What Philosophy Can Teach Us About Games?

Proceedings of The 7th International Conference on Social sciences, Humanities and Education

Year: 2022

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/7th.icshe.2022.12.20

[PDF]

What Philosophy Can Teach Us About Games?

Serafeim A. Triantafyllou

 

ABSTRACT: 

Games make their presence apparent in every place. People of any age play games, talk about games and accomplish learning objectives with the right use of games. However, the basic question of what games really mean to players remains inadequately answered and further examination of the whole subject is needed. Conceptualizing the meaning of games and understanding their role in everyday life is the basic research area that Game Theory examines. Specifically, a major focus is given on the interaction that takes place when the players make their own decisions when playing a game. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of games from a humanistic perspective, examining at the same time the role of games in peoples’ everyday life and how they can be helpful for promoting meaning in life. The existence of a connection between a theoretical goal of human life and games is possible, and to find out, we have conducted a theoretical analysis in order to examine Aristotle’s conception of happiness, and other philosophical theories in relation to games. Next, an experiment was conducted, where young players could explore in a matching game, Aristotle’s teaching about virtue, and specifically, that all virtues are means between extremes.

keywords: digital games, philosophical theories, educational games