The Phenomenology of Play

Encountering Eugen Fink

Steve Stakland, Steven Stakland

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781350424630
• eBook ISBN: 9781350424654
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Phenomenology in Philosophy

Eugen Fink's deep engagement with the phenomenon of play saw him transcend his two towering mentors, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, to become a crucial figure in early 20th-century phenomenology. The Phenomenology of Play draws on Fink's concept of play to build a picture of his philosophy, from its foundations to its applications.

The book's three sections focus on the building blocks of Fink's phenomenology of play, how his work maps onto the broader history of philosophy, and finally how his writing can be applied to contexts from education and care to politics and religion. This rich account of Fink's contribution to theories of play demonstrates its immense value and fundamental importance to human existence. Relating Fink's work to that of his contemporaries and predecessors like Husserl, Heidegger, Schiller, Gadamer, Nietzsche and Sartre shows the range and importance of his ideas to modern European thought. The Phenomenology of Play also features newly translated material including notes from conversations between Fink and Heidegger, and Fink's own essay 'Mask and Cothurnus' on ancient theatre – which shed new light on his philosophical enquiries.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• Preface: The Virtues of Eugen Fink
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Part One Background and Foundation
• 1 Play in the World as Symbol for Play of the World
• 2 Fink’s Position within the Phenomenological Movement and the Origins of His Cosmology of Play
• 3 Fink’s Phenomenology and Ontology of Play and Its Relation to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics
• 4 Fink and Gadamer: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, and the Aesthetics of Play
• 5 Fink and Heidegger on Cosmological and Ontological Play: A Confrontation
• Part Two History of Philosophy
• 6 The Last Temptation of Metaphysics: Eugen Fink’s Nietzsche
• 7 Fink, Schiller, and Echoes of Classical German Philosophy
• 8 What Is the Problem that Fink Solved for Derrida and Deleuze in 1967?
• 9 Phantasy and Play in Husserl, Fink, and Sartre
• 10 Fink and Plotinus on Play
• Part Three Application to Philosophical Issues
• 11 Music and Ontological Experience: Fink’s Importance for Our Understanding of Music
• 12 The Relation of Play and Education in Fink: Human Play as an Analogical Path to Understanding Onto-Cosmology
• 13 “The Desert Grows”? On a remarkable Silence in Fink’s Oasis of Happiness
• 14 Holy Laughter: A Pentecostal Pneumatology of Play in Fink and Wariboko
• 15 Ontology of Play and the Ambivalence of Resilience
• 16 From Animal Rationale to Ens Cosmologicum: Eugen Fink on Animality
• 17 Politics as Social Gameplay? How We Might Reconsider a Phenomenology of Play in Terms of Freedom and Responsibility
• Part Four Translations and Commentaries
• 18 World, Individuation, and Play: A Critical Introduction to Fink’s Conversations with Heidegger
• 19 Zwei Gespräche mit Heidegger/Two Conversations with Heidegger
• 20 Translator’s Introduction to “Mask and Cothurnus”
• 21 Mask and Cothurnus
• 22 Notes on a Translation: Eugen Fink’s Nietzsche’s Philosophy
• 23 Review of Eugen Fink, Fashion: Seductive Play
• 24 Annotated Bibliography of All Fink English Translations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Copyright