Being Played: Gadamer and Philosophy’s Hidden Dynamic

Jeremy Sampson’s generous-spirited, wide-ranging—and, yes, at times playful—'Being Played' offers a useful primer, especially for students interested in the philosophy of comic literature. Across eight chapters and a conclusion, the book offers what Sampson calls an “ontology of play”. The method possesses a sound basis in philosophical inquiry, including illustrative excurses into poetry and literature—from Shakespeare to Gerard Manley Hopkins—as the instantiation of the ludic temperament. Registering in a variety of ways how this temperament persists as a touchstone for modern philosophy, culminating in the work of Gadamer, its finest and most thoughtful proponent, marks Sampson’s signal achievement. Being Played bears the lightest of scholarly touches throughout; the gravity of its underlying message will be keenly felt.

Stuart Christie

Professor and Head

Dept of English Language and Literature

Hong Kong Baptist University

This wide-ranging book is a masterful adaptation and extension of Gadamer’s aesthetic theory of playfulness. Jeremy Sampson employs a new hypothesis, which he calls the fundamental “ludicity of Being”, as a tool for interpreting the metaphysical, religious, and existential meaning of three very different, yet highly influential, literary dramas by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, and Oscar Wilde. Peppered with a playfulness well-suited to its title, the book nevertheless offers an impressive depth of insight that will transfix any reader who joins the author in a lifelong search for the enduring meaning of human life in a post-modern world.

Prof. Stephen Palmquist

Dept. of Religion and Philosophy

Hong Kong Baptist University