Are there really games in Utopia?:  A reinterpretation of Suits’s The Grasshopper

Melanie Erspamer; Michael Ridge

doi:10.1093/analys/anaa087

Are there really games in Utopia? A reinterpretation of Suits’s The Grasshopper

Melanie Erspamer, Michael Ridge

School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review

Abstract / Description of output

In this essay we argue that there is a contradiction lurking at the heart of Bernard Suits's seminal book on the philosophy of games, The Grasshopper, which has oddly gone unnoticed for 43 years. Suits argues that games need inefficiency and defines inefficiency such that it wouldn't exist in Utopia. This trivially entails that there could be no games in Utopia, yet the whole normative point of The Grasshopper is that games would be the only worthwhileactivity in Utopia. We then diagnose Suits's error and suggest some ways forward.

Original language	English
Article number	anaa087
Journal	Analysis
Early online date	21 Jun 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anaa087
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 21 Jun 2021

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10.1093/analys/anaa087

ErspamerRidgeA2021AreThereReallyGames
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Analysis following peer review. The version of record: Melanie Erspamer, Michael Ridge, Are there really games in Utopia? A reinterpretation of Suits’s The Grasshopper, Analysis, 2021;, anaa087, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anaa087
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AB - In this essay we argue that there is a contradiction lurking at the heart of Bernard Suits's seminal book on the philosophy of games, The Grasshopper, which has oddly gone unnoticed for 43 years. Suits argues that games need inefficiency and defines inefficiency such that it wouldn't exist in Utopia. This trivially entails that there could be no games in Utopia, yet the whole normative point of The Grasshopper is that games would be the only worthwhileactivity in Utopia. We then diagnose Suits's error and suggest some ways forward.

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Are there really games in Utopia? A reinterpretation of Suits’s The Grasshopper

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