Play as Symbol of the World

Eugen Fink, Christopher Turner, Ian Alexander Moore

Description

Eugen Fink is considered one of the clearest interpreters of phenomenology and was the preferred conversational partner of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In Play as Symbol of the World, Fink offers an original phenomenology of play as he attempts to understand the world through the experience of play. He affirms the philosophical significance of play, why it is more than idle amusement, and reflects on the movement from "child's play" to "cosmic play." Well-known for its nontechnical, literary style, this skillful translation by Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner invites engagement with Fink's philosophy of play and related writings on sports, festivals, and ancient cult practices.

Translators' Introduction
Oasis of Happiness: Thoughts toward an Ontology of Play (1957)
Play as Symbol of the World (1960)
Chapter One: Play as a Philosophical Problem
Chapter Two: The Metaphysical Interpretation of Play
Chapter Three: The Interpretation of Play in Myth
Chapter Four: The Worldliness of Human Play
Play and Celebration (1975)
Additional Texts
Child's Play (1959)
Play and Philosophy (1966)
The World-Significance of Play (1973)
Play and Cult (1972-1973?)
Notes
The Philosophical-Pedagogical Problem of Play (1954)
Sport Seminar (1961)
Play and Sport (1962)
Notes on "Play and Philosophy" (1966)
Notes on "The World-Significance of Play" (1973)
Appendices
1. The Layout of the Volume and Description of the Texts
2. German Editors' Afterword
3. Bibliography of Fink's Works Available in English
4. Secondary Literature on Fink in English
Notes
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Movements
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Phenomenology

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 06 juin 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780253021175
• Langue: English

