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by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt

Professor, The University of Iowa

Most Leisure Study textbooks used in college survey courses include a chapter on the history of "play" and "leisure." But usually such texts mention only the most obvious and simple facts, known and repeated for decades; e.g., that "play" and "leisure" were important and were discussed at length by some of the most prominent thinkers of the Western World for thousands of years. The same few quotes from the likes of Aristotle and Plato have become a litany; but a repetition used not so much to inform as to add an air of respectability to the two topics. That the Greek word for leisure, schole, is the origin of many modern languages’ words for "school," "scholar," etc. is also emphasized, but little effort has been made to explain why the strong etymological tie between "leisure" and education developed or why it is significant today. Few leisure scholars have gone back to the original works of a figure such as Plato and tried to deal directly and systematically with what he actually wrote about "play" and "leisure," cataloguing the times and ways he used the words and trying to determine how they are related or what role they played in his larger philosophies—as demonstrated by the Greek textual corpus itself (Hemingway 1988). Moreover, no one has recognized that Plato intended what he said about these two topics to be used by his readers and that the Socratic Method was designed, in part, to teach others about their leisure time. Plato’s writings are just as relevant to "leisure behavior" today as the latest journal article. And since they have been largely forgotten they are just as good as new.

Using modern concordances, one may locate each time Plato used "play" and "leisure" and come to some conclusions about how Plato used the words and what significance they had in his overall philosophy (see appendixes). Such an intensive investigation may reveal how "leisure" and "play" developed in his writings to become central to his ideas about education, the Socratic Method, liberal arts, the practice of virtue, the discovery of new truth, and the correct way to practice philosophy. This investigation will also demonstrate "leisure’s" central place in Plato’s ideas about the purpose of the state (politics and civility). But it will also reveal that the highest form of "leisure" was "play" and that Plato believed that "play" was one of the few ways transcendent Being, what Huizinga (1950: 3) called "an influx of Mind," informs and directly influences ordinary reality. This study will examine the relationship between "play" and "leisure" in depth, demonstrating how both words were integral to Plato’s understanding of freedom and central to his ideas of education and learning. Moreover, an analysis of the Dialogues with a focus on "play" and "leisure" provides a new way to organize many of Plato’s principle themes and thus offers a new perspective on his work.

Such a study will help correct some of the more unfortunate misunderstandings that have developed in this century. Writers such as John Dewey (1925 and 1947; Kant [1944]:95; Kraus 1984: 42), have mistaken the ancient Greek’s view of "leisure" for aristocratic pretense and have judged Plato’s view to be a haughty disregard of healthy working, completely out of tune with the belief in work and culture of workers that dominate the Modern Era. A careful evaluation of Plato’s use of "leisure" will help dispel this misinterpretation and will also shed further light on the Greek understanding of "leisure" as contemplation; a point recently at issue in the pages of Leisure Sciences. Relying largely on the works of Aristotle, John Hemingway (1988) attempted to correct the modern, accepted view (received from De Grazia) that the Greeks understood "leisure" primarily as contemplation. Hemingway stressed the importance of the "civil" function of "leisure" and argued that "practical reason (praxis) occup[ies] a central position in Aristotle’s thinking… that the best human life must be spent in pursuit of practical reason… and [this] is… all that may be asked." But with the exception of one small, virtually invisible caveat, he neglected the way that civil life and practical reason were related to the mixture of concepts which surrounded "contemplation" (such as worship, celebration, myth, inspiration, and the Sacred) largely because he ignored the relationship between "leisure" and "play" in the works of both Aristotle and Plato. Hemingway has made a significant contribution to our understanding by demonstrating that the Aristotle thought leisure was more than solitary contemplation—merely the opposite of activity and civility, and that Aristotle’s ideas, rightly understood, should have a critically important role in the modern use and understanding of leisure. But this vital correction must not be accomplished at the expense of reading contemplation as worship, celebration, and most of all, as play, out of the entire Greek concept of leisure. Another misunderstanding concerns "Socratic Irony." So much has been written about this topic in modern times that the phrase is included in most English dictionaries. But "Socratic Irony" is merely one type of play; a point missed by those writers (Friedlander 1958:137-153; Kierkegaard [1841] 1965) who have separated "Socratic Irony" from other types of play and taken it too seriously.

SCHOLE

Plato built his ideas about freedom on the common, everyday Greek word schole (Brandwood 1976). Often, he used the word simply to mean a practical opportunity or freedom to do something; just as the man-on-the-street in Athens used it (see appendix A, roman numeral I). For example, when pressing business was taken care of, a person might have the "leisure" or "free time" to visit, engage in conversation or see a play. The word schole was very useful then, meaning about the same things that "leisure" means today in ordinary English usage (Stocks 1936). At the center of word’s meaning in both languages is the idea of freedom; the everyday bits and pieces of freedom nearly everyone has. The connection with freedom, present in ordinary Greek conversation about mundane, day-to-day affairs, is critical. It is the one constant in the history of the idea of leisure and the word’s development, extending back as far as the Indo-European origins of the word, to the root word segh (De Grazia 1964 :10; Barnhart 1980; Shipley 1984). Certainly, much of the discussion about freedom among other Greek philosophers concerned politics and morality; the important, pressing concerns of Greek citizens. The words associated with political and moral aspects of freedom were eleutheria, exousia, autexousia, or even autarkeia; schole was seldom used in these ways (Rist 1982). When Plato first started talking about freedom, he was also concerned with the "important" topics; politics and morality. But as he thought and wrote about freedom in broader and more abstract terms, as the freedom from working, from social and state obligations, and from necessity; he employed the old, common word schole. The word became more important in his philosophical discussions because Plato frequently used it in a comparative or superlative sense; as "freedom from a less important activity for a more (or the most) important activity" (typical constructions are scholazein apo tinos, freedom for something; and scholazein tini, freedom from something). Moreover, he used ascholia (an "a" prefix in Greek is similar to the English prefix "un") as having "no leisure" for a less important activity (e.g., ascholian patexein tini). A simpler way to put this in English is: "being too busy with important things to bother with inferior activities."

