The performance of play, the “great poem,” and ethics

Abstract

Research on play typically approaches the phenomenon as a strategy for managing and manipulating interactive episodes. Drawing on speculations recently advanced in the area of conversation analysis, this essay develops a more philosophical appreciation of the matter. Theories of play found in the works of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Hans‐Georg Gadamer are discussed to suggest how the performance of play defines a phenomenon that is not simply the play of someone who is playing but that nevertheless is fundamentally related to who we are as language‐users, as creatures of conversation, as beings who make the world meaningful and ethical by way of our discursive practices. Special attention is given to the relationship that exists between play and ethics and how this relationship may or may not be a sign of what has been termed “the great poem speaking us into being.”