Suits and the phenomenology of games: a reply to Johnson and Hudecki

ABSTRACT

Johnson and Hudecki argue that Bernard Suits fails to refute Wittgenstein’s ‘family resemblance’ view of games because Suits’s account of how games begin, how they are played, and the ends they involve, fails to match basic facts of player experience. In reply, the current paper describes three keys to interpreting The Grasshopper: (1) distinguishing the four perspectives from which Suits describes games, (2) recognizing Suits' dispositional view of rule following, and (3) understanding the geometrical metaphor Suits uses to describe rules. In light of these, this paper argues that Johnson and Hudecki’s critiques are either mistaken or are actually affirmations of Suits' position.

KEYWORDS:

• Bernard Suits
• The Grasshopper
• games
• game playing
• rules
• rule following
• phenomenology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In some places, Suits speaks primarily from the theorist or philosopher’s point of view (e.g., Suits 2014, 24, 27–32, 37), while in others he speaks of that point of view (e.g., 1, 78–85, 112, 118, 149–50, 171–74).

2. It is worth noting that philosophers of science also sometimes appeal to counterfactuals and dispositions when trying to understand the laws of nature. See, e.g., Lange (2009) and Fischer (2018).

3. Cf. Wittgenstein’s (2009, §§68–71) discussion of ‘drawing boundaries’ for the extension of a concept.

4. Cf. Wittgenstein (2009, §§68–71) once again, where we find people using a concept without having to think about the limits of its extension.

5. An anonymous reviewer notes that what makes playing a game worthwhile need not always be ‘fun’. In Suits' ‘The Elements of Sport’, the reviewer points out, we find the following: ‘People play games so that they can realize in themselves capacities not realizable (or not readily so) in the pursuit of their ordinary activities’ (Suits 1973, 56). C. Thi Nguyen (2020) has developed this theme at length, as have researchers working on ‘Self Determination Theory’ (e.g., Przybylski, Scott Rigby, and Ryan 2010).

6. These quotations appear to be provided to Google by ‘Oxford Languages’, from Oxford University Press (accessed 30 January 2022): https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

7. As the philosopher Vizzini is reported to have once recommended to the swordsman Inigo Montoya.

8. Contrast their claim with Wittgenstein’s (2009, §54) that we speak of games as having rules even when we are not taught the rules explicitly – even when the rules have never been explicitly ‘set down’ – but instead learn to play via observation.

9. I am likewise grateful to Paul Gaffney and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and corrections. Any remaining mistakes or obscurities, of course, are my fault alone.