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TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN SCHOOL OF EDUCATION “FROEBEL’S SPIELPAEDAGOGIK AND THE PLAYFULNESS OF POSTMODERNISM” DR AIDAN SEERY FEBRUARY 2012 OCCASIONAL PAPER NO.2 PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION Abstract
This paper examines some of the origins and features of Froebel’s concept
of play and its educational and developmental function in his
“Spielpaedagogik”. A close reading of key Froebelian texts reveals a
distinctive adaptation and application of Hegel’s dialectic as developed in
the Phenomenology of Spirit. The relationship between the inner self of the
child and her play is mirrored by that of the natural self and culture. This
connection of self and culture and the subsequent centrality of culture in
Nietzsche allows a link to be made between Froebel’s ontological theory of
development in play and certain postmodern ideas on an epistemological
self-creation in play. Two main strands of postmodernist theory on play are
distinguished. The purely “ludic”, ironic playfulness of postmodernism with
its absence of any depth below the superficiality of fashion, fad and parody
offers little for education. However, another interpretation based on the role
of play in a creative, imaginative restructuring of traditional and transmitted
knowledge allows for a contemporary or postmodern view of play that
allows for common features to be drawn between Froebelian and
postmodern ideas of self-formation.
Introduction
This paper examines some of Frobel’s central ideas on the nature and function of play in
the education and development of children. A close reading is made of Froebel’s The
Education of Man (EoM) and Education by Development (EbD) that appeared originally
in Berlin between 1861 and 1862. I argue that the central passages concerning the nature
and role of play can be interpreted in a Hegelian manner to reveal a number of
characteristics of children’s educational play that are lost in a more Romantic reading of
childhood and play that views childhood as representing the fulfilment of an adult
yearning for a return to the unity, harmony and innocence of an earlier time. Interpreting
play as a stage and element in a Hegelian Bildungs process, on the other hand, highlights
particular play characteristics such as those of tension, negation, struggle and semiotics
that firstly, supports the argument that Froebel was a deeper and more subtle educational
thinker than Pestalozzi for instance, and secondly, brings certain aspects of Froebelian
play into relationship with some features of the “playfulness” of postmodernist thought.
This juxtaposition, it is hoped, can throw some light on the fundamental commitments of
both Froebelian education through play and a postmodernist education as the
restructuring of language games.
A Hegelian Reading of Froebel
There is nothing new in the discovery of Hegelian influences on Froebel’s thought
particularly in the later writings in which this influence is strongest. The absence of a
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Hegelian influence would indeed be more surprising, if for no other than biographical
reasons. Not only were the two men contemporaries, it is well-known that in 1799
Froebel travelled to Jena to study philosophy. In 1800 Hegel arrived also in Jena to teach
philosophy until his move to Nuremberg in 1808. During this time it is most likely that
Froebel heard Hegel’s lectures.
There is also a strong tradition of later Hegelian interpretation of Froebel. For instance,
the Hegelian philosopher and influential educationalist William Torrey Harris had a
major influence on the thought of Susan Blow in the United States in the 1870s. Harris, a
major figure in American public school education after the Civil War and a principal
figure in the “St. Louis Movement”, edited Blow’s influential book, Letter to a Mother
on the Philosophy of Froebel. (Blow, 1899) Blow’s book is a thoroughly Hegelian view
of kindergarten education informed by Harris’ work and it provided the theoretical
underpinning for the new school movement in St. Louis.
The analysis offered in this first section belongs in this interpretative tradition but focuses
on the evidence for an identification of Froebel’s “law of opposites” with the Hegelian
dialectic in the understanding of play. The case is made that this identification is valid by
showing that play takes on the role of the objectification of the child’s inner self in the
first stage of a dialectical process of knowledge and learning. The assertion is supported
by the evidence that Froebelian play satisfies two substantial conditions of dialectical
opposites: firstly, that they are always part of an emerging unity of opposites, and
secondly, that the dialectical process is a necessary one. Once this is established the claim
can then be made that play assumes a number of characteristics associated with the
negation of first subjectivity in the dialectic. It is these particular aspects of play that are
not frequently mainstaged and that can form a tenuous link to some postmodernist
thinking on play.