Extrait

PLAY AS SYMBOL OF THE WORLD
STUDIES IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT
John Sallis, editor
Consulting Editors
Robert Bernasconi
John D. Caputo
David Carr
Edward S. Casey
David Farrell Krell
Lenore Langsdorf
James Risser
Dennis J. Schmidt
Calvin O. Schrag
Charles E. Scott
Daniela Vallega-Neu
David Wood
PLAY AS SYMBOL OF THE WORLD AND OTHER WRITINGS
Eugen Fink
Translated by Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Published in German as Eugen Fink, Gesamtausgabe 7: Spiel als Weltsymbol, ed. Cathrin Nielsen and Hans Rainer Sepp 2010 Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau
English translation 2016 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02105-2 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-02117-5 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
Contents
Translators Introduction
Oasis of Happiness: Thoughts toward an Ontology of Play {1957}
Play as Symbol of the World {1960}
Chapter One: Play as a Philosophical Problem
1. Play as a Possible and Worthy Topic for Philosophy
2. The World-Significance of Human Play
3. Methodological Considerations
4. The Position of the Human Being in the Centauresque Metaphysics of the West
5. The World as Play? An Approach in the Appearance of the Playworld
Chapter Two: The Metaphysical Interpretation of Play
6. The Non-Actual Character of Play
7. Play and the Other Regions of Human Life. Plato s Blending of Being and Nothing
8. Plato s Interpretation of Play by Way of the Mirror. His Critique of the Poets
9. The Lens of the Disenchanted. Critique of the Platonic Model of the Mirror
10. The Ontological Devaluation of Play at the Beginning of Metaphysics. The Problem of the Symbol
Chapter Three: The Interpretation of Play in Myth
11. Basic Features of Mythical Cult-Play
12. The Cultic Sense-Image and Its Veiled World-Reference. Association with Daemons
13. Cosmic Status of the Symbolism of Play-Ancient Belief in Daemons. The Enchantment of Masks
14. Sacred Technique, Cosmic Metaphor, Initiatory Enchantment. Transition to Cult-Play
15. Cult-Play as a Dissembling of the World-Relation. Play of the Gods and Play of the World
16. Play and Consecration-Cult-Play and Religion. The Play of the Gods Is Not Itself Cult-Play
17. Nature Full of Gods in Myth, Empty of Gods in Late Culture. Critique of Religion on the Model of Self-Alienation. The Question Concerning the Worldliness of Play Is neither Sacred nor Profane
Chapter Four: The Worldliness of Human Play
18. Polysemy of the Concept Worldly
19. The Worldliness of Play-In Contrast to the Metaphysical and Mythological Interpretation
20. Play as the Ecstase of the Human Being toward the World and as the Proof of the Shining Back of the World into the Being That Is Open to the World. The World as a Game without a Player
Play and Celebration {1975}
Additional Texts
Child s Play {1959}
Play and Philosophy {1966}
The World-Significance of Play {1973}
Play and Cult {1972-1973?}
Fink s Notes on Play
The Philosophical-Pedagogical Problem of Play, 1954
Sport Seminar on February 24, 1961
Play and Sport {1962}
Notes on Play and Philosophy {1966}
Notes on The World-Significance of Play {1973}
Appendices
1. The Layout of the Volume and Description of the Texts
2. German Editors Afterword
3. Bibliography of Fink s Works Available in English
4. Secondary Literature on Fink in English
Notes
Name Index
PLAY AS SYMBOL OF THE WORLD
Translators Introduction
Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner
The greatest phenomenon of phenomenology for me is Fink.
Edmund Husserl 1
T RANSLATED HERE ARE Eugen Fink s collected writings on play, published in German in 2010 as Volume 7 of the Eugen Fink Gesamtausgabe . 2 In addition to drafts, seminar notes, and radio lectures recorded from 1954 to 1973 on the philosophical significance of play, this text contains the first English translation of Fink s magnum opus, Play as Symbol of the World . Published in 1960, though first delivered as a lecture course at the University of Freiburg in 1957, it should be numbered among other great works published by former students of Martin Heidegger around this time: Hannah Arendt s The Human Condition (1958), Emmanuel Levinas s Totality and Infinity (1961), and Hans-Georg Gadamer s Truth and Method (1960), 3 which also devotes considerable attention to the theme of play. 4 Also included in this text is our revised translation of Fink s Oasis of Happiness: Thoughts toward an Ontology of Play. Together, the writings collected here constitute the most intensive and comprehensive philosophical engagement with play in the twentieth century, a theme that is all too often considered to be mere idle amusement, to be valid only as a restful pause which helps us return all the more energized to what is really important, or to be subordinate to pedagogy as a means by which to educate the child and socialize the adult more effectively. Against these traditional views of play, Fink offers a speculative phenomenology of play that begins from the sort of play with which we are all familiar and from there attempts to reflect on play, moving from child s play all the way up to cosmic play, where the world itself is conceived as a game without a player . 5 Along the way, he broaches such wide-ranging topics as embodiment, ontology, theology, sports, pedagogy, mimesis, cult practices, mythology, drama, and anthropology.
The afterword to the German volume, written by Cathrin Nielsen and Hans Rainer Sepp and also included in this translation, explains the philosophical trajectory and significance of Fink s lifelong work on the theme of play. On account of this, and since many readers of this text will be encountering Fink s independent philosophical work for the first time, 6 we thought it might prove useful to situate this material within the context of Fink s life before explaining some of our translation decisions. Because of its importance for Continental Philosophy as it is practiced above all in the Anglophone world, we will focus in particular on Fink s relation to Husserl, Heidegger, and the French reception of phenomenology. 7
Eugen Fink s Life
Fink was born in Konstanz, Germany, on December 11, 1905, the fourth of six children. During the First World War, he and his brother Karl August Fink, later a Catholic theologian and church historian, were sent to live with an uncle who would prove to be formative for their education. Fink would accompany his uncle, a priest by calling, on his trips to minister to the sick, and his uncle tutored Fink in various subjects such as Latin. Fink was also able to avail himself of his uncle s ample library, where he discovered Kant and Nietzsche and first began to ponder the meaning of existence. By 1918, Fink was well equipped to begin secondary schooling at the prestigious humanistic Gymnasium in Konstanz (attended also by the likes of Heidegger 8 ), skipping two grades and excelling with his extraordinary memory. In addition to Kant and Nietzsche, he read Hegel, Hume, and Giordano Bruno during this time, and was even an active member of the Konstanz Kant Society as a teenager. After passing the university entrance examination second in his class, he began his university studies in M nster in the summer semester of 1925. His courses were mostly in German language and literature, though one was devoted to the history of modern philosophy from Descartes to Kant. 9
The next semester found Fink in Freiburg, where, with the exception of a semester in Berlin in 1926, he would remain until 1939. Among his classes that first semester was Husserl s Basic Problems of Logic. Apparently, Fink would not take notes in class. Jan Pato ka relates that Husserl noticed this and thought sarcastically, That s going to produce great results when he comes up for exams. Yet when Fink did come up for exams, he had everything memorized, which he recited . . . as if reading from a book. 10 Fink would continue to impress Husserl over the next few years, attending all of Husserl s courses (except when Fink was in Berlin) until Husserl retired in 1928. 11 In February 1928, Fink submitted a prize-winning essay on the imagination. Husserl was involved in the evaluation process, at least to some extent, and Fink would have discussed the topic with Husserl as late as December 1927. It clearly must have impressed Husserl, for, in 1928, Husserl asked Fink to become his second research assistant, alongside Ludwig Landgrebe. Fink agreed, thus beginning a decade of collaboration that would see revolutions in phenomenology and politics that would profoundly shape Fink s life and thought. 12
1928 was also the year Heidegger came to Freiburg as Husserl s successor. By this time, Heidegger was no longer merely rumored to be a hidden king ; the publication of Being and Time in 1927 had established him as one of the most important living philosophers. Fink himself had already begun to wrestle with Heidegger s book in 1927. 13 Now, while working alongside Husserl, he was also able to witness Husserl s philosophical heir at work. Fink attended every