The Vital Importance of Play for Humanity: Nietzsche's Fourfold Philosophy of Play in The Birth of Tragedy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

This article examines the value of "play" ("Spiel") for human existence, as addressed by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) in his book The Birth of Tragedy. Whilst "play" has a wide range of meanings in Nietzsche's philosophy, of which the ontological or cosmological sense of "world play" is the one most discussed in the Nietzsche studies, I focus on a lesser contemplated topic, i.e., Nietzsche's view of the value that play - which I define here broadly as a life-giving and joyful inner or outer activity carried out for its own sake - has for human life. I argue, first, that play is of vital importance because it has the ability to transform human life from a life experienced as worthless to a life deemed worthwhile, and, second, that this transformative capacity binds the four senses in which play comes to the fore in The Birth of Tragedy as: 1. "aesthetic play"; 2. the "play with figures" artists play whilst dreaming; 3. "theatre play"; 4. human suffering as "comical play for the Gods," which Nietzsche also presents as "aesthetic theodicy."
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)33-59
Number of pages27
JournalTijdschrift voor Filosofie
Volume85
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2023

Keywords

  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Friedrich Schiller
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Richard Wagner
  • The Birth of Tragedy
  • Aesthetics
  • Play

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