The first step is to make the case for this Hegelian reading of the role of play on the basis
of the writings of Froebel himself. For this reason, a careful reading of two of Froebel’s
most important works: The Education of Man and Education by Development is
undertaken. However, a useful and more general starting point is another passage from
Froebel in which he indicates, in the clearest possible manner, the dialectical nature of his
concept of education. Halfter quotes Froebel on the influence that the early death of his
mother had on his thinking:
In diesem frühen Tod meiner Mutter, verbunden besonders auch mit
dem von ihr empfangenen Gemüte fand ich frühe und finde ich noch
bis jetzt den Mittelpunkt meiner Lebensschicksale; denn meinem
Gemüte wurde so frühe die größte Aufgabe gegeben, Leben und
Tod, Einigung und Trennung, Unsichtbares und Sichtbares zu einen;
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mein besonderer Beruf wurde also dadurch: die größten der
Gegensätze, der Entgegensetzungen im eigenen Leben und durch
das eigene Leben in seine Widerspruchslosigkeit aufzulösen. [The
centre of my life’s fate I have found and still find in the early death
of my mother and particularly in the sensibility that I inherited from
her. My personality was charged with the greatest of tasks: to unify
life and death, union and separation, the invisible and the visible.
My special calling was therefore to resolve into agreement through
my own life the greatest of contraries, the contraries of one’s own
life.] (Halfter, 1926) [author’s translation]
This single passage contains three defining characteristics of a dialectical process. Firstly,
the formative friction of opposites but secondly, and more importantly, the idea that these
opposites reside and are active in one body or entity and finally, the resolution in a unityin-difference of transformed opposites.
Froebel’s thought and its connection with the Idealism of Hegel
At the very beginning of his important work The Education of Man, Froebel situates his
thought in the late idealist tradition of spiritual emergence and evolution “Education is
the lifting into consciousness of the divine essence of man” (EoM, 4). This strong
conviction of emerging consciousness with its promise of the ultimate perfectibility of
mankind in divine life is a characteristic of the contemporary inclination towards a
romantic pantheism. However, while the origins of Froebel’s thought and much of his
language and vocabulary emerge from this general atmosphere, he has a distinctive
philosophical anthropology, metaphysics and philosophy of education that distinguishes
him starkly from the romantics with whom he is often associated. In particular, all of
Froebel’s works reveal a view of education that has less to do with the epistemological
project of the development of mind than with a concern, shared by both Hegel and
Nietzsche with their roots in Greek tragedy and philosophy, for questions about how
human beings flourish. One could say that Froebel shares with Hegel and later Nietzsche
the conviction that the subject knows itself in a deeper way through interaction with
others (in a dialectic) than through the Cartesian and even Kantian method of
introspection.
This distinctive philosophy leads Froebel quite obviously to favour a dynamic,
anthropological growth model for education rather than a “categorical, mandatory
education” (EoM, 10). A result of his philosophy of the nature of human beings is that it
is not possible to justify prescriptive, interfering education on the grounds of external
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truths or external models of behaviour. Truth and the model and moral life are to be
found within the individual but not as pre-formed and static forms but as a growing
resolution of a dialectical play.
On the traditional starkly dichotomous distinction between work and play, Froebel offers
an alternative view that both equally are manifestations of the same realisation of the
divine spirit in life. In the case of play, this is the work of the child. The play-work of the
child is a dialectical objectification or externalisation of the inner life: “Primarily and in
truth man works only that his spiritual, divine essence may assume outward form”. (EoM
32) The argument is made even more obviously Hegelian in the phrase that immediately
follows the last quote: “… that thus he may be enabled to recognise his own spiritual,
divine nature” (EoM, 32). In a distinctly Hegelian moment, the assertion is made that the
objectification of the self is not the production of something completely separate and
different from the self. On the contrary, it is precisely this objectification that leads the
self to its own realisation in and of itself.
As indicated above, the clearest statement of the Hegelian nature of Froebel’s thought
comes in his syntactically less than clear exposition of his law of the connection of
opposites which mirrors faithfully the Hegelian dialectic. “Every thing and every
being,…comes to be known only as it is connected with the opposite of its kind, and as
its unity, its agreement with this opposite, its equation with reference to this is
discovered; and the completeness of this connection with the respective opposite, and
upon the complete discovery of the connecting thought or link” (EoM, 42). This time the
description of the process includes the crucial Hegelian element of necessity in the phrase
“only as it is connected”. In Education by Development, it is put in this way: “we must
therefore necessarily recognise a fourth law of development, education, and cultivation,
viz.: the co-working of limitations opposite to, yet like one another, and by the
comparison and connection of these factors in and through life.” (EbD, 175). In a letter,
written in 1828 and quoted in Education of Man, he also states “I see the simple course of
development progressing from analysis to synthesis, which appears in pure thought, also
in the development of every living thing” (EoM, 42) This passage reveals clearly the
distinctly Froebelian adaptation of the Hegelian process to the development in all living
things through the interaction of competing and constitutive parts. This differentiates
Froebel’s thought from Hegel’s vision of the dialectical process as being a universal
historical and even theological one. Also, the idea that a dialectical process in which the
tensions and interactions of opposites and differences are the mechanisms of growth is
fundamentally different to the Aristotelian idea (common in contemporary curriculum
theory) that human growth comes about as a linear development of potentialities.
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Specific Hegelian features of Froebel’s play
Having established firmly the Hegelian ancestry of Froebel’s thought, it remains to
connect specifically the Froebelian concept of play with the dialectic of development and
the law of opposites. Froebel begins this in the Education of Man (EoM,48) with the
description of the beginning in the child of the external representations of the internal.
This gives the theme for his whole theory of play. Play is the externalisation, or
objectification of an internal state. “[The child]… wishes that what is hidden within him,
and lives in him, may also outwardly exist.” (EbD, 59). Or also in Education by
Development: “Play is thus actually engendered by the connection of opposites which are
also alike, by the combination of the free activity of the child with the dependent
movability of an object and its consequent power of taking form” (EbD, 183).
This dialectic of the inner self and play seems significantly to mirror the dialectical
dynamic in the Geist chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit between the natural self
and the cultural self. Hegel claims that it is through culture that the natural self is firstly
externalised in order then to be overcome or set aside (Aufheben). The verb Aufheben
also means “to lift up” and this reading of the verb establishes that the objectification or
externalisation of the natural self through culture is not meant to imply that the natural
self is rejected. On the contrary, the cultural self includes the natural self. Turning again
to Froebel the consequence is that play is not simply a way of representing the child’s
mind to the child itself or to others but also the means by which the self moves from
being just “for itself” or just “outside itself” to a higher state of knowledge in the
synthesis of these two transformed modes of being.
Play, then, while representing the internal state of the child in a physical and external
manner is not to be seen as completely separate to it. Evidence for this ultimate “unity in
difference” is found in his discussion of the first playful movement of a child’s hands and
feet. Froebel suggests that all such simple play with limbs should be observed “less the
child contract habitual …movements that have no inner meaning…thus inducing…a
separation between gestures and feelings, between body and mind, between the inner and
the outer.”(EoM, 48). Here we see for the first time the enormous significance attributed
by Froebel to play. In its role as the objectification of the inner state of the child and its
role in the wider dynamic of the dialectic of human growth and development, it is an
intrinsic and necessary part of the dialectical development and emergence of the self. It is
for this reason that Froebel can claim that “play is the highest phase of childdevelopment...it is self-active representation of the inner- representation of the inner from
inner necessity and impulse.” (EoM, 55). As part of a dialectical process, play is then not
externalisation in the way in which a painting is an externalisation of some inner vision,
feeling or inspiration. Dialectical processes occur within things and not between separate
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things. For this reason, play is part of the life of the child and Froebel can claim, with
dialectical logic on his side, that “play is the purest, most spiritual activity of man at this
stage and …typical of human life as a whole – of the inner hidden natural life in man and
in all things.” (EoM, 55). It is spiritual in the sense that the dialectical process of the
growth of inner life through the interaction with its external representations (in play) is
one that occurs firstly in the child itself and secondly as a process in which spirit or
consciousness comes into its own and realises its true nature.
A few lines shall serve as a guide to the true inner relation of this plaything
to the children… a life in which spirit, mind and power of action, feeling,
thinking, and handling first penetrate and strengthen, as being intimately
united, before they are necessitated to enter into the outer life in the
separation which is an unavoidable requisite for higher consciousness (EbD,
212)
The parallel between the dialectics of Froebel and Hegel seem evident. Further evidence
for the closeness of fit is provided by showing that two of the fundamental characteristics
of the Hegelian dialectic are satisfied by Froebel’s law of opposites. These refer firstly to
the location of opposites in the same being and, secondly to the necessary nature of the
process. In both cases, it would seem that the dynamic of child and play meet these
conditions. Play, while being an external representation of the inner life is not separate
from it. The self consists of both parts of the dialectic. Also there is sufficient evidence,
particularly in relation to the use of the playthings, to claim that play emerges from the
inner necessity of a child to express and form themselves. One example is provided in a
passage on the play with sticks “..the stick-laying, steps forth in the whole of plays and
employments , like each of the other plays, with inner necessity (EbD, 119) [author’s
italics]. ….
