Play and (Post)Modern Culture

This essay presupposes that the recent Western scientific interest in play as a phenomenon and as a metaphor is characteristic of the way in which contemporary (post)modern culture sees itself: as a game without an overall aim, as play without a transcendent destination but not without the practical necessity of rules agreed upon and of (inter)subjective imagination; as a complex of games each one having its own framework, its own rules, risks, chances, and charms. The essay tries to demonstrate from a socio-cultural point of view how this recent self-image of (post)modern culture can be interpreted as the outcome of a long development. It does so in order to reconstruct and clarify, against this background, the historically changing scientific interest in, and the gradual formation of, the concept of play as a phenomenon and as a metaphor.