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Felkers, Imara (2024) The Permeability of a Road Captain: Playing as a Philosophical Framework. PhD thesis, University of Gloucestershire. doi:10.46289/XJNM3941
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15516 Felkers, Imara (2024) The Permeability of a Road Captain - Playing as a Philosophical Framework.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License All Rights Reserved. Download (5MB) | Preview |
Abstract
What does a philosopher generally do? They read, write, and give lectures. However, in the philosophical struggle to liberate play from its marginal position, the act of playing itself is generally not acknowledged as a method or form of knowledge. This thesis explores the possibilities when playing is understood as a philosophical method and a form of knowledge. It develops new ideas on how to connect the concepts of play, mimesis, and philosophy as an embodied philosophical practice. By philosophising play as an embodied practice, this thesis aims to contribute to the broader movement of unlocking alternative sources of knowledge within the expansive decolonising movement. It serves as an invitation to consider how the ontology of play, when embodied as a practice, can contribute to epistemology and provide access to our human essence. The thesis particularly explores the ideas of the philosophy of play of German phenomenologist Eugen Fink (1905 – 1975) as an embodied practice. A second contribution of this study is a critique of Fink’s ontological differentiation in the manners in which children and adults play. Through this distinction, Fink seems to omit the embodied experience of playing as a child in the life of an adult. However, by criticising this difference through the act of playing, it becomes evident that Fink’s perspective is strengthened, asserting that play is a fundamental phenomenon of human existence. Restoring the connection between the concept of mimesis and play within philosophical anthropology allows for disseminating the ontology of play to a broader audience. The crux of this development lies in the decision to employ autoethnography as a methodology. By rebuilding elements from play experienced as a child into an adult’s life, I embrace Fink’s premise that the centre of existence is experienced in playing as a child. However, the significant difference is that theory becomes spatial. This approach empowers adults, students, philosophers, and non-philosophers to embody theoretical and abstract phenomenological ideas about play, thus gaining insight into the potential of human existence.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) | ||||||
| Divisions: | Schools and Research Institutes > School of Arts, Culture and Environment | ||||||
| Depositing User: | Anna Kerr | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 07 Nov 2025 12:13 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 07 Nov 2025 12:13 | ||||||
| URI: | https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/15516 |
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