Some consequences and summative thoughts on Froebel’s play
In summary the importance of Froebel’s play lies in the fact that it is not just a simple
representation of self but that play has a crucial function in the development of self and is
actually part of self and self-understanding. Play is the “first negation” of the inner life of
the child in a dynamic dialectical process that results in both the self and play being
transformed and forming the new, “next-stage self”. The inner life of the child is not
either logically or developmentally prior to the child’s play. The actions of the child in
play are indeed part of what it is to be the child. The whole development of self is
connected to and rooted in action in the world, specifically cultural action though the
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medium of symbol and sign. Thus clearly Froebel’s conception of self is not a twentieth
century psychological one based on a Cartesian idea of a “real self” found in
introspection. Indeed, it bears closer resemblance to a more postmodernist view in its
acknowledgement of the roles of culture and interaction with the “other”. However, in
contrast to a postmodernist stance, the process by which the child comes to know herself
in the interaction with Froebelian play is not the “ludic”, free play of popular culture and
some educational theories. In keeping with its Hegelian interpretation, play is a necessary
part of self. As such it is characterised, ironically, by a seriousness that suggests that
Froebelian play is somewhat joyless!
Finally, Froebelian play, as the interaction of dialectical opposites, cannot avoid the
tension and friction of those opposites. The child sees in her play the mirror of herself but
does not simply gaze. The experience of play informs and changes the knowledge of self
which in turn expresses itself in new play and so on. In the course of the development of
the child, the nature and type of play changes, both reflecting and forming the self. It can
be surmised that Froebel considered the process to be one that continued perhaps all
through life. The child’s engagement with the playthings marks the first stage in the
dialectical process of self-recognition, not the end or culmination. Because of the nature
of Froebel’s interest in early education only, the further development of the process,
however, is not charted in his writings.
The connection to postmodernism.
If a Hegelian interpretation of Froebel is legitimate then it is through Hegel that the
connection can be made between the world of eighteenth century idealism and certain
strands of postmodernist thought. This connection is interesting for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it provides the possibility of a contemporary interpretation of Froebel’s work in
the light of much more recent theory. Secondly, and more generally, it provides a
possibility of reclaiming play from its commodification as an attribute of educational
activity at a time when defining the quintessential attributes of educational action is more
important than it has been for some time. Thirdly, the dialectic of play and self in Froebel
seems to offer an educational parallel of the post-modernist relation between self and
other in alterity.
Returning briefly to history, from Hegel there is a direct line, in particular, to Nietzsche’s
critique of rationalism, which, in its striving to go beyond Hegel’s attempt to reform this
tradition, claims that life can be justified only aesthetically (Nietzsche 1999). This
powerful idea, at the core of Nietzsche’s critique, marks the beginning of the turning
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away from the project of modernism (Habermas) that leads directly to some of the main
themes of post-modernist thought.
The centering of the aesthetic, which has led to the emergence of culture as both a central
theme and an inescapable co-defining moment for much of contemporary philosophy, is
perhaps the enduring popular legacy of Nietzsche. One consequence of this move it that
hereafter all attempts to do philosophy from an impersonal or universal standpoint are
viewed with deep suspicion as is the associated methodology of introspection. The
situated individual in her historical, cultural and social context is thus the new object of
philosophical reflection. It is in this focus on the individual as historical and cultural
being that a first connection can be made between Froebel and contemporary thought.
The rootedness of the child in her play is a principal feature of Froebel’s adaptation of
Hegel’s dialectic to the development of individual human beings. In contrast to Hegel,
the dialectic is not an historical movement towards the realisation of Universal Spirit but
the movement towards the realisation of a concrete, individual life. “For, as the child
proves himself in this way (in play) to be a creative being, he also shows himself just as
surely, on the other hand to be a member of the great living whole and of all life. He is
destined to develop himself as a creating and as a created being…” (EbD, 68).
Culture, in modern philosophy, as a domain of knowledge and experience, complements
the positive sciences in their attempts to understand how things are by asking questions
about what things mean. The dialectic of culture in Hegel and Nietzsche, therefore, can
be said to parallel the dialectic of education and self-formation in Froebel. In a similar
way in which the individual is an “inner self” in subjectivity and an “objective self” in
play, there are, in Nietzsche, two senses of culture, the first, the subjective concept of
Bildung and the second concept of objective culture in customs, artifacts and
representations. Both of these senses of culture mirror the ideas of the inner self and play
in Froebel. In both cases too, the synthetic reconciliation and Aufhebung of the friction
between the subjective and objective is to be found in both cases in the knowledge of
living well, flourishing, or as Jurist terms it “self-fathoming” (Jurist 2000, p.65).
So, if it can be claimed that the roots of much post-modernist thought is to be found in
Hegel and Nietzsche’s critique of rationalism and if there is a clear connection between
Froebel and Hegel with a parallel between the dialectic of culture in Nietzsche and that of
education and self-formation in Froebel, what specifically can be said about the
connection between Froebel’s concept of play and the “playfulness” of postmodernism?
To answer this question, an attempt must be made to sketch at least in outline some of the
salient features of the post-modernist concept of “playfulness”.
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Firstly, the term “postmodernism” can be traced to theorising in architecture and art in
the 1970s (Best & Kellner 1991, p. 11) and is thus inextricably linked with the realm of
the aesthetic. Both postmodernist theory and aesthetics share a concern about
representation. Modernism is concerned with problematising the representations we have
of reality, their structure, validity and promise of progress through disinterested
knowledge. Postmodernism is also about representations but the representations of
postmodernism are non-neutral, reflecting value commitments, life situations and power
relations. In a postmodernist culture, the hope has been completely dispelled of ever
finding the Truth, objective knowledge or ultimate meaning. Mining the depths of mind,
the world, language and interpretation to find certainty is futile and nonsensical. The
impossibility of discovering deeper meaning results in the celebration of superficiality,
parody and irony. This is the new, free and sometimes dark and subversive “playfulness”
of postmodernism.
Clearly, a postmodern playfulness that is the expression of a complete relativism and a
conceptual, linguistic and semantic “free-for-all” is a far remove from the Froebelian idea
of play as the necessary objectification of the developmental inner life of a human being.
One of the central features of a certain type of postmodernist thought is, indeed, the
complete displacement of the self as the central, founding presence in knowledge so that
there cannot be a privileged knowledge of self as inner life, either through the dialectic of
play or by introspection. If this is the case then there is no doubt that a postmodernism of
this purely “ludic” nature firstly bears no relation at all to the play of Froebel and
secondly, is antagonistic towards many, if not all, of the usual aims and modes of
legitimation of education. The principle of “anything goes” relativism is not one that can
inform or sustain an endeavour so crucially bound up with notions of development,
growth, learning and assessment.
It is for this reason perhaps that play is regarded with some suspicion in modern
educational discourse concerned, as it often is, with the rhetoric of progress and
development. (Sutton-Smith, 1997, p. 203). Aligned with a postmodernist ideology, it is a
subversive force that threatens much of which is held, or has been held, dear for
generations of educators. As Nagel argues, this kind of play “can be used to conjure up
(in a Nietzschian analogy) the death of man” (Nagel 2002, p. 5) as a self-grounding, selfknowing being. There is, however, a remaining question: is this ludic, anti-educational
“free-for-all” the only possible interpretation of modern play or can play be redeemed for
education by interpreting it in a different manner and if so what would such an
interpretation look like? A different interpretation of play that is at home in
postmodernist thought but avoids a complete playful relativism in favour of a
Wittgensteinian language game interpretation of knowledge and learning can admit of an
important kind of play.
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In this regard, Rømer makes the useful distinction between postmodernity as an instance
of complete playful relativism on the one hand and, on the other hand, of “the gradual
learning of local competencies” (Rømer 2003, p. 313). (All learning is of local
competencies in the light of the impossibility of any “grand narrative”.) As argued above,
there is no way to defend a role for a frivolous, random play in the educational progress
or adaptation of a human being. However, there is a reading of the “learned
competencies” view of postmodernism that does allow a role to a “play as
transformation” (Sutton-Smith 1997, p. 127).
