The present volume contains the texts that Eugen Fink devoted to the theme of play and that he did not integrate into other works that go beyond the theme of play, such as the extensive passage on play in Grundphänomene des menschlichen Daseins [Basic phenomena of human existence]. These texts are arranged into three parts, each chronologically ordered. In the process, both the writings published by Fink himself and the hitherto unpublished Nachlass materials were considered. Fink’s scholarly Nachlass is archived at the Universitätsarchiv Freiburg under the call number E 11. The Eugen Fink-Archiv at the Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg is in possession of a copy of the Nachlass; parts of the Nachlass can also be found in the newly established Eugen Fink-Forschungsstelle at the University of Mainz.
In the first part, the texts that Fink himself published are reprinted: “Oasis of Happiness” (1957), Play as Symbol of the World (1960), and “Play and Celebration” (1972). Play as Symbol of the World goes back to a lecture course that Fink held at the University of Freiburg and that, like all his lecture courses, is preserved in a typescript he prepared himself (see the following section). Fink worked out the material of his lecture courses prior to the individual sessions and typed the text—as he customarily did with the prototypes of his public lectures—on A4 paper himself on a typewriter, always with single line spacing and the same formatting with small margins, in order thereby to be better able to structure the lectures in a time-efficient manner.
The second part, titled “Additional Texts,” comprises, also in chronological order, works that either were not published by Fink or possess a special publication status. This part is introduced by a summary of a lecture and the concomitant discussion that appeared in print under the title “Child’s Play” and that Fink himself probably produced. There is no further textual basis in the Nachlass for this lecture, which was delivered at a pedagogically oriented conference that took place in Osnabrück in 1958. The second text, “Play and Philosophy,” pertains to a lecture that Fink held in 1966 in Cologne. Like the text of “Play and Celebration,” which is also related to it in terms of content, “The World-Significance of Play” from 1973 was broadcast as a radio lecture on Südwestfunk Baden-Baden. The undated sketch “Play and Cult” seems to stem from this period as well.
The third part, “Fink’s Notes on Play,” reproduces notes on the theme of play that Fink took on various occasions. They appear here for the first time. They begin with Fink’s preparation for his proseminar on “The Philosophical-Pedagogical Significance of Play,” which he conducted in Summer Semester 1954 at the University of Freiburg. Fink used to prepare all the seminars he held by laying out the basic structure of each subsequent seminar session with a few keywords. From the 1950s on he recorded these notes in small notebooks; later he also had his assistants write protocols of the sessions. The notebook containing notes for the seminar on play presents Fink’s first attempt to unfold the theme of play in a systematic way. Along with the publication of these notes, what is printed here includes two further preparatory sketches for the “Seminar on Sport” from the years 1961 and 1962. The “Seminar on Sport” was a result of seminar sessions that Fink had arranged for prospective teachers as a part of the general course of studies at the University of Freiburg. The individual sessions were led by representatives of various disciplines. The conclusion of this part contains notes that Fink wrote down for the two lectures “Play and Philosophy” and “The World-Significance of Play”; these are based on the most comprehensive handwritten materials considered for the present volume. The notes collected here consist predominantly of “dispositions” and reveal how Fink attempted to give structure to a theme when he was working out concepts that were being projected in ever-new ways. For his notes, Fink used paper of various formats; often, large pages are cut or folded into smaller ones, and notes also appear on already written pages. In contrast to the single-spaced character of the typescripts he prepared for his lecture courses and lectures, most of the handwritten notes are distinguished by their spacious structuring and clarity.
All of Fink’s texts published in this volume were left in their original form, in which the orthography and punctuation follow the German spelling rules that were valid during Fink’s time, prior to the spelling reform. Obvious slips of the pen, grammatical mistakes, mistakes in spelling as well as incorrect or missing punctuation were corrected or filled in without comment. Cases in which such emendations modify the sense have been indicated in the endnotes. Editorial interpolations were put in curly brackets. With regard to the somewhat numerous underlining that Fink did above all in his handwritten notes and that often simply aided him when reading, only the words that were especially emphasized have been indicated by italics. In Fink’s publications, as for the most part also in his typescripts, terms of Greek philosophy are rendered with the letters of the Latin alphabet, often in capital letters; these terms have been consistently rendered here in lowercase letters and italics. However, when Fink uses the Greek alphabet, as he does above all in the handwritten texts, this practice has also been followed here.