These were no special inventions on Plato’s part; such meanings were part of the current popular use of schole and ascholia (Stocks 1936; Appendix A, roman numeral III and IV). But the comparative and superlative usages fit perfectly with Plato’s view of the human affairs which he believed were arranged hierarchically, starting from activities less good and going on to the best; from necessity to virtue. Accordingly, a person had "leisure" (schole) from working in order to perform military service or for better and more efficient kinds of work. One had "leisure" from personal business for state service. One had leisure from war or occupations, indeed from all necessary tasks, to engage in philosophical discourse (see Appendix A, roman numeral III). On the other hand, one had no time for scientific inquiry being "too busy" (ascholia) with philosophical discourse, "too busy" training for the Olympic Games to perform ordinary, commercial occupations, "too busy" with political duties to instruct youth, and "too busy" with philosophy to hear someone recite Homer (see Appendix A, roman numeral IV). Uncharacteristically, Plato used ascholia at least twice as "being prevented by a less important activity from doing a more important one" (see Appendix A, roman numeral VI). In Letter IX (357e, which many authorities do not consider authentic, Hamilton and Cairns 1961) Plato agreed that "attending to one’s own affairs is pleasantest in life," but lectured Archytas of Tarentum that state duties needed to be respected since "various contingencies… overtake our lives and make demands on us… They also described your position to us, saying that you are rather vexed that you are too busy (ascholias) with public business. Even though necessities may intrude, justifiably, on freedom, in the long run leisure was more to be desired and was the goal to be worked toward.

Unfortunately, in the Modern Age schole is translated as "leisure;" ascholia as work, occupation, or business. In Plato’s writings, a much richer complex of ideas, a hierarchy, was expressed by the words. Understanding schole and ascholia only as "leisure" versus "work," we miss the fact that these words were associated with central questions in Plato’s philosophy such as "what does it mean to do something freely?" "where does freedom lead to, ultimately?" Many modern scholars, such as John Dewy, have interpreted what Plato said about schole and ascholia merely as meaning that he was disdainful of work in general (Dewy 1925; 1931; Kant 1781 [1944]). Such authorities point out that Plato lived during a time when more than a third of the population was slave, women were subservient and ordinary, necessary labor forced on menials. Thus, they conclude, he was hardly a democrat as we in the United States understand democracy. Plato certainly did not share the widespread modern view that work is an end in itself and that more work is the reward for successful effort. But Plato’s view of working was not disdainful. It was so different from our own that it has just appeared to some as contemptuous. For Plato, all work from the menial’s to skilled craftsman’s had a supreme goal, freedom. With Aristotle, he believed that work, duties, and obligatory tasks were important not just because they provided necessities or fulfilled duties. They were most valuable because they led to a higher purpose—i.e., escaping necessity into leisure (Babbitt: 1929). Plato did believe that only a few could handle freedom from necessity and that the majority, the uneducated and imprudent, would have to keep working. But his main point was about education and choice, not class, race or gender. On more than one occasion, he maintained that every person had the potential to be educated (for example in the Meno). Moreover, as Rist (1982: 64) observed, the opposite of "free" is "slave." "… [I]n [the Socratic] tradition… although all men can be equal ("democratically"), those who do not expect and choose freedom when it is available are to be treated as worthless and contemptible… thus we have an ethic of superiority…"

Plato’s aristocratic was superior by virtue of right knowledge and right choices, both of which resulted in the acceptance of the freedom of leisure. In the modern age, this seemingly elitist view has obscured his main point; "working (i.e., doing necessary tasks, fulfilling duties, etc.) is for being free." Aristotle made the same point explicitly. He said: "We are un-leisurely (ascholia) in order to have leisure (schole)" (Aristotle Politics 1134 a 11). As usual Plato was indirect, but he made his point just as effectively. In the first place, Plato was critical of citizens who continued to work and be unduly concerned with "necessities" after they had gotten enough to meet their basic needs or had done their share of public service. Even though freedom was within their grasp, they refused to take it. Still, he did not feel that such people were bad. They kept on building up wealth, power, reputation, and influence and being wrapped up in what they mistook as "important," "serious," or "necessary" work only because they did not know better; having forgotten other more important pursuits. Nevertheless, the price of ignorance was great; it was voluntary slavery to incessant "necessity" and loss of the blessing of leisure; it was work without end (LAWS 831 et. seq.; Rist 1982: 61- 64; Sahakian 1977: 15). Therefore, among the most important tasks for education was teaching citizens how foolish it was to run from leisure by working too much—how sad it was to chose to be caught up unnecessarily in the webs of luxuries, power, politics, and excessive amusements (too much to eat, drink, etc. Laws 644). This was the primary lesson in Plato’s Academy; "turn from wealth, luxury and excessive working (ascholia) to freedom (schole)" (Apology: 23, 36, 38; Laws: 806-807; Livingstone 1944: 19) In the seventh book of the Laws Plato lays out more fully what this freedom/leisure is for, explaining why he recommended choosing freedom from unnecessary work, occupation, and business. The secondary lessons in the Academy concerned "the ordered disposition of all [a person’s] hours;" i.e. how to use one’s freedom/leisure (Laws 807d; Eby and Arrowood 1940). Initially, the educator should teach that too much sleeping and idleness were bad. "A man asleep is of no more account than a corpse." (Laws 808b)

Plato was careful to distinguish leisure from idleness. Plato’s higher freedom/leisure was activity, not passiveness; a mind and body in action, not frozen contemplation. He did not share the modern notion that contemplation is a passive, lonely, and sedentary meditation. We moderns have trouble conceiving of what philosophers now call "auto-telic" acts. But the classical philosophers had no such difficulty, they were well aware that the ordinary experience of leisure presents the profound philosophical problem daily to most of us—"Why do something and not nothing?" The activity and motion during leisure, the "Why" we do something in freedom, were caused by the correct disposition of the soul, achieved by the educator’s turning the "eye of the student’s soul" to the Good and the Truth. This reorientation was the chief purpose of education and the best instruction one human could give another (Babbitt 1929). Like gravity, the Good began to take over from the teacher, naturally attracting the soul towards Itself; setting the individual into motion through the universal attraction of Eros. So idleness, just as much as unnecessary working, resulted from ignorance and a wrong disposition of the soul (Armstrong 1947:31). The more advanced lessons in time budgeting were designed to teach students to spend the rest of their day doing activities that were "free"—that were appropriate things to do during leisure. The freest activities were done for the sake of the activity itself. Unlike work, they were not done for some purpose such as money, product, or obligation. The best leisure activities were complete in themselves—were worth doing on their own and the higher the education, the freer the activity.

For Plato and the Greeks, virtue (aerate) or excellence was doing what a creature was meant to do, i.e., fulfilling its function properly (Cornford 194: 175). Rabbits were best at jumping, birds at flying, fish at swimming, etc. Each piece of creation had been given its own particular nature by God and hence its own distinctive virtue. For humans, virtue lay in the use of the mind. Thinking, knowing, conversing, creating, and loving were distinctly human because they had been given to humans by the king of the gods, Zeus (Republic 502-509; Friedlander 1958: 177; Cornford 1945: 212). Such activities, because they were virtuous, could be said to be free and done for their own sakes; after all they had been given. Once learned (or relearned), they were characteristically spontaneous, done freely in exuberance with a lightness of being and an effervescent spirit. Doing what one ought to do, or was given to do, was not only virtuous, it was fun—play-like (Eby and Arrowood 1940: 390). Without such Gifts, there could be no freedom, no real leisure. Without such Gifts, leisure would be too free because there would be nothing "given" to do and free time would degenerate in silly, meaningless, and random acts. For Plato, free and virtuous activities were the basis of the "liberal" (from eleutheria which also meant freedom) arts.

Today, we still can see the traces of Plato’s list of virtuous activities in the liberal arts colleges’ curricula (Republic 376-412, 502-535; Laws chapter VII). Plato instructed teachers to offer instruction in rhetoric (speaking and writing), gymnastics (in the broad sense which included such things as diet and health instruction), organized games, dancing, military exercise, and gymnastics (in the narrow sense), music (which included all of the arts over which the Muses presided such as literature, fine art, religious study and observances, poetry, singing and lyre playing), arithmetic, geometry, and sciences (Laws 810-821; Cornford 1945: 66, 67; Drever 1912: 78). Finally, students should be taught: The grouping of days into monthly periods, and months into the year in such fashion that "the seasons with their sacrifices and feasts may fit into the true natural order and receive their several proper celebrations, and the city be thus kept alive and alert, its gods enjoying their rightful honors and its men advancing in intelligence of these matters…" (Laws 809d). Liberal Arts colleges have discarded this last kind of instruction over the years. But for Plato and the other philosophers of antiquity, learning how to celebrate properly in leisure was a vital part of liberal arts and essential for public life. Today, most students learn how to "party" on their own.

Another difference between modern higher education and the Academy was that the liberal arts did not end when school ended; nor were they practiced after school mainly by a small group of liberal arts specialists or "professionals." Plato intended to teach all students "how to divide the day" among the virtuous and free activities not just at school but for life (Laws 807e). Modern "college catalogues" are filled with cliches about the purpose of liberal education, such as: "improvement of the individual to realize his full potential," "enrichment of the mind" or "the ability to cope with change." This kind of verbiage was not part of the Greek concept. For the Greeks the purpose of liberal education was simply the doing of the liberal arts after school; in the enduring community of educated, free citizens. Today, students "finish" college; the Athenian citizen Plato taught, did not. Adult learning, discourse, and participation in the city’s cultural life were the day stars of Athenian life; they were not relegated to technical or vocational night courses (Sahakian 1977: 17; Bosanquet 1900: 16). Moreover, liberal arts were to be lived freely after formal education was complete. Plato cautioned against taking the liberal arts too seriously; against making them into forms of working done by specialists for the sake of livelihood, self-aggrandizement, or profit. "Artists" or professional scholars who made a job out of their culture took the freedom and hence the best part, the virtue, out of liberal arts. Such a travesty was like selling a gift. Without freedom; without the fullness of activity complete and ending in itself, the liberal arts were virtually the same things as the practical, servile arts (Sophist 224 et seq; Statesman 287d). The hallmarks of authentic liberal arts were spontaneity, lightness, and joy; all results of the free acceptance and free sharing of virtue as a gift (Laws 644). Certainly, the educated individual had an obligation to serve the country (or the city-state) by fulfilling military and political duties. In addition to their political functions, most liberal arts were characteristically civil, done in community with others within the city walls. Like the famous Athens drama festivals, liberal arts were done freely in public, for others to share. One of the outstanding achievements of the Greek Golden Age was the establishment of what we know today as the "public sector," i.e., times and places set aside and supported by the state for the free use of the people for civic functions, parks, games and sports, and culture (Friedlander 1958: 9-12).Hemingway (1988) was right to remind us of leisure’s civil dimension for the Greeks and of the potential the public sector has today to revive this Greek ideal. Much of what Plato wrote about the state as the concrete realization of arete included statecraft as one of the highest virtues and liberal arts. As Friedlander put it… "How to win arete and how to become a statesman… were ultimately one and the same (question)" (Friedlander 1958: 9).

