Are we being played? Is our understanding of the traditionally fixed and static concepts of philosophy based on an oversimplification? This book explores some of the theories of the self since Descartes, together with the rationalism and the empiricism that sustain these ideas, and draws some startling conclusions using Gadamer’s philosophical study of play as its starting point. Gadamer’s ludic theory, Sampson argues, reveals a dynamic of play that exists at the deepest level of philosophy. It is this dynamic that could provide a solution in relation to the Gadamer/Habermas hermeneutics debate and the Gadamer/Derrida relativism debate, together with a theory of totality. Sampson shows how ludic theory can be a game-changer in understanding the relationship between philosophy and literature, exploring the dynamic between the fictive and non-fictive worlds. These worlds are characterized simultaneously by sameness (univocity of Being) and difference (equivocity of Being). The book questions Heidegger’s idea that the univocity of Being is universal, instead maintaining that the relationship between the univocity of Being and equivocity of Being is real, and that ontological mediation is required to present them as a unified whole. Using the works of Shakespeare, Beckett and Wilde, Sampson contends that such a mediation, termed ‘the ludicity of Being’, takes place between literature and its audience. This literary example has profound implications not only for literature and its attendant theories but also for philosophy — in particular, ontology and hermeneutics.

Living in an era of immense and bewildering change in technology, pandemic and war, humanity has had cause to challenge the apparent old fixities and certainties of life. Essentially, are we being played? The premise of this volume is that all of human life is underpinned by powerful dynamic systems, so tightly interwoven into our daily lives that we are barely aware of them, whose true nature only comes to light at times of profound disruption or crisis. These powerful dynamic systems, philosophical or otherwise, often fall under the umbrella of ludic theory. Within these pages, some of the leading thinkers of ludic theory from three continents explore its diversity and relevance through the perspectives of some of the world’s most famous philosophers. In many ways, this volume follows on from Sampson’s 'Being Played: Gadamer and Philosophy’s Hidden Dynamic' (2019). It also draws upon other ludic-centred and ludic-inspired texts that include Mattice’s 'Metaphor and Metaphilosophy' (2014) and Arthos’ 'Gadamer’s Poetics: A Critique of Modern Aesthetics' (2014), together with Frazier’s 'Reality, Religion and Passion' (2009) and Homan’s 'A Hermeneutics of Poetic Education' (2020). Although this is not the first volume offering an integrated approach to ludic theory, see Ryall (ed), 'The Philosophy of Play' (2013), it offers a diverse and detailed approach to the subject, including not only Western philosophers, but also thinkers from Ancient China, 16th-century India and modern South America. This volume will be not only of interest to scholars and students of ludic theory and philosophy in general, but because of its deliberate globalised content, it is hoped it might have a wider appeal globally as humanity continues to grapple with significant challenges created by these current winds of change.

This book puts a creative new reading of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and literary genre theory to work on the problem of Scripture. Reading texts as Scripture brings two hermeneutical assumptions into tension: that the text will continually say something new and relevant to the present situation, and that the text has stability and authority over readers. Given how contested the Bible’s meaning is, how is it possible to ‘read Scripture’ as authoritative and relevant? Rather than anchor meaning in author, text or reader, Gadamer’s phenomenological model of hermeneutical experience as Spiel (‘play’) offers a dynamic, intersubjective account of how understanding happens, avoiding the dead end of the subjective–objective dichotomy. Modern genre theory addresses some of the criticisms of Gadamer, accounting for the different roles played by readers in different genres using the new term Lesespiel (‘reading game’). This is tested in three case studies of contested texts: the recontextualization of psalms in the book of Acts, the use of Hagar’s story (Genesis 16) in nineteenth-century debates over slavery and the troubling reception history of the rape and murder in Gibeah (Judges 19). In each study, the application of ancient text to contemporary situation is neither arbitrary, nor slavishly bound to tradition, but playful.

At a time when narrow scientific and philosophical specialization dominates our academic landscape, a thinking that unfolds in broad ways is often viewed with some suspicion. This, however, is not the case of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, which is still present today in the most diverse fields of philosophy and the humanities. In addition to central themes of Gadamer's hermeneutics and their use in the interpretation of philosophical writings, the following first number of Labyrinth 2022 discusses the little-known debate between Gadamer and Blumenberg, the last dispute between Gadamer and Derrida, which has hardly been considered, and the dialogic models of interpretation in Gadamer and Davidson.

Are we being played? Is our understanding of the traditionally fixed and static concepts of philosophy based on an oversimplification? This book explores some of the theories of the self since Descartes, together with the rationalism and the empiricism that sustain these ideas, and draws some startling conclusions using Gadamer's philosophical study of play as its starting point. Gadamer's ludic theory, Sampson argues, reveals a dynamic of play that exists at the deepest level of philosophy. It is this dynamic that could provide a solution in relation to the Gadamer/Habermas hermeneutics debate and the Gadamer/Derrida relativism debate, together with a theory of totality. Sampson shows how ludic theory can be a game-changer in understanding the relationship between philosophy and literature, exploring the dynamic between the fictive and non-fictive worlds. These worlds are characterized simultaneously by sameness (univocity of Being) and difference (equivocity of Being). The book questions Heidegger's idea that the univocity of Being is universal, instead maintaining that the relationship between the univocity of Being and equivocity of Being is real, and that ontological mediation is required to present them as a unified whole. Using the works of Shakespeare, Beckett and Wilde, Sampson contends that such a mediation, termed 'the ludicity of Being', takes place between literature and its audience. This literary example has profound implications not only for literature and its attendant theories but also for philosophy -- in particular, ontology and hermeneutics. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of philosophy and literature, for it seeks to develop our understanding of ontology and hermeneutics. It should also engage the general reader who wishes to understand literature and philosophy with a genuinely new set of perspectives.

Nietzsche’s strengths as a critic are widely acknowledged, but his peculiar style of critique is usually ignored as rhetoric, or dismissed as violent or simply incoherent. In this book, Nietzsche’s concept of the agon or Wettkampf, a measured and productive form of conflict inspired by ancient Greek culture, is advanced as the dynamic and organising principle of his philosophical practice, enabling us to make sense of his critical confrontations and the much disputed concept of transvaluation or Umwertung. Agonal perspectives are cast on number of key problems in his thought across a broad range of texts. Topics and problems treated include: critical history and the need for a limit in the negation of the past; Nietzsche contra Socrates and the problem of closure; Nietzsche contra humanism and the problem of humanity; Nietzsche contra Kant on genius and legislation; the problem of self-legislation in relation to life and temporality; Nietzsche’s sense of community in its articulation with law, and the normativity of taste; ressentiment and the question of therapy in Nietzsche and Freud; and the problem of total affirmation in relation to critique. These studies have a broad appeal, from MA level to advanced Nietzsche research.

Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur were two of the most important hermeneutical philosophers of the twentieth century. Gadamer single-handedly revived hermeneutics as a philosophical field with his many essays and his masterpiece, Truth and Method. Ricoeur famously mediated the Gadamer-Habermas debate and advanced his own hermeneutical philosophy through a number of books addressing social theory, religion, psychoanalysis and political philosophy. This book brings Gadamer and Ricoeur into a hermeneutical conversation with each other through some of their most important commentators. Twelve leading scholars deliver contemporary assessments of the history and promise of hermeneutical philosophy, providing focused discussion on the work of these two key hermeneutical thinkers. The book shows how the horizons of their thought at once support and question each other and how, in many ways, the work of these two pioneering philosophers defines the issues and agendas for the new century.