In Fink’s Nachlass, there are four typescript versions of this essay: (1) The oldest version seems to be a fourteen-page typescript abbreviated here as TS 1, the cover page of which bears the title “Eugen Fink Ontology of Play (Given as a lecture at the Evangelische Akademie, Herrenalb on October 2, 1955.” The thirteen pages of the text proper are, in Fink’s typical manner, delineated in a single-spaced format; they exhibit changes Fink made in ink and are paginated in ink from 1 to 13. Version (2a) is a twenty-four-page typescript with one-and-a-half-spaced formatting; the pages contain slight alterations that Fink made in ink and are paginated by him in ink from 1 to 22. Before these pages two cover pages can be found with the titles “Eugen Fink Thoughts toward an Ontology of Play” (cover page 1) and “(Given as a lecture on October 2, 1955 at the Evangelische Akademie Herrenalb)” (cover page 2). Identical with (2a) is a thirty-four-page typescript version (2b), which was broadcast by Südwestfunk and contains no handwritten additions. The cover page bears the title “Kulturelles Wort / date of transmission: January 27, 1957 / Time: 10:30–11:00 A.M. / Die Aula / Thoughts toward an Ontology of Play / 1st Part / by / Eugen Fink / (Given as a lecture on October 2, 1955 at the Evangelische Akademie Herrenalb).” Version (3) is the same typescript version as (2a), likewise paginated from 1 to 22 by Fink in ink, yet with several revisions and changes in ink and pencil (abbreviated here as TS 2). Version (3) may have been the basis for the first printed edition: Oase des Glücks, Gedanken zu einer Ontologie des Spiels (Freiburg/Munich: Alber, 1957), 52 pp. Version (2b) was published under the title “Gedanken zu einer Ontologie des Spiels” by Südwestfunk in an anthology: Horst Helmut Kaiser u. Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines, eds., Gedanken aus der Zeit: Philosophie im Südwestfunk (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 1986), 11–34. As a comparison shows, there must have been at least one further, no longer extant version of the text between versions (1) and (2a). Decisive for what we have published in this volume is the printed version from 1957. The endnotes indicate the substantively relevant deviations in TS 1 (1) and TS 2 (3).—Versions (1) through (3) bear the call number E 11 / 177.
The printing in this volume is based on the initial publication: Spiel als Weltsymbol (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960), 243 pp. Page 243 contains a “bibliography” and is undersigned “Stuttgart, April 11, 1960.” The bibliography lists the following works, to which Fink does not refer in the main text itself:
Ausschuß Deutscher Leibeserzieher (ed.): Das Spiel, 1959.
G. Bally: Vom Ursprung und von den Grenzen der Freiheit: Eine Deutung des Spiels bei Tier und Mensch, 1945.
O. Becker: “Von der Hinfälligkeit des Schönen und der Abenteuerlichkeit des Künstlers,” in Festschrift für E. Husserl, 1929.
——: “Von der Abenteuerlichkeit des Künstlers und der vorsichtigen Verwegenheit des Philosophen,” in Konkrete Vernunft: Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Erich Rothacker, 1958.
F. J. J. Buytendijk: Wesen und Sinn des Spiels: Das Spiel der Menschen und der Tiere als Erscheinungsform der Lebenstriebe, 1954.
R. Caillois: “Über das Wesen und Einteilung der Spiele,” in Diogenes, 1955.
J. Chateau: L’enfant en jeu, 2nd ed., 1954.
——: Le réel et l’imaginaire dans le jeu de l’enfant, 2nd ed., 1955.
——: Le jeu de l’enfant après trois ans, sa nature, sa discipline, 2nd ed., 1955.
K. Gross: Die Spiele des Menschen, 1899.
J. Heidemann: “Philosophische Theorien des Spiels,” in Kant-Studien 50 (1958/1959).
J. Huizinga: Homo ludens: Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel, 1956.
G. v. Kujawa: Ursprung und Sinn des Spiels, 2nd ed., 1949.
J. Piaget: La formation du symbole chez l’enfant: Imitation, jeu et rêve, 1945.
H. Rahner: Der spielende Mensch, 2nd ed., 1955.
A. Rüssel: Das Kinderspiel, 1953.
H. Scheuerl: Das Spiel: Untersuchungen über sein Wesen, seine pädagogischen Möglichkeiten und seine Grenzen, 1954.
——: Beiträge zur Theorie des Spiels (Kleine pädagogische Texte, no. 23), n.d.
