By which, I mean, the sense of what it means to play a game. Walking across the Cathedral Close in Salisbury the other day we spotted a group of very young children….mere tots….who had devised a game involving running round a tree. It was evident that they were not just randomly running around, but that whatever it was they were up to was governed by rules of some sort. We didn’t hang around long enough to work out exactly what the code was, but there did seem to be one. They knew what it meant to “play a game”.
Surely Wittgenstein would have been interested in this one! I must look through Philosophical Investigations again to see whether he has anything specific to say about whether the concept of a “game” is somehow innate. I’m off to the Tate tomorrow to see the Walter Sickert exhibition, so perhaps it would make suitable reading on the train. Perhaps I’ll let you know.