The Game of the World - by Kostas Axelos

About the Book

In this philosophical treatment of play Kostas Axelos traces his thinking on the world deployed as play from Heraclitus through to the culmination of metaphysical philosophy with Nietzsche, Marx and Heidegger.

Book Synopsis

Kostas Axelos traces his thinking on the world deployed as play from Heraclitus through to the culmination of metaphysical philosophy with Nietzsche, Marx and Heidegger.
Originally published in 1969, Le Jeu du Monde, conceives of the dawn of the 21st-century in which technological transformations coincide with an increased world at play. Are we continually falling when we are continually scrolling? Are we homeless on our homepages and playless at our PlayStations? Axelos demands a future thinking of fragmentary wholeness where humans - global players and worldwide gamers of planetary and wordless worlds - have yet to learn to play the play of the world.

From the Back Cover

One of the great philosophical treatises on play and games Drawing on philosophies of gaming and play from Heraclitus and Plato through to Marx, Nietzsche and Heidegger, Kostas Axelos outlines an extraordinary, unique vision of our contemporary world. Originally published in 1969, The Game of the World brilliantly anticipates a 21st century in which ever-accelerating technological transformations coincide with a world at play and in play, at once fragmentary and totalised, disordered and hyper-organised. In the midst of this paradoxical and deranging becoming-planetary of the world, Axelos offers a sequence of profound meditations on play and playing, games and gaming, directing us towards new means of thinking and action that may enable us to face the world-historical challenges of our own present. Kostas Axelos (1924-2010) was a Greek-French philosopher and translator. A specialist in Heraclitus, Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger, as well as in Friedrich Hölderlin and Stéphane Mallarmé, he taught and researched at the Sorbonne, as well as the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the École Pratique des Hautes Études. The Game of the World is his magnum opus, and as yet only the third English translation from his vast and important body of work. Justin Clemens teaches in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Hellmut Monz teaches at RMIT University, Vietnam. .

Review Quotes

At the heart of Kostas Axelos's ambitious and pioneering system, this encyclopaedia of fragments has long exercised a powerful influence in French thought on play, game and world. Axelos could not have asked for more sympathetic, attentive and poetic translators in Clemens and Monz. His anglophone readers and interlocutors await.-- "Stuart Elden, University of Warwick"

About the Author

Kostas Axelos (1924-2010) was a Greek-French philosopher and translator. A specialist in Heraclitus, Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger, as well as in Friedrich Hölderlin and Stéphane Mallarmé, he taught and researched at the Sorbonne, as well as at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. The Game of the World is his magnum opus, and as yet only the third English translation from his vast and important body of work.

Justin Clemens is Associate Professor in Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. He has published extensively on psychoanalysis, contemporary European philosophy and Australian art and literature. His recent books include What is Education? edited with A.J. Bartlett and The Afterlives of Georges Perec edited with Rowan Wilken.

Hellmut Monz teaches at the School of Communication and Design at RMIT University, Vietnam. He made his literary debut with the hexalogy Hellmut Monz and Philosophia's Scream