Play and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece
eBook - PDF

Play and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Play and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece

About this book

What is art's relationship to play? Those interested in this question tend to look to modern philosophy for answers, but, as this book shows, the question was already debated in antiquity by luminaries like Plato and Aristotle. Over the course of eight chapters, this book contextualizes those debates, and demonstrates their significance for theoretical problems today. Topics include the ancient child psychology at the root of the ancient Greek word for 'play' (paidia), the numerous toys that have survived from antiquity, and the meaning of play's conceptual opposite, the 'serious' (spoudaios).What emerges is a concept of play markedly different from the one we have inherited from modernity. Play is not a certain set of activities which unleashes a certain feeling of pleasure; it is rather a certain feeling of pleasure that unleashes the activities we think of as 'play'. As such, it offers a new set of theoretical challenges.

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Yes, you can access Play and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece by Stephen E. Kidd in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Ancient & Classical Philosophy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-title page
  3. Title page
  4. Copyright page
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Contents
  8. Acknowledgements
  9. List of Abbreviations
  10. Introduction
  11. 1 The Pais of Paizō: Children, Intoxication, and Play in Ancient Psycho-physiology
  12. 2 Why Plato Needs Play
  13. 3 Platoā€™s Play and the Tragic Paradox
  14. 4 What Do Pleasure-Objects Do? An Inquiry into Toys
  15. 5 Aristotleā€™s Demotion of Play
  16. 6 Play vs. Mimesis in Aristotleā€™s Aesthetics
  17. 7 Serious Play as Goal-Oriented Play
  18. 8 The Value of Serious Things before and after Death
  19. Conclusions: Toward a Pleasure-Model of Play
  20. Bibliography
  21. Index