The Grasshopper

Wittgenstein argued, in the middle of the twentieth century, that games resist definition because no single feature runs through all of them. Bernard Suits rejects that view and offers a definition of his own: playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. Working through this idea, he makes a case that games can be defined precisely and that they are integral to any picture of a good human life, which places them at the centre of any imagined utopia. The book was first published in 1978, and this reissue adds a new introduction by Thomas Hurka. It also includes new material by Suits, much of it previously unpublished, in which he develops his earlier arguments and responds to objections raised by critics.