The investigation of Plato’s use of schole to this point, confirms Hemingway’s contention that "civility" was a leisure ideal for the Greeks. However, the activities of a free person are not limited to the polis. For the Greeks (Aristotle as well as Plato), liberal arts were more than just civil because leisure involved a freedom beyond the city.

PAIDIA

Plato taught there was a higher individual freedom, a freedom even from state obligation-- a higher "calling" than politics, civility, "practical action," and the ordinary liberal arts. Symbolizing this point, many of Plato’s dialogues such as the Phaedrus, Symposium, Republic, Parmenides, and Laws begin or take place outside the city walls; beside streams, in the fields, in small temples around Athens, or on streets and country roads. For Plato, learning could not be confined within the civil community of men and women because man was not the measure of the Good and the Truth—merely a participant or a seeker (Pangle 1980: 494). Truth and the Good always transcended humans and their inventions, rising above the polis to the eternal (Sallis 1975: 533). The proper place to search for Truth was in half-civil places, where humans were not totally in charge (Theaetetus 162b - 169b; Euthydemus 277d; Lysis 203-204). Since the highest human virtue was activity involving the mind, the highest liberal art and freest activity was philosophy—the love and pursuit of wisdom (Pieper [1952] 1963: 35). In the ideal state, instruction in philosophy, or "dialectics," was reserved for the highest education, after the other liberal arts and sciences had been taught and military obligations fulfilled; around the time a citizen was 30 years old. Practicing philosophy, as one practiced the other liberal arts, was postponed until after 50 years old. The time was right then because most citizens had put necessity behind them, having finally fulfilled all state as well as family obligations (Republic 539; Eby and Arrowood 1940: 398; Cornford 1945: 221-223, 250-251). As in the case for the other liberal arts, leisure was necessary for doing philosophy (dialectics). "The free man always has time (schole) at his disposal to discourse in peace at his leisure. He will pass, as we are doing now, from one argument to another… The orator is always talking against, hurried by the clock, there is no space (ascholia) to enlarge on any subject he chooses…" (Theaetetus 172).

On other occasions, Plato employed schole as he did in the quote above, in a superlative sense ("always") as freedom for the best and freest activity—for philosophy (Statesman 272, 273; Appendix A, roman numeral III). But in these upper reaches of freedom, a discontinuity occurred in Plato’s writing. The material and economic freedom implied by "leisure" remained a precondition for learning and doing philosophy. But Plato seldom used schole is association with the freedom to practice philosophy—as he did in association with the freedom to practice the other liberal arts. More frequently he employed a related word, "play" (paidia a noun, or paizo a verb). "Play" was one type of virtuous activity, albeit the highest type, that one did in "leisure." (Sahakian 1977: 16) It is difficult to judge authoritatively what this change signifies. But it is interesting and suggestive to note how the words are similar and different. Both are opposed to working, need, necessity, and obligation, yet both imply activity. Both are closely related, as words and as ideas to teaching, learning, and freedom. "Play" is a bit different from "leisure" because "play" is more often used as a verb (paizo) and requires a predicate (something that is put into play or given an altered existence by virtue of the act of play; e.g., "I play ball"). Occasionally, it is used with a preposition such as "with" requiring a plaything or playmate (paizeis pros tini). Used as a participle (paizon), in the imperfect or aorist, and even as a noun, "playing" or "was playing" "played" or "play" usually implies the existence of a previous or continued act of play (and a prior active subject) which put the subject of the sentence or the noun into the active condition of play. But "leisure," more often a noun, is usually "for" some activity—a participle is frequently required such as; "I have leisure for reciting Homer." Hence, in Greek usage, leisure is usually "for" a free activity (such as liberal arts, philosophy, or play), play is likely to be the free activity itself. But the most obvious difference between "play" and "leisure" is that one was commonly used, then as now, in connection with children and the other with adults (in Greek the similarity of the word for child, pais, and for play, is evident). So it is somewhat surprising that at the very highest levels of human achievement, philosophy, Plato used more often than schole.

