Hans Scheuerl

Play: An Investigation into Its Nature, Pedagogical Possibilities, and Limits

 

This entry is about Hans Scheuerl’s book Das Spiel. Untersuchung über sein Wesen, seine pädagogischen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen. Beltz: Weinheim 1979 [1954].

 

By Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

 

 

Hans Scheuerl (1919-2004) was a professor of educational science. He studied at the University of Hamburg where he earned his doctorate in 1952 and completed his habilitation in 1957 under the educator Wilhelm Flitner. He worked in the Department of Educational Science at the University of Hamburg from 1969 to 1987. Scheuerl dedicated himself to fundamental areas of educational science. His studies on play and "exemplary teaching" (Exemplarische Lehre) stimulated discussion within his field. He also addressed aspects of other disciplines, such as peace education and sex education as well as topics from biological anthropology, psychoanalysis, and religious education.

 

Play (Das Spiel)

 

As an educator trained in phenomenology, Scheuerl examined play very much through metaphors. He arrived at conclusions similar to those of Hans-Georg Gadamer in his Truth and Method (1960). Gadamer was drafting his analysis of play around the same time.

 

According to Scheuerl, the meaning of the word "play" points primarily not to an activity, but to a movement that takes place within a "play-space" (Spielraum, leeway) (p. 129). Scheuerl provides the following examples:

 

Moonlight plays on the waves. – The radio is playing. – The orchestra is playing Mozart. – Gustaf Gründgens plays Mephisto. – A family is playing Monopoly. The children are playing hide-and-seek. – A child is playing trains. – A boy is playing with a toy train. – An infant is playing with a rattle. (p. 129)

 

Linguistically, we distinguish between movements of play that unfold of their own accord and those that are executed willfully and consciously. We distinguish between transitive and intransitive usage:

 

"something plays" (moonlight, radio), "someone plays something"

 

Like Gadamer, Scheuerl sees the true essence of play in its intransitive usage (p. 127), a view that leads to a critique of the "subject" concept, which is, again, in agreement with Gadamer. There is no subject producing the play, but the play exists within itself (p. 125). The play of lights or waves does not constitute a goal-oriented activity. Many theorists have sought to dismiss this activity as "not genuine" play, yet, according to Scheuerl, such phenomena represent the purest structure of play:

 

"Our hypothesis—which must stand the test—is this: The primordial phenomenon of that unified movement lies behind all usages of the word 'play' and gives them their vivid, intuitive meaning." (p. 125)

 

The above is a primal phenomenon of play, and any movement can take on the character of a play-movement provided it contains possibilities for movement (or what Gadamer calls "play" in the sense of “leeway”):

 

“Anything that manifests as movement can—phenomenally—be a movement toward or away, attraction or repulsion, a seeking or a fleeing, a liberation or a union, a loving-towards or a fighting-against—or it can be play. Any movement can be ’genuine’ play.” (p. 127.)

 

It makes no difference whether it is a human being or the wind that is playing. What matters is the event-character of the play or what one might want to call the style of the play. Play possesses lightness and is free:

 

“Activity is only one half of play: the preparatory, supporting half that provides the impulse. Yet what fascinates us about play is precisely the fact that an event—autonomous in itself—breaks free from the doing and renders all effort invisible.” (p. 133).

 

 

Hans Scheuerl, selected publications from Wikipedia:

 

• Untersuchungen über das Wesen des Spiels, seine pädagogischen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen. Hamburg 1952 (Hochschulschrift; Hamburg, Philosophische Fