▸ Serious Games – Wittgenstein and Schiller
▸ – a short story from Wittgenstein to Schiller and back –
▸
▸ “For, to speak out once for all, man only plays when, in the full
meaning of the word, he is a man, and he is only completely a man
when he plays.”
▸ Friedrich Schiller 1795
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 1
▸ MACRAN, HENRY STEWART:
Hegel’s Doctrine of Formal
Logic, being a Translation
of the first section of the
Subjective Logic, by G. W.
F. Hegel. Oxford 1912.
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 2
▸ “Hegel’s philosophy is built upon stupid and trivial
confusions, [...]
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 3
▸ “Hegel’s philosophy is built upon stupid and trivial
confusions, [...]
▸ o n e w o u l d b e t e m p t e d t o c h a r a c t e r i z e a s
puns” (Russell 1914: 45).
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 4
▸ “I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the
actions into which it is woven, the ‘language-game’.”
(PU § 7)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 5
▸ The later Wittgenstein […] seems to have grown tired of
serious thinking
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 6
▸ The later Wittgenstein […] seems to have grown tired of
serious thinking
▸ and to have invented a doctrine which would make such
an activity unnecessary“ (Russell 1959: 217)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 7
▸ I have not found in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and
I do not understand why a whole school finds important
wisdom in its pages (Ibid.: 216)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 8
▸ serious – “σπουδαῖος” – “ἀγαθóς” – good
(Fragm. B302)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 9
▸ serious – “σπουδαῖος” – “ἀγαθóς” – good
(Fragm. B302)
▸ “σπουδή” – “σπουδάζειν“ – “φαῦλος” (Resp. 423d)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 10
▸ serious – “σπουδαῖος” – “ἀγαθóς” – good
(Fragm. B302)
▸ “σπουδή” – “σπουδάζειν“ – “φαῦλος” (Resp. 423d)
▸ σπουδή – παιδιά – γέλως (Gorgias 481b)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 11
▸ effort to demonstrate – σπουδὴ ἀποδεικτική
(Met. XII 1073a22)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 12
▸ effort to demonstrate – σπουδὴ ἀποδεικτική
(Met. XII 1073a22)
▸ H e g e l – E r n s t – s e r i o u s n e s s – e f f o r t
(Deutsches Wörterbuch Grimm)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 13
▸ effort to demonstrate – σπουδὴ ἀποδεικτική
(Met. XII 1073a22)
▸ Hegel – Ernst – seriousness – effort (Grimm/Ernst)
▸ game – Spiel – dance – entertainment – amusement –
pleasure – tale – speech (Grimm/Spiel)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 14
▸ Kant – the game – das Spiel – an “occupation agreeable on
its own account” (KdU § 43: 304)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 15
▸ Kant – the game – das Spiel – an “occupation agreeable on
its own account” (KdU § 43: 304)
▸ “free play of transcendental imagination”, – “cognitive
faculties of sensibility and understanding” – “conjunction
and harmony” (KdU § 51)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 16
▸ Kant – the game – das Spiel – an “occupation agreeable on
its own account” (KdU § 43: 304)
▸ “free play of transcendental imagination”, – “cognitive
faculties of sensibility and understanding” – “conjunction
and harmony” (KdU § 51)
▸ aesthetic well-being (Wohlgefallen)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 17
▸ Kant: “The cognitive powers brought into play by this
representation are here engaged in a free play, since no
definite concept restricts them to a particular rule of
cognition.” (KdU § 9: 217)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 18
▸ “aesthetic humanity” –
▸ “state of the highest reality” –
▸ “full meaning” –
▸ “shall turn with equal ease to seriousness and to play”
(22nd letter)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 19
▸ „Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man“
(F. Schiller 1795)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 20
▸ „Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man“
(F. Schiller 1795)
▸ “Man only plays when, in the full meaning of the word, he
is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.”
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 21
▸ „ L e t t e r s O n t h e A e s t h e t i c E d u c a t i o n o f M a n “
(F. Schiller 1795)
▸ “Man only plays when, in the full meaning of the word, he is a
man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.”
▸ “This proposition, which at this moment perhaps appears
paradoxical, will receive a great and deep meaning if we have
advanced far enough to apply it to the twofold seriousness of
duty and of destiny. I promise you that the whole edifice of
aesthetic art and the still more difficult art of life will be
supported by this principle.” (15th letter)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 22
▸ παιδιά – game – παῖς – child – παιδιά – παιδεία –
education – aesthetical education
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 23
▸ In “the aesthetic state […], if we have resigned ourselves to
the enjoyment of genuine beauty,
▸ we are at such a moment masters of our passive and active
powers in the same degree,
▸ and we shall turn with ease to seriousness and to play, to
rest and to movement, to submission and to resistance, to
abstract thinking and to intuition.” (22th letter)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 24
▸ Kant: “What is man?”
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 25
▸ Kant: “What is man?”
▸ Schiller: “In those climates where […] activity alone leads
to enjoyment, and enjoyment to activity, […] and there
only the mind and the senses, the receptive force and the
plastic force, are developed in that happy equilibrium
which is the soul of the beautiful and the condition of
humanity.”
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 26
▸ Hegel – seriousness – effort – as the struggle of mind for its
self-realization. Seriousness is the effort of the mind: “the
struggle to pass out of the unbroken immediacy”.
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 27
▸ “to work up simply to the thought of the subject-matter in
general” and “to furnish a serious judgment upon it” –
“very soon make way for the seriousness of actual life in
all its fullness” – “seriousness of the concept” – “conceptual
thought” – “to a living experience of the subject-matter
itself” – “to the very depths of ist meaning”. (PM §4)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 28
▸ This sphere of the finite is determined by “the
seriousness, the pain, the patience and the work of the
negative”. (PM § 19)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 29
▸ Roman religion of “rational understanding” and “finite
r e fl e c t i o n ” , o r t h e r e l i g i o n o f
“seriousness” (Rel. 16: 165,167)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 30
▸ Roman religion of “rational understanding” and “finite
r e fl e c t i o n ” , o r t h e r e l i g i o n o f
“seriousness” (Rel. 16: 165,167)
▸ infinite: the game or play as “absolute cheerfulness”
united with “high, divine seriousness” (ibid. 13: 436)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 31
▸ Roman religion of “rational understanding” and “finite
r e fl e c t i o n ” , o r t h e r e l i g i o n o f
“seriousness” (Rel. 16: 165,167)
▸ infinite: the game or play as “absolute cheerfulness”
united with “high, divine seriousness” (ibid. 13: 436)
▸ “For the blessed gods” –“there is no last seriousness to
the fury, and interest in finite domains and
purposes.” (AI 12: 218)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 32
▸ Wittgenstein: “the whole, consisting of language and the
actions into which it is woven, the ‚language-game’.”
(PU § 7)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 33
▸ “At the time I was put on to the picture theory of language
by a newspaper article, in which it was said that in Paris,
during a court ruling on a car accident, this car accident
was represented by dolls and small omnibuses.” – “How
does such a play differ from playing with dolls, etc.?” –
“(Of course, by the meaning), but what is it? (Some would
say: by its effective consequence—that alone is its
meaning.)“ (June 29, 1930)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 34
▸ “thinking can’t be just a game, just a play of human
forces.” For if it were, “we would have no interest for that.”
(30th Aug. 1930)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 35
▸ “the grammatical system (game)” (18th May 1930),
▸ “grammatical game-rules” (19th May 1930)
▸ “grammatical game” (12th June 1930)
▸ language game” (for the first time in March 1932)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 36
▸ „How would it be if someone played chess and set
checkmate and now said, ‘you see I have won because that
is goal I wanted to reach’. We would say this person did
not want to play chess, but a different game, while Russell
would have to say the person has won in chess who plays
with the characters and is satisfied with the outcome.“
(8th Feb. 1930)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 37
▸ “Grammar itself does not show that it is made for a specific
purpose. It alone could be a mere collection of gamerules.
Their use lies outside of it.” (2nd March 1930)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 38
▸ “the great variety of language-games [for exemple] to
make an announcement such as “Light”, “Dark”; To give an
order (“Make light!”, “Turn off the light!”); To answer a
questions—“Light?”, “Dark?”—with “Yes“ or “No”; [...] to
make a presumption [...] to draw conclusions; Solve an
applied calculation; to draw a drawing and describe it; [...]
to invent a Story; […] to greet; [...] tell a joke.” And he
insists “to think about how the child learns to speak with
such language-games” (14th Dec. 1933)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 39
▸ Wittgenstein: “I believe I summed up where I stand in
relation to philosophy when I said: one should really
write philosophy only as one writes a poem. That, it
seems to me, must reveal how far my thinking belongs to
the present, the future, or the past. (MS 146 25v:
1933-1934)
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 40
▸ Thank You for Your attendance.
▸ Alexander Berg – TU Dresden – Charles University Prague 41