PEDAGOGY

A clue to why Plato used "play" in preference to "leisure" may be found in Plato’s discussion about the value of play for teaching children (Ritter and Alles 1933: 347; Kraus 1984:133). The word for education in Greek, paideia (to teach is paideuo) is from the same word stem as child (pais) and play. Plato often used the similarity of the three words to make the point that education should be play-like and done in the spirit of childhood; just as he did when he "played" on the dual meaning of the word schole, as "disquisition" and "school," when he wrote about teaching liberal arts to adults (Sargeaunt 1922: 493-502, 669-679; Stocks 1936: 177, 187). Just as leisure was for adult schooling, play was necessary for children’s education. The teacher’s first and constant obligation was to turn the "eye of the soul" to the Good and the True and keep it there. The child, filled with the transcendent vision, was naturally attracted by Eros and learned freely and playfully, "leaping" after the vision of the Good. Armstrong (1947: 31), noted that "all that the teacher can do is to persuade his pupil to turn himself so that the vision may strike the ‘eye of the soul’ to exercise his mind so as to draw out the truth… ." But Plato said it best: "The soul of every one does possess the power of learning the truth and the organ to see it with; and… just as one might have to turn the whole body around in order that the eye should see the light rather than the darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world, until it can bear to contemplate reality and that supreme splendor which we have called the Good." (Republic 518c) Accordingly, Plato recommended that all lessons from age 4 to 16 be as play-like as possible (Republic 401, 424, 507d et seq, 527e, 533d, 536-537; Laws 643, 647d, 793-794, 797-798 819-820d; Eby and Arrowood 1940: 389; Friedlander 1969: 403; see Appendix B, roman numeral I).

But all playing was not desirable or educational. Frivolous, "unbounded" play (i.e., completely free play without inspiration or guidance) was dangerous and misleading. It was akin to chaos because the truer, higher reality was obscured. Play needed to be structured; "bounded" or controlled by teachers and the state to guide students to greater, more serious things (responsible work, state duty, and higher education). Much of the good teacher’s responsibility consisted of disciplining children’s "unbounded" play by offering equally attractive forms of "lawful" play (Republic 424e-425a, 539; Laws 667e 772, 789, 797; Sallis 1975: 22; see appendix B, roman numeral II). "Then, as we were saying at the beginning, our youth must join in a more law-abiding play, since, if play grows lawless and the children likewise, it is impossible that they grow up to be men of serious temper and lawful spirit… when children in their earliest play are imbued with the spirit of law and order through their music… this spirit waits upon them in all things and fosters their growth, and restores and sets up again whatever was overthrown…" (Republic 425). Plato’s pedagogical plan was simple; "eye of the soul on the Good," followed naturally by the learner’s playful leaping after the transcendent vision. But this joyful, inspired learning needed to be controlled and pointed in the right direction from time to time by the "discipline" of "bounded play."

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY ADULT PEDAGOGY

When Plato discussed teaching philosophy to 30-year olds, he employed the same teaching method. Even though he elaborated on it when he discussed the teaching and doing of philosophy, he sustained the fundamental "playing child" metaphor (Ritter and Alles 1933: 347, 369). He used the metaphor to show that authentic learning and true knowledge were dependent, and that humans, on their own, have no truth worth taking seriously. Just as the playing child was attracted to, yet disciplined by adult truth and a reality transcending the world of children, adults were attracted to and taught by a reality always transcending the human and the civil planes (Sallis 1975: 21). Teaching philosophy, in the same manner as teaching children, involved the discipline and control of bad, unbounded playing. Writing about teaching adults, Plato distinguished three major categories of unbounded play: frivolity (i.e., being playful about serious things), false-play (i.e., concealing play on purpose for unjust reasons), and false-seriousness (i.e., being unduly serious about playful things). ("False-seriousness"—unwahre Ernst, is an adaptation of Karl Jaspers’ [1932] 1970:250 term, the first two terms are the author’s inventions.) Frivolity was more typical of children and therefore Plato gave few examples of the adult lack of seriousness. In addition, to some ambivalent condemnations of irreverence (poking fun at the gods and authorities), Plato distinguished "serious" (appropriate) from "playful" (excessively free) drinking and playful debate (as a contest, agon) from serious conversation (as philosophy/dialectics; see Theaetetus, 168 Gorgias, 500 Laws 673-674). Socrates also accused Meletus of frivolity (of "joking in earnest") as well as false-play during Socrates’ trial (Apology 24c; see also Appendix B, III).

Far more important than frivolity were those instances when adults pretended to be serious. The sophists in particular were guilty of false- play; having corrupted philosophy by their verbal games and trickery, dragging Greek culture and learning down in the process. Before the days of Socrates, much of Greek philosophy was founded on the sophists’ brand of false-playing. Huizinga (1950:146) noted that "the sophist had two important functions… to exhibit his amazing knowledge… and defeat his rival in public contest." Thus the two main factors of social play in archaic society are present in him: "glorious exhibitionism and agonistic aspiration." John Sallis (1975: 479) agreed that "the province of the sophist’s art is play," i.e., contesting (agon) or controversial (antilogia) play. Among Plato’s best examples of false-play were Meletus’ charge that Socrates was corrupting the youth (the indictment that lead to Socrates’ death) and Euthydemus and Dionysodorus’ verbal game of cat-and-mouse with Socrates and his young friend, Clinias (Teloh 1986: 195). In both cases, the undisciplined or "unbounded" sophist pretended to be serious when he was in fact playing. But his purpose was not to teach or correct others by inviting them to play along (a kind of "lawful" play-seriousness that both Socrates and Plato used extensively as a teaching method). Rather it was to trick the opponent and thus win unfairly or achieve some private purpose outside the game (fame, revenge, prestige, money, etc.). If the victim found out that he was the butt of the joke, the game would be given away and come to an immediate end. If the trick were successful, the victim would be baffled, embarrassed or even put to death. In any case, no learning took place. No virtuous play or legitimate game (and hence no learning) could exist in these circumstances because the "players" were not following the same set of rules and were certainly at crossed purposes (Apology 27; Euthyphro 3e; Euthydemus, 277d, 277e, 278b, passim; the above paragraph is roughly the plot of the Euthyphro; see also Appendix B, IV).

