it can be found as foundation of almost any ritualist activity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Attitudes of Play by Gabor CsepregiPaul GaffneyCSEPREGI, Gabor. Attitudes of Play. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022. 182 pp. Cloth, $120.00; paper, $32.95This delightful and illuminating book presents a thorough account of playfulness, its various manifestations and associations, and its indispensable role in the good life. Reading through the well-documented chapters, one recognizes how many thoughtful people have commented on the meaning of play, and yet, at the same (...) time, one recognizes the necessity for a full-scale, integrated discussion. The inspiration for the study is partly practical, as stated in the prologue: “I noticed that people who approach their daily tasks or [End Page 713] recreational pursuits with an attitude of play seem to lead a happier and fuller life.” But play as attitude also deserves theoretical study because it integrates, enhances, and to some extent opposes the instrumental character of human endeavor and thus reveals something fundamental about the human condition.A moral context is established early. We are told in chapter 1, “The Concept of Attitude,” that, unlike feelings and ideas, we are responsible for the attitudes that we adopt and, therefore, for the actions and emotions that they characteristically structure. An attitude is an authentic, embodied, and concrete engagement with the world, subject to “continual modifications” and so, presumably, not entirely under our control, but still largely a determination of human agency. In chapter 2, “Play as Attitude,” the author makes an important distinction between play as activity and play as attitude, the latter of which has been comparatively neglected. Play as attitude (playfulness) represents a mode of noninstrumentality— a “momentary holiday from work-related occupations”—that can transform almost any experience, at least temporarily. Playfulness thus represents an immediate engagement, a childlike attentiveness, which is precisely what provides its special value. Chapter 3, “Pathic Attitude,” develops this theme. Playfulness is reciprocal; in fact, we might say it is doubly playful: “In all play there is something with which we play and, in turn, plays with us.” An openness to the world, and a delight in its responsiveness, grounds the playful attitude. The experience is discoverable by young children and some animals as well.The following chapters elaborate on this basic outline. Chapter 4, “Ease,” explains how advanced players often lose themselves and “sink into a role,” a peak experience that is typically the product of training and habit. This enviable state would seem to be somewhat elusive, particularly for performers, which suggests that it is something of a moral achievement. The experience recalls what has been called in the philosophy of sport literature “flow performance,” which is, paradoxically, both more intense and yet effortless. Chapter 5, “Risk,” explores the adventurous nature of play, which inevitably involves uncertainty, luck, and risk. An attitude of play embraces, or at least accepts, the vagaries of good and bad luck; it comes with the risk of failure, embarrassment, and even physical injury. This chapter presents an important discussion about the tension between the spirit of playfulness and the ethos of modern sport, which tends increasingly to emphasize proficiency, rationalization, and commercialization. The modern obsession with preparation, perfection, and control leaves little room for a genuinely playful spirit, which ideally should animate sport. Indeed, the occasional experience of feeling lost, which the author, following Caillois, describes as “vertigo,” is an essential component of a full life. In chapter 6, “Humor,” we are told that although some playful activities are serious and demand concentration, they are often accompanied by a good-natured, lighthearted attitude. Humor seems to be inherently playful, a liberal and often irreverent exercise of the [End Page 714] imagination, which allows it to provide solace, inspiration, and transcendence: “Humor, then, is the capacity to see and apprehend things in their complexity, ambivalence, and paradoxical nature.” Chapter 7, “Gratuité,” underscores a major theme of the book—the importance of the useless or gratuitous in a fully meaningful life (gratuité and utilité are French for “useless” and “useful”). The author insightfully suggests that such moments might present themselves in seemingly disparate activities, such as play and liturgy: “Measured by the strict sense of the word, they are purposeless but still full... (shrink)

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)

Neuroscience is increasingly used to infer the cognitive capacities of offenders from the activity and volume of different brain regions, with the resultant findings receiving great interest in the public eye. This field experiment tested the effects of public engagement in neuroscience on attitudes towards offenders. Brainstorm is a play about teenage brain development. Either before or after watching this play, 728 participants responded to four questions about the age of criminal responsibility, and the moral responsibility and dangerousness of a (...) hypothetical young or adult offender. After watching the play, participants perceived the young offender as less likely to reoffend than the adult offender and the young, but not adult, offender as less morally responsible for his actions, especially on the first offence. Therefore, public engagement in the newest arrival to the criminological scene – neuroscience – may shift support for different youth justice responses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.1 (2002) 111-118 [Access article in PDF] Brief MentionSupplices, The Satyr Play: Charles Mee's Big Love Rush Rehm Berkeley Repertory Theater, long the most adventurous theater company in the San Francisco Bay area, opened its new Roda theater in style this spring with Aeschylus' Oresteia (trans. Fagles), followed (on the more intimate thrust stage) by Charles L. Mee's adaptation of Aeschylus' Danaid trilogy, entitled Big (...) Love. Seeing these productions in tandem reminds one of the similarities between the two trilogies, as if Aeschylus in his Oresteia developed and expanded ideas introduced five years earlier in Danaides. These include the horrific consequences of male violence, not the least of which involves the tragic female response of killing husbands and turning households into bloodbaths. The primal compulsions that affect human beings--particularly eros and vengeance, immortally hypostasized as Aphrodite and the Furies--drive through both trilogies, countered somewhat by the religious and moral imperatives to grant beleaguered foreigners asylum. Reflecting Athens's radical democracy, Aeschylus emphasizes the perils and responsibilities of a polity that must face the consequences of its own decisions. In dramatic terms, both trilogies tap the power of choral lyric to wash over plot and action, almost like a force of nature, moving the human drama into a wider spatial and temporal context. Aeschylus also exploits the apparent finality of a trial in both works to bring matters to a dramatic close. However, ultimate resolution depends on the fundamentally comedic faith in the curative powers of marriage, family, and time to restore the human community. Addressing these themes in Big Love, Mee uses them to construct an entertaining romp. One could say he converts Aeschylus' Danaides into a contemporary satyr play, the paratragic genre for which Aeschylus was famous in antiquity (none of his survive, but one called Amymone ended the Danaid tetralogy).Although only Supplices is extant, most scholars agree on the [End Page 111] trilogy's dramatic arc. 1 Led by their father Danaos, the fifty Danaids flee from detested marriage with their Egyptian cousins. They receive asylum in Argos, until the Argive leader Pelasgos is defeated in battle and the victorious Egyptians have their connubial way. Commanded by their father, the Danaids murder their husbands on their wedding night--all save Hypermestra, who spares Lynkeus. A trial absolves Hypermestra of disobedience, and Aphrodite celebrates the power of eros, manifest in the marriage of earth and sky. Due to its incomplete story line and the absence of all but a few short fragments from the latter two plays, Supplices has not proved popular on the modern stage.Enter Charles Mee, whose updated version Big Love follows (mutatis mutandis) the reconstruction outlined above. Missing is Danaos, and (as one might expect) Aeschylus' lyrically and poetically charged language. According to Mee, "getting into a Greek plot is like stepping into a Rolls Royce," and he clearly enjoys the ride. 2 In earlier plays, Mee has stepped into the plots of Euripides' Bacchae, Orestes, and Trojan Women (in the first half of his Trojan Women a Love Story). 3 His updated treatments have attracted the interest of classicists, drawn to new translations, contemporary productions, and modern adaptations of ancient material. 4 Regarding Mee's creative use of Greek tragedy, key questions remain: where is he heading in his smooth-riding import? does some destination guide the journey? whom does Mee pick up along the way?Answering the last first, Big Love--as directed by Les Waters at Berkeley, with a strong cast--sweeps up the audience with its energy and sense of play. It offers an evening of kitsch, froth, stage blood (over-the-top and inoffensive), and body-slamming physical humor. Although set in Italy--the Pelasgian Piero is a suave villa-owner who "makes arrangements" and "has connections"--this is very much an American play, full of commercial pop culture. For example, the first "chorus" has three representative Danaids singing Leslie Gore's schlock rock "You Don't [End Page 112] Own Me," using champagne flutes and empty bottles as microphones, like... (shrink)

The occurrence of sport-related concussions (SRCs) has emerged as a significant health concern in professional sports, with millions of concussions occurring worldwide each year. Current return-to-play (RTP) protocols after SRCs involve a multi-disciplinary approach with growing interest in genetic testing technology. Numerous studies have indicated that the gene Apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) holds promise as a predictive factor for developing diseases after concussions and other traumatic brain injuries. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing and contentious debate surrounding the impact of SRC genetic (...) testing on the RTP decision, encompassing concerns about the potential adverse effects on individual athletes, coaches, and even the whole sport community at large not in a small degree due to incidental findings. Hence, the purpose of this article is to explore the clinical and ethical components of SRCs genetic testing and its potential integration into RTP protocols by utilizing the ACCE framework to assess the validity, utility, and ethical aspects of SRCs. (shrink)

The philosophical literature on state legitimacy has recently seen a significant conceptual revision. Several philosophers have argued that the state's right to rule is better characterized not as a claim right to obedience, but as a power right. There have been few attempts to show that traditional justifications for the claim right might also be used to justify a power right, and there have been no such attempts involving the principle of fair play, which is widely regarded as the most (...) promising basis for a claim right to obedience. William Edmundson argues that the principle of fair play cannot generate power rights, and so any attempt at a fair play account of legitimacy must fail. I explain how fair play could generate a power right, owing to its stipulation that the rules of a cooperative scheme specify the form of participants' repayment. (shrink)

Eugen Fink’s interpretation of play is virtually absent in the current philosophy of sport, despite the fact that it is rich in original descriptions of the structure of play. This might be due to Fink’s decision not to merely describe play, but to employ its analysis in the course of an elucidation of the ontological problem of the world as totality. On the other hand, this approach can enable us to properly evaluate the true existential and/or ontological value of play. (...) According to Fink, by integrating beings into the imaginary play-world, we become able to transcend mere circumscribed individual entities and encounter reality as such in a new, more profound way. This positive ontological value of play is, however, forgotten because the imaginary dimension of play is traditionally interpreted as a virtual imitation of a model reality which already actually exists somewhere else. For this reason, Fink returns to the Platonic interpretation of play, which laid the foundations for this understanding, and... (shrink)

This article outlines a genealogical profile of an elusive doctrinal concept that, after being discussed in several Mahāyāna sutras, had a significant impact on East Asian Buddhist traditions. This notion is known as ‘playful samādhi’, in Chinese youxi sanmei 遊戲三昧, which translates to Sanskrit vikrīḍita samādhi. The compound youxi 遊戲 (‘playful’ – ‘at play’) was cited in Chinese sutras and Buddhist documents, in renowned and widely diffused collections of gongans/kōans 公案, was expounded and commented on by Dōgen Zenji 道元禅師 (1200–1253) (...) in its Japanese version yuge 遊戲 and was explored by modern scholars and interpreters as Ryōsuke Ōhashi 大橋良介 and Wu Rujun 吳汝均, who compares youxi 遊戲 with Schiller’s Spieltrieb. Given the significance of ‘playful samādhi’ across different epochs and cultures, I believe a clarification of the term is especially needed. Furthermore, explicit reference to contemporary scholarship on play studies can help uncover its philosophical implications, shedding new light on a complex notion that defies a univocal interpretation and reunites in its semantic field both the aesthetic and religious dimensions. (shrink)

Over the last eighty years, studies in play have carved out a small, but increasingly significant, niche within the social sciences and a rich repository has been built which underscores the importance of play to social, cultural, and psychological development. The general point running through these works is a philosophical recognition that play should not be separated from the trappings of everyday life, but instead should be seen as one of the more primordial aspects of human existence. Gadamer is one (...) philosopher frequently associated with interest in play. In his magnum opus, Truth and Method (1960), Gadamer insisted the significance of play to human understanding is not merely recreational, but rather it discloses the full context of any given situation by promoting a freedom of possibilities within the horizon of one’s own life-world (i.e. the world directly and immediately experienced). As such, his philosophical analysis of play was essential to his overall project of philosophical hermeneutics as it can explain how meaning is not derived from something essential within a text, but rather considered from a full range of possibilities. There are good reasons to expand on that understanding of play within philosophical studies and we suggest one way to do so is to compare Gadamer’s treatment of play with similar ideas from thinkers often associated with other philosophical schools. Although there are other candidates (e.g. Wittgenstein’s language games) for such an analysis, we limit our comparison here to the notion of transaction, as treated by the American pragmatist John Dewey in his volume Knowing and the Known (co-authored with Arthur Bentley in 1949). Because Dewey tied his conception of transaction to an overarching philosophy of inquiry, we believe comparing it to Gadamer’s use of play can highlight the deep philosophical import of this concept to the understanding of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

The present study examined early social game routines during natural face-to-face mother–infant interactions and their relationship with oxytocin. Forty-three mother–infant dyads were observed, when infants were 4 months old, during a procedure involving a baseline and a natural interaction, where mothers were instructed to interact with their infants as they would at home. During this procedure four saliva samples from mothers and infants were collected to determine levels of oxytocin at different time points. Social game routines and infant social engagement (...) (gaze, positive, and negative affect) were coded during the natural interaction. Social games were observed in 76.7% of the mother–infant dyads, and 46 different types of games were identified. Mothers initiated games to re-engage infants significantly more often than when infants were already engaged with them. During the games, infants showed more positive affect and less negative affect in comparison to the rest of the interaction. Finally, maternal increase in oxytocin from before to after the natural interaction was positively correlated with game rate and time spent in games, while infant increase in oxytocin from before to after the natural interaction was inversely related to game rate. These results indicate that social games are an inherent part of early mother–infant interactions, and their occurrence is associated with oxytocin of both infants and mothers. (shrink)

Children of about 2 years of age occasionally make scale errors, e.g., they may attempt to fit their body into extremely small objects. Although previous studies have suggested that immature cognitive abilities may be responsible for these errors, the mechanism of scale error production is unclear. Because we assumed that obtaining characteristics of scale error behavior in the context of play would give us more useful indications concerning individual differences in producing scale errors, we examined how children engage in scale (...) error behavior in relation to other types of play behavior, such as pretending, during the scale error task. The results indicate that children who produced scale errors exhibited less pretend play with miniature toys and tended to refuse to play with miniature toys more often than those who did not produce any scale errors during the task. Moreover, among the children who produced scale errors, the children who produced more scale errors were less likely to touch the miniature objects and less likely to perform pretending actions than those who produced fewer scale errors. These results suggest that pretense play is deeply related to a lower production, or no production, of scale errors. Some immature cognitive abilities underlining pretense play can be assumed to be related to the production of scale error. In conclusion, this study is one of the first to demonstrate empirically significant relationships between children’s scale error production and pretend behaviors, although further studies are necessary to understand the mechanisms. (shrink)

The Handbook of the Study of Play brings together, in two volumes, thinkers whose diverse interests at the leading edge of scholarship and practice define the current field. Because play is an activity that humans have shared across time, place, and culture, and in their personal developmental timelines - and because this behavior stretches deep into the evolutionary past - no single discipline can lay claim to exclusive rights to study the subject. Thus, this handbook features the thinking of evolutionary (...) psychologists; ethologists and biologists; neuroscientists; developmental psychologists; psychotherapists and play therapists; historians; sociologists and anthropologists; cultural psychologists; philosophers; theorists of music, performance, and dance; specialists in learning and language acquisition; and playground designers. Together, but out of their varied understandings, the incisive contributions to The Handbook of the Study of Play take on vital questions of educational policy, literacy, fitness, the role of play in brain development, spotaneity and pleasure, well-being and happiness, fairness, and the fuller realization of the self. These volumes also comprise an intellectual history, offering retrospective looks at the great thinkers who have made possible the modern study of play. -- from back cover. (shrink)

This is a study of the development of student agency from a gender perspective in a Finnish classroom. The data originates from an ethnographic research project in an elementary school classroom engaging in a play pedagogy project called a “playworld.” The article has two purposes. The first is to examine the potential of imagination and improvised fantasy play in the development of agency. The second is to investigate the role of gender as a social category in shaping the students’ possibilities (...) for agency in the play pedagogical setting. The creative use of imagination is at the center of the playworld pedagogy. However, it has rarely been studied in relation to the potentially uneven or stereotypic consequences of cultural tools, symbols, and categories. The analytical focus is on the gender-related categorization of a ‘horse girl’ and the role it played in the development of the agency of two seven-year-old girls as they participated in the playworld. I have used a multidisciplinary analytical framework to sensitize myself to the data. In the article I combine Vygotsky’s ideas of double stimulation, Sacks’ categorization analysis and, Holzkamp’s concept of action potence . The results show that the playworld pedagogy that explicitly aimed at developing children’s agency and collaboration was strongly gender categorized and thus was constraining for the girls in this study. On the other hand, the girls’ unplanned fantasy play, which took place on the sidelines of the classroom activity, contained important agentive elements. It gave the girls a sense of agency crucial to their enactment of agency in the wider playworld setting. It is argued that the girls were able to become agentive players in the activity through questioning the gendered categories openly in the classroom. (shrink)

Theory Young children have an understanding of basic science concepts such as stability, yet their theoretical assumptions are often not concerned with stability. The literature on theory theory and theory-evidence coordination suggests that children construct intuitive theories about their environment which can be adjusted in the face of counterevidence that cannot be assimilated into the prior theory. With increasing age, children acquire a Center theory when balancing objects and try to balance every object at their middle, succeeding with symmetrical objects. (...) Later, they acquire the basic science concept of stability through learning that the weight distribution of an object is of importance. Thus, they acquire a Mass theory and succeed in balancing asymmetrical objects as well. Fluid and crystallized intelligence might contribute to children’s acquisition of Mass theory. Moreover, their Mass theory might be supported by implementing a playful intervention including (a) material scaffolds and (b) verbal scaffolds. Aims We investigated which theories children have about stability and whether these theories can be adjusted to Mass theory by implementing a playful intervention. Method A total of 183 5- to 6-year-old children took part in the study with a pre-post-follow-up intervention design. Children’s Mass theory was assessed with an interview in which children explained constructions’ stabilities. The children received a playful intervention with two differing degrees of scaffolding (material scaffolds or material + verbal scaffolds) or no scaffolding. Results At first few children used a Mass theory to explain their reasoning. However, after being confronted with counterevidence for the asymmetrical constructions, children changed their explanation and applied a Mass theory. More children in the play group with the highest degree of scaffolding, i.e., material + verbal scaffolds, acquired a Mass theory compared to the other groups. Fluid as well as crystallized intelligence contributed to children’s acquisition of a Mass theory. Discussion Counterevidence can support children in their acquisition of a Mass theory. A playful intervention with scaffolding supports children even more. (shrink)

Many people have a strong intuition that there is something morally objectionable about playing violent video games, particularly with increases in the number of people who are playing them and the games' alleged contribution to some highly publicized crimes. In this paper,I use the framework of utilitarian, deontological, and virtue ethical theories to analyze the possibility that there might be some philosophical foundation for these intuitions. I raise the broader question of whether or not participating in authentic simulations of immoral (...) acts in generalis wrong. I argue that neither the utilitarian, nor the Kantian has substantial objections to violent game playing, although they offer some important insights into playing games in general and what it is morally to be a ``good sport.'' The Aristotelian, however, has a plausible and intuitive way to protest participation in authentic simulations of violent acts in terms of character: engaging in simulated immoral actserodes one's character and makes it more difficult for one to live a fulfilled eudaimonic life. (shrink)

The concepts of work, labour, leisure, and play have been widely debated by the social sciences. By contrast, most canonical figures in the history of analytic philosophy have written very little, if anything, on the topic. One of the few exceptional discussions of the concept of labour and its history can be found in Bertrand Russell’s popular work from the 1930s, and more specifically his well-known essay ‘In Praise of Idleness’. In the essay, Russell attempts a spirited defence of a (...) specific, qualified proposal for eventual reform: the universal limitation of the working day to four hours. Looming in the background of this proposal is a bolder thesis, namely the view that social progress involves the eventual minimisation (if not the complete elimination) of labour in the sphere of human activity. It is this bolder view that, as I shall show in what follows, Russell at least partly shares with another philosopher whose work shaped the history of analytic philosophy, Moritz Schlick. While Russell's work on the future of leisure and labour was written for a popular audience and widely read, Schlick’s early writings on work and play have not received adequate scholarly attention. Aside from some differences in their scope and details, there are some striking parallels between Russell’s and Schlick’s overall views on the future of work and play. (shrink)

The critical intention of this article does not focus on a comprehensive socio-cultural evaluation of gambling. Rather, its perspective is guided towards ways of picturing gambling and the subject of the gambler in different theoretical contexts. It is argued that one might expand philosophical conceptions of practical self-determination by taking an interdisciplinary look at gambling. However, such an attempt runs into the danger of painting an overly simplistic picture of self-control as self-continence, which can be found in theoretical approaches pathologizing (...) the gambler. In order to avoid such an outcome, an interdisciplinary analogy combining psychoanalytical and philosophical thought is presented. This analogy brings together the perspectives of the analysand and the gambler. By confronting these scenarios of human agency, it is shown that practical self-determination depends on instances of daring that can be related to certain gambling practices, too. The interdisciplinary view on gambling highlights its potentials for self-exploration, without neglecting the fact that an appropriate realization of such a self-exploration requires experiential and interpersonal conditions that often collide with the harsh reality of gambling practices. (shrink)

In this article, the authors examine whether and how robot caregivers can contribute to the welfare of children with various cognitive and physical impairments by expanding recreational opportunities for these children. The capabilities approach is used as a basis for informing the relevant discussion. Though important in its own right, having the opportunity to play is essential to the development of other capabilities central to human flourishing. Drawing from empirical studies, the authors show that the use of various types of (...) robots has already helped some children with impairments. Recognizing the potential ethical pitfalls of robot caregiver intervention, however, the authors examine these concerns and conclude that an appropriately designed robot caregiver has the potential to contribute positively to the development of the capability to play while also enhancing the ability of human caregivers to understand and interact with care recipients. (shrink)

We examine the ontogeny and phylogeny of object and fantasy play from a functional perspective. Each form of play is described from an evolutionary perspective in terms of its place in the total time and energy budgets of human and nonhuman juveniles. As part of discussion of functions of play, we examine sex differences, particularly as they relate to life in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness and economic activities of human and nonhuman primates. Object play may relate to foraging activities. (...) Although fantasy play has been viewed as limited to humans, we speculate that certain types of fantasy play may be present in some nonhuman primates. Fantasy play may enable juveniles to see situations from different perspectives. We conclude that fantasy play may have immediate effects and object play may have deferred effects. (shrink)

Should editors of scientific journals practice triple-anonymous reviewing? I consider two arguments in favor. The first says that insofar as editors’ decisions are affected by information they would not have had under triple-anonymous review, an injustice is committed against certain authors. I show that even well-meaning editors would commit this wrong and I endorse this argument. The second argument says that insofar as editors’ decisions are affected by information they would not have had under triple-anonymous review, it will negatively affect (...) the quality of published papers. I distinguish between two kinds of biases that an editor might have. I show that one of them has a positive effect on quality and the other a negative one, and that the combined effect could be either positive or negative. Thus I do not endorse the second argument in general. However, I do endorse this argument for certain fields, for which I argue that the positive effect does not apply. (shrink)

Richard Dagger (in this issue) provides perhaps the most persuasive version of a ‘fair play’ theory of criminal punishment, grounded in an attractive liberal republican political theory. But, I argue, his version of the theory still faces serious objections: that its explanation of why some central mala in se are properly criminalised is still distorting, despite his appeal to the burdens of ‘general compliance’; and that it cannot adequately explain (as it should explain) the differential seriousness and wrongfulness of different (...) kinds of crime. (shrink)