This view of postmodernism has its roots in the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein with
his suggestion that language and thus the ways in which we can represent the world (and
ourselves as part of the world) is made up of “language games”. There are two standard
interpretations of the nature of these language games. The first states (and this is probably
closer to the original Wittgenstein) that a particular language game is a fairly stable,
objective thing that is governed by grammatical rules which consequently govern the way
in which we see and think about the world. The education of a child consists in entering,
or being initiated into, a language game from the outside by learning how a term or a
word is used in the language game. This usage has been determined by others and has
been formed by tradition and forms the established knowledge and language of a society.
The second interpretation of the nature of language games is the more ludic view that
language games have no fixed structure and that each linguistic encounter is an “event”
whose structure is constantly being reshaped in new ways depending on the context of the
language encounter. Once again, this interpretation of the nature of language games
leaves education in the difficult position of not being able to develop any way of
legitimising or evaluating student responses nor therefore of being able to access or
evaluate student knowledge. Language on this view is pure contingency.
Because of the cul-de-sac presented by the “language as event” view the only possible
home for a contemporary or postmodernist notion of play lies in its possible role within
the dynamics of flexible language games. If language games are viewed not as rigid,
objective categories that children have to learn in ostensive knowledge and if they are not
considered “islands of language” (Lyotard, 1984) that do not permit of translation or
communication but are open to new interpretations, new voices, new accents and reorganisation, then it is here that a postmodernist play can be situated.
Play, according to this reading, is to be found at the centre of learning understood as the
re-structuring and re-organisation of knowledge. So according to one branch of
postmodernist thought advocated, for instance by Richard Rorty, education and learning
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involves two components: the handing down to the next generation of traditional
knowledge structures or language games and also the playful breaking up and
recombining of traditional knowledge and learning in a new and satisfying way that
ultimately provides personal meaning and understanding of the world. The energy for this
play is provided by either the quest for personal meaning or simple Aristotelian curiosity
or hunger for stimulating and satisfying ideas in Lyotard’s postmodernist concept of
“paralogy”. (Lyotard 1984)
If understood as the creative and imaginative restructuring of traditional and transmitted
knowledge, this postmodernist play can have educational and developmental
significance. It differs from the play of Froebel in at least two significant ways. Firstly,
there is no sense in this epistemological play of the service to an emergent true self. The
notion of an ontologically fundamental self realising its nascent potentialities is one of
the grand narratives rejected by postmodernism. Secondly, while the playful and creative
re-structuring of language games will be influenced by life-world factors, this type of
play is not bound in any way by the kind of universal necessity characteristic of the
Hegelian or Froebelian dialectic.
The two kinds of play nevertheless have two important common features. In both cases
play is a cultural act, action in meaningful symbols and an expression of self. It is also,
but in different ways, concerned with self-formation, in one case in an ontological sense
and in the second case as “edification” (Rorty) or “self-creation” (Foucault) in an
epistemological sense. Children all the while continue to play and in doing so challenge
our understandings of its function for themselves, for their education and for society.
List of References
Blow, S. E. (1899) Letters to a Mother on the Philosophy of Froebel, New York:
Appleton and Company.
Froebel, F., (2001/[1888]) Friedrich Froebel’s The Education of Man, trans. W. N.
Hailmann, London: Routledge
Froebel, F. (2001/[1899]) Friedrich Froebel’s Education by Development, trans.
Josephine Jarvis, London: Routledge.
Gadamer, H-G. (1989) Truth and Method 2nd ed trans. Weinsheimer, J. and Marshall, D.
G. London: Continuum.
Halfter, F. (1926) Das Vermächtnis Friedrich Fröbels an unsere Zeit, Leipzig: Verlag
Quelle &Meyer.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977) trans. A. V Miller, The Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
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Jurist, E. L. (2000) Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency,
Cambridge MA and London: MIT Press.
Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Mineapolis
MN,
Nagel. M. (2002) Masking the Abject: A Genealogy of Play, Lanham MA, Lexington.
Nietzsche, F. (1999/[1871]) eds. Geuss, R. and Speirs, R (trans) The Birth of Tragedy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rømer, T. (2003) Learning and Assessment in Postmodern Education in Educational
Theory, 53 (3), 313-327.
Sutton-Smith, B (1997) The Ambiguity of Play, Cambridge MA and London: Harvard
University Press.
Note: the author wishes to acknowledge his debt to his colleague Dr. David Limond,
TCD, for his insightful critique and helpful comments on an early version of the text.
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