The third kind of un- bounded play was false-seriousness (what Jaspers called unwahre Ernst). Unlike the false-play of the sophists, the player was not aware that he was playing and did not intend to trick an opponent. Such un-bounded or unconscious play was a form of ignorance or forgetfulness, not culpable but more widespread and invidious than false-play. (Appendix B, V) The best example of false-seriousness was improper imitation. "Mimicry" (mimesis in Greek) is one of the major categories of play and, as Socrates observed, may be readily observed in children’s games such as "playing farmer" that mirror the world of grown-ups. But according to Plato, adult "lawful" play could not be representational in the same way as child’s play. Plato felt that representational activities such as drawing, painting, and even writing copied visible nature. Thus they produced an imperfect copy of an imperfect copy, twice or three times removed from Reality. For the child, guided by the pedagogue, these kinds of impersonations (dramatic recitations, etc.) were appropriate. They were "lawful" since they were "bounded" by the leader of children and thus taught necessary tasks and skills, leading to more serious activities. But as a basis of "serious" adult art, mere representation was misleading (Friedlander 1958:116-121).

A few words about Plato’s cosmology and ontology (views about "being") are necessary at this point in order to proceed with the discussion of imitation. Armstrong wrote (1947:37) that for Plato: There exists a world of eternal realities, "Forms" or "Ideas," entirely separate from the world our senses perceive, and knowable only by pure intellect. The common name for these realities, the "Ideas," is a remarkably misleading one, for in English "idea" means a thought existing in a mind, and Plato’s eternal Forms are certainly nothing of the sort. They are realities existing "Themselves by themselves," independently of the minds which know them or the things which "participate" in them, though they are contained in and caused by a supreme Reality, the Good, which is a Form but more than a Form. They are the only objects of true knowledge, the unchanging realities which our mind perceives. And because for Plato the world perceived by our senses is a perpetual Heraclitean flow of ever-changing appearances of which no real knowledge is possible, thinking about the universal Forms is the only kind of thinking which attains truth. The world that appears to the senses was a reflection or an illusion (from the Latin, illusio which means "in play") produced by the Forms. As such, the world of appearances had a contingent, problematic being. On earth, existence was like a shadow or game; i.e., "for the time being" (ephemeral), limited, and dependent. The foundation of illusion and thus the ground of ordinary being lay beyond, in the playing of the eternal Forms.

Because of ignorance of the illusory nature of reality, adults often mistook representational works of art "seriously;" imagining them to have an independent reality and to contain their own meaning. Human "genius" appeared to be at work and man seemed to be have established his own truth. But such art merely disguised as serious those things that were really playful (i.e., illusion which had been given existence by the playing of a transcendent reality). Such art only seemed to be serious, to have an independent existence, and contain the Truth. In such works, humans appeared to be independent creators and the authors of truth only because their play had become "unbounded;" not limited or inspired directly by the transcendent, authentic Reality. In fact, such art was an illusion of an illusion, a game within a game. It was a form of seriousness about playing that plunged downward in a spiral of hyper-seriousness, ever- increasing anxiety, and confusion. Plato was especially critical of one artist, Zeuxis. He took Zeuxis to task for painting pictures of grapes so life-like that birds flew down and tried to eat them. Another such malefactor was Apollodorus who invented "shading," producing the illusion of shadows and depth in his pictures. Plato believed that such illusions were further, not closer to the world of Forms. But because they were so lifelike, they were enticingly deceitful and could lure others to false- seriousness. In reality they were in "the third place as seen from the king and truth" (Republic 472d, 595c, 597). Such unconscious playing or false-seriousness was a form of blindness, of being concerned only with the game of words and with an illusion of the illusion rather than with what shown through the game or with what set the illusion into play in the first place (the author of the game). It was a mirage, a misleading rather than guiding illusion because it took itself too seriously.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY THROUGH LAWFUL PLAYING

