Abstract

Play has been an object of reflection since classical antiquity. However, it was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that play received a genuine and systematic treatment in academic circles. Most of the theories that emerged during this period were strongly influenced by the success of empirical methods of investigation. Play, then, was not primarily understood as a subjective and meaningful way of relating, experiencing, or unfolding in the world but as an objective process capable of being isolated, measured, and manipulated. Around the 1930s this understanding of play was seen as too restrictive and reductionistic, and a movement attempting to explore and understand play's intrinsic strength to seduce, captivate, and absorb people emerged. Unfortunately, most of these projects sought a definitive play logos, distanced player from playgrounds, and failed to realize their interrelationship. ;This dissertation attempts to return to the originality of the lived experience of play. Rather than focusing on players and playgrounds as two objective structures, the goal of this project is to explore and describe the dynamic style of being manifested at play in its immediate lived embodiment and expression. Such an account uncovers the different layers of the intricate and fluid interplay between players and playgrounds which is constitutive and definitive of play. I explore the experience of play using the philosophic insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, for it honors and respects people's irreducible dialogue with the world and that which is expressed in it. Play is seen, then, as a special mode of disclosing peoples' projects toward the world. In this dissertation I distinguish qualitatively different modes of play, reevaluate their role and significance for society and education, and suggest practical applications to promote educational environments in which play is more likely to appear