P. Slade: Child Drama, 1955.
H. Zullinger: Heilende Kräfte im kindlichen Spiel, 2nd ed., 1954.
The published volume reproduces the text of a lecture course that Fink gave under the title “Das menschliche und weltliche Problem des Spiels [The human and worldly problem of play]” in Summer Semester 1957 at the University of Freiburg. This text is preserved in a typewritten version produced by Fink. It is archived under the call number E 11/126. The cover page bears the title “Eugen Fink Das menschliche und weltliche Problem des Spiels S.S. 1957 [The human and worldly problem of play Summer Semester 1957].” The typescript displays a few handwritten changes made in ink or red pencil as well as (probably during the original stage of writing) in pencil, and is paginated in red pencil 1 to 140. It is divided simply by the individual sessions of the lecture course, in which each new session begins with a new page; a division into paragraphs, which essentially corresponds to the paragraph divisions in the book version, is made in red pencil. The typescript does not yet contain the division into four chapters (with 20 sections) including titles; the sections, however, correspond to the individual sessions of the lecture course, which are designated as such in the typescript. Deviations of the printed text (D) from the typescript (TS) are indicated in the endnotes [when this is relevant for the English reader]. Those instances in which it is clear that something was copied incorrectly during the transfer from the typescript to the book form were corrected by returning to the wording of the typescript and [when this is relevant for the English reader] are likewise designated in the endnotes.
This article appeared in 1975, the year of Fink’s death, in the first volume of Perspektiven der Philosophie (Amsterdam: Rodopi) on pages 193–205. Fink delivered this text under the title “Olympische Sicht auf Spiel und Sport [The Olympic view of play and sport]” as a part of the “Aula”-series of Südwestfunk Baden-Baden. It was broadcast by the station on August 20, 1972, shortly before the opening of the Olympic Games in Munich. What has been preserved is a thirteen-page transcript made by the station. The cover page bears the title “Südwestfunk / Kultur / Sendung: 20.8.1972 / Zeit: 10.30–11.00 Uhr / Redaktion: Herbert Bahlinger / 2. Programm” (Eugen Fink-Archiv Freiburg). The publication from 1975 forms the basis for the imprint in this volume.
This sketch for a no-longer-extant lecture that Fink delivered in 1958 within the context of a conference on physical education held in Osnabrück from October 2 to October 5, 1958, was published with the title “Das kindliche Spiel [Child’s play]” under Fink’s name in 1959 in the collection Das Spiel [Play] (edited by the Ausschuß Deutscher Leibeserzieher, Frankfurt am Main: Wilhelm Limpert Verlag). With his lecture, Fink introduced the “6th Workgroup,” which he himself led and which was devoted to child’s play. The short text gives a summary of the lecture and an outline of the discussion; both were probably composed by Fink himself. The imprint in this volume is based on a special printing that can be found in the Eugen Fink-Archiv Freiburg and bears the title “Spiel-Kongress Osnabrück Oktober 1958 [Play-conference Osnabrück October 1958],” which was written in ink in Fink’s hand.
In Fink’s Nachlass (call number E 11/486), there is the beginning and ending of a text titled “Spiel und Philosophie [Play and philosophy],” which Fink typed single-spaced. The four pages are paginated in pencil with the numbers 1 and 2 as well as 28 and 29. On the top right of page 1 there is an annotation written in ink: “Vortrag in Köln am 25. Okt. 1966 [Lecture in Cologne on Oct. 25, 1966].” Fink delivered the lecture in the Volkshochschule Köln. Upon the request of the organizer, Fink sent the following summary in a letter from July 22, 1966: “Play is a phenomenon of existence that, in its exhilarated cheerfulness, appears to contradict the gloomy seriousness of philosophy. And yet, throughout the history of Western thought, the sparkling gleam of play has enchanted and captivated philosophers—not much differently than the power of erōs. In the Platonic dialogue The Symposium, philosophy begins to contemplate erōs and thereby makes the astounding discovery that erōs is housed within the essential basis of philosophy itself. Perhaps it could be similar with play.”
The middle part of the lecture (pages 3–27) comprises excerpts from the manuscript of Fink’s lecture course “Grundphänomene des menschlichen Daseins [Basic phenomena of human existence],” which at the time was still unpublished. Fink held this course in Summer Semester 1955 at the University of Freiburg. The excerpts can be found on pages 307–12, 314–15, 317–21, 323–24, 329–33, 345–46, 348, and 350–51 (of a typed transcription of Fink’s typescript; to these correspond pages 361–419 of the book version: Eugen Fink, Grundphänomene des menschlichen Daseins, ed. Egon Schütz and Franz-Anton Schwarz [Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1979]). In the Nachlass, there exist two further pages written with a black ballpoint pen that pertain to this compilation. The text of these two pages reads:
“Use of text: 2 pages on play and philosophy
(from the notion that play is an anthropological finding and thus an object of philosophy, transitioning to the thesis: play as a path of the understanding of Being and world—e.g., tragedy)
345 top”
“1. Everyday interpretation of play—as free-time activity
2. Everyday interpretation of play—as a phenomenon of childhood
3. Basic features of human play (307). Not a ‘Futurism’
4. Play = not a preparatory exercise (308/309)
4. Pleasure in play and rules of play (309)
5. Means of play (310). Ambiguity of ‘plaything’
6. Playworld (311/312)
7. The overly broad concept of play
a. Play of animals
b. Play of lights (317) (318)
8. Our discussion up to now has moments of enactment (319, 320)
9. Play-community (323, 324)
10. Foreignness or identity (330, 331)
11. Comedy (333)
12. Festival (345)
13. Festival—of the gods (347)
14. Plato: the keenest adversary of the poetic art [Dichtertums], rational iconoclast, in the Republic, takes a different attitude toward play in the late work.”
In the present volume only the beginning and end of the typescript “Spiel und Philosophie” are reproduced. The typescript exhibits changes on p. 29 that were made with a blue ballpoint pen.
This text is transmitted in a version that Fink himself produced in a single-spaced typescript. It contains a cover page and ten paginated pages of text (call number E 11 / 492). The cover page bears the title, likewise typed: “Eugen Fink: Die Weltbedeutung des Spiels. Funkfassung. Aufnahme: 14. Mai 1973 [Eugen Fink: The world-significance of play. Radio version. Recorded: May 14, 1973].” The text features emendations and material crossed out with ink and pencil. This version of the text is the basis for the printing in this volume. The introductory passage and the second part of this version present a more detailed version of the corresponding portions of “Play and Celebration.” There is also a transcription of the radio lecture of “The World-Significance of Play” on seventeen typed pages (Eugen Fink-Archiv Freiburg). The cover page provides the information “Südwestfunk / Kultur / Sendung: 27.5.1973 / Zeit: 10.30–11.00 Uhr / Redaktion: Herbert Bahlinger / 2. Programm,” broadcast as a part of the series “Aula” of Südwestfunk Baden-Baden. This version is significantly shorter than the original text produced by Fink.
This text is based on a two-page typescript produced by Fink (in E 11 / 126). The purpose and time of composition of the text cannot be determined with ultimate certainty. We can assume that it stems from the ambit of works on “Play and Celebration” (or the radio version “The Olympic View of Play and Sport”) and on “The World-Significance of Play.” At the end of the text, there is the specification “p. 67.” This could be a reference to the typescript that served as the basis of the book version of Play as Symbol of the World, since “Play and Cult” concludes with the question “What does the term symbol mean?” and pages 67ff. of the typescript (Section 10 of the book version) treat of the “symbol-problem” and this makes reference to cult.
This text reproduces the content of a small notebook in which Fink noted in ink the planned progression of the seminar session prior to it taking place (call number E 11 / 474). On the front side, it bears the title “Eugen Fink: Das philosophische-pädagogische Problem des Spiels. S.S. 1954 [Eugen Fink: The philosophical-pedagogical problem of play. Summer Semester 1954]” and comprises on sixty-three written pages the plan for ten seminar sessions. The text contains only a few emendations.
The text for this seminar session held by Fink on February 24, 1961, reproduces a manuscript that was composed on two pages written with ink on both sides and paginated 1 and 2 (in the bundle E 11 / 464). On the side, one finds a marginal remark: “Prior to this session there was another seminar session in which I read the lecture ‘Das Schicksal leibhafter Existenz [The fate of embodied existence].’” This lecture, which does not refer to the theme of play, appeared in Hans Hoske, ed., Gesundheit als Schicksal? Tagungsbericht: 5. wissenschaftliche Arbeitswoche über Fragen der Jugendgesundheit. 25.–31. Januar 1960 in Freudenstadt / Schwarzwald (Wiesbaden: Jörg, 1960), pp. 181–89.
This text is based on a five-page manuscript that was written in ink and features much underlining in red pen (in bundle E 11/ 463). Next to the title one finds a note that provides the occasion for and date of this text: “Referat am 19.XI.62 im Sport-Seminar [Presentation on November 19, 1962 in the Sport Seminar].”
Reproduced are two manuscripts composed with black ballpoint pen (in E 11 / 486). The first text is written double-sided on two pages that are paginated 1–2; the second text is recorded on a single, double-sided page.
For the preparation of his text “The World-Significance of Play,” Fink composed a series of sketches, developed his chains of thought, and noted sudden ideas (in E 11 / 492). Since much is repeated in these text fragments, which comprise forty-one pages, a selection was made for the printing in this volume. About half of the material has been reproduced: after what Fink himself calls “dispositions”—first conceptual inquiries into the theme to be worked out—there follow texts with aphoristic remarks on specific aspects. The notes printed here are written with ballpoint pen on paper of various formats. The pages are not numbered.