Because of such pitfalls, learning had to continue for the adult. Lessons to correct frivolity, false-play, and false-seriousness were among the first assignments for the would-be philosopher. Consistent with his theories about teaching children and growing out of the play (as agon) tradition in Greek philosophy Huizinga (1950) described, Socrates used several types of "reasonable and sensible" play (Metria Kai Phronimos Paidia Timaeus 59d; what Jaspers [1932] 1970:250 called "responsible play"—verantvortlichen Spiels) to counter unlawful, unbounded play and thus established a new teaching method for philosophy; the Socratic method. In order to discipline unlawful play, Socrates employed specific kinds of "reasonable and sensible" play that closely resembled the two main types of unlawful play. Socrates’ play—false-play and play-false-seriousness were homeopathic, specifically designed to re-present or mirror and thus correct, unlawful play’s errors and lead students on to genuinely "serious" and important things. In the first place, Socrates used "pretend" or "ironic" play to teach about and, as in the case of Euthydemus, expose and discipline false-play. One numerous occasions, Plato portrayed Socrates pretending to be serious with his opponents. This was Socrates’ habitual method of dealing with the many "eristics," those "fighters with words," around him. He would pretend to be taken in by their false-play—to be their pupil or to be defeated by their "wisdom." In reality, he was not taking them seriously, as they supposed, but was also playing—a different game (Sallis 1975: 516-519). When he revealed his and his opponents games by pointing out the simple truth, "this is playing," he exposed their false-play with his own playful trickery, and the game was up. By revealing their game with one of his own, he destroyed their false-play and thus the foundation of their counterfeit arguments (Protagoras 341d, 341e; Euthydemus 277-291; Republic 539d; Theaetetus 168; Apology 27; Euthyphro 3e). When modern writers discuss Socratic Irony, they refer most often to this kind of sharp playing, designed to puncture others’ pretentiousness (Friedlander 1958: 141-153; Sallis 1975: 511; Teloh 1986: 30; Kierkegaard [1841] 1965). The relatively few times (14) Socrates used "irony" (eironeia) he referred to this kind of play-contest. For Socrates, irony was agonistic (contesting) play (a word he used dozens of times) and thus simply one of the various forms "responsible play" could take—one of the least important (Phaedrus 237a, 248b). But Socrates seemed to use the same ironic method with his friends (and Plato did the same thing with his readers). Gavin Ardley (1967) wrote that "playful-seriousness… is Plato’s characteristic mode of argument… For (him) philosophy is either a joyful game or it is less than nothing."

One of the most unnerving aspects of the dialogues, as confusing for modern readers as for those who were taking to Socrates, is the constant blurring of "serious" and "playful" (Apology 20d; Letter VI 323d). Socrates’ conversation-mates frequently asked "are you serious or playing?"(Appendix B, V, c) On the surface Socrates seemed to be playing the trick of ironic false-play on his fiends. But unlike Meletus, Euthydemus, and the sophists, he did not play to trick his "opponents" and thus beat or humiliate them; rather he intended to lure his dialogue-mates into genuine discourse by using the appearance of seriousness or contest as bait (Gorgias 481c, 500c; Phaedrus, 234, d, e; Laws 636c). Socrates used a more friendly form of ironic play (better termed luring-play) in order to correct the false-seriousness to which his friends were prone. Socrates only pretended to share the popular view about philosophy as a contest (agon) to persuade others to engage in a fair and superior discussion of the Good and the True. In order to teach his friends, Plato discussed popular, "serious" topics to attract them to genuine dialectics. To lure his opponents, real or pretend, his was even ready to be the object of ridicule himself. Each of these luring tricks was consistent with Socrates’ overall teaching method; "turn the eye of the soul to the Good, etc." (Gorgias, 481c, 500c; Protagoras, 341d, e). Socrates was the first to successfully counter what Huizinga called the "agonistic aspirations" and "vain play-exhibitions" of the sophists. He did so by going beyond the sophists’ play (as agon) tradition by playing a higher game in which the "contestants" learn to play together according to the same rules, in pursuit of a common goal—the Truth. Thus he transformed Greek philosophy and Western thought.

However there are additional play-complications, what Friedlander (1958: 123) called "play-levels," in the Dialogues. Plato used the same Socratic luring trick, the "is this serious?" game to lead us, his readers, to higher and really serious endeavors. His particular lures, the apparently "serious truths" (or "body of knowledge") about justice, the Good, love, etc. that once were "apprehended" by the old Socratic dialogues are not Plato’s central message. He repudiated all set "doctrine" (techne)—all recorded "truth" that appeared permanent. (Letter VII 341; Friedlander 1958: 54, 112-125) Rather than presenting a written doctrine of truths, Plato intended his written Dialogues to be a teaching device, patterning them after the original Socratic, spoken dialogues and his master’s great device, luring play. Plato recorded the dialogues so that his readers could "re-play" them, just as a chess player replays championship games in order to learn skill and methods. In this, he imitated his master who frequently used conversations, repeated from memory, to "re-play" dialogues and teach dialectical skills Just as a child learned to farm by toying with the play implements of farming, the apprentice philosopher could learn to do philosophy by playing with the facsimiles of dialectics; the toys of "black ink on paper"—the musty old trophies of once discovered "Truth" brought back from ancient forays, i.e., the written Socratic Dialogues.

But Socrates and Plato’s overriding purpose, their "most serious pursuit" (Laws 803d), was to prepare students to do dialectics; just as both purposed to teach liberal arts in the Academy to prepare people to do liberal arts (Appendix B, IX). As Sallis (1975: 176) remarked: "… philosophical logos has to do with what is not immediately manifest, with what has, rather, to be allowed to come into manifestness. Its matter is not immediately available in such a way that one could simply and seriously involve oneself in it. The matter has rather to be invoked, called to put into appearance. Play is such a way of calling to what is concealed… [It becomes] evident that to respond to a Platonic dialogue is… a matter of letting ourselves into the moment which the dialogues are directed toward provoking, of letting ourselves into philosophy, of beginning (playfully) to philosophize. Friedlander (1958: 235) agreed: "[The] dialogues are drama in which human existence presents itself. But they achieve this not… as works of art that we contemplate…; they are philosophical life, appealing to the reader to share its experience, to enter into the conversation of the dialogue, to offer resistance, or to become a follower. They do not philosophize about existence; they are existence… they are the reality of life while searching for the truth of being." But both Socrates and Plato recognized that this kind of teaching, based on written or remembered dialogues instead of authentic spoken and spontaneous dialectics, could be misleading. The written dialogues were similar to Zeuxis’ grapes; they too were an illusion of an illusion. One could never "ask any questions" of these toy dialogues and it would be all too easy to confuse the shadow words written "in black fluid" or a speech from memory with spontaneous conversation which alone contained the "spirit" of life and truth (Ardley 1967: 239; Friedlander 1958: 109-111). This basic confusion could then lead a person to more profound error; mistaking what the dialogues "said" for "the Truth," not realizing that the whole point of the dialogues was to lure readers beyond the written word to pursuing ineffable Truth. Accordingly, both Socrates and Plato were careful to label their lures as lures by saying or writing about what they said or wrote, "this is play."

Furthermore, both contended that "this is play" was the one serious truth, the only timeless doctrine, capable of being written down or repeated from memory (Symposium 177; Seventh Letter 344; Theaetetus 152, 161e; Phaedrus, 275-278, 282; Protagoras 329a; Laws 685a; Statesman 293 et seq; FRAGMENT. 2 li. 10; Friedlander 1958: 113-125). Notwithstanding his rejection of the written word as a poor imitation of spoken dialectics, Plato considered his dialogues better than other kinds of imitative, mimetic art; better even than heroic poetry (Friedlander 1958:121, 233). They were better because they stated that their highest purpose was not serious. According to Friedlander; Plato considered the written word justified only as play "…there can be no question that the written Logos contains much play and is not completely serious…. [According to Plato] it is foolish to think that one can leave one’s written knowledge behind as ‘doctrine’ (techne) to be learned... . The written word… contradicts the basic Socratic-Platonic principle: philosophy is possible only as an exchange between two people; it is an infinite conversation renewing itself constantly out of a personal question…" (Friedlander 1958: 112-113) On occasion, as in the Phaedrus, Plato wrote that the written dialogues were not to be "taken seriously" in regard to their content, to what they "said," by writing explicitly "this is play." (Phaedrus 275c et seq; Fragment. 2 li. 10; Laws 685a; Republic 602b; Friedlander 1958: 118-125; Griswold 1986: 209). Socrates: "in conclusion, I think that I have shown… that any [writing or composed speech], in the past or in the future… is a matter of reproach to its author… if he regards it as containing important truth of permanent validity… On the other hand if a man believes that a written discourse on any subject is bound to contain much that is fanciful… [and does not] merit serious attention then in reality such compositions are, at best, a means of reminding those who know the truth, that lucidity and completeness and serious importance belong only to those lessons on justice and honor and goodness that are expounded and set forth for the sake of instruction, and are veritably written on the soul of the listener." (i.e., spoken dialectics)

Then we may regard our literary pastime (pepaistho) as having reached a satisfactory conclusion (Phaedrus 277d et seq). Plato’s written admission, "this is play," distinguished his writings from false-seriousness and made them lawful and sensible (verantvortlichen Spiels). The revelation is exactly like the revelation that ended false-play. Yet the revelation did not invalidate the dialogue, as it did in the case of false-play, because Plato employed it paradoxically for a more serious didactic purpose. His aim was to correct false-seriousness and support his principle teaching purpose; i.e., persuading others to do philosophy for themselves. Even though the famous liar’s paradox (the Liar) was not yet widely known when Plato wrote it (Mates 1981:15-20), nevertheless Plato used the paradoxical principle of contradictory self-reference when he discussed lawful imitation (writing and repeating speeches). The sharpest version of the Liar is; "this sentence is false." If you assume that the sentence is true, it must be false, if you assume that it is false, it must be true. Hence it is true if and only if it is false. While not as sharp as the Liar, Plato’s written messages "this is playing" and "this writing is not to be taken seriously" showed the limits of rational discourse just as effectively. One cannot take his messages seriously, or playfully, without being thrown to the opposite conclusion. His words are playful if they are serious, serious if they are playful (Phaedrus 243a; Republic 523, 525d; for an ever sharper Platonic version of the Liar see the Letter VII 344). One reason that Plato employed his version of the Liar was to demonstrate the logical problems and confusions involved with all rational systems and set doctrines (techne) which relied only on human beings. Such limited, set systems were invariably self-referring (illusions reflecting illusions) and thus would always have warring factions, with one principle turned against another, one truth at odds with the next (antinomies).

When students recognized "this is play" was the truth uncovered by the most "serious" of the written dialogues, they would be lured (or so Plato intended) beyond the recorded or written truth to the continual practice of philosophy; to perpetually seek the Truth and the Good which ever transcended humans—Being that would continue to lead humans on a merry, joyful chase. Interpreting the passage found in the Republic (523 et seq), Wolgast (1977:18) explained that contradictions "… force the mind to reflect in unaccustomed ways. Reason is compelled in the face of contradiction to strive toward a higher level of understanding… paradoxes… are doors to philosophical discovery—philosophical beginnings, forcing us to reconsider what is self-evident and think of possibilities we would not otherwise conceive of… In Plato’s words: "… do you observe then, I said, in this study what I do? It seems likely that it is one of these studies which we are seeking that naturally conduce to the awakening of thought, but that no one makes the right use of it, though it really does tend to draw the mind to essence and reality… that it [paradox] strongly directs the soul upwards and compels it to discourse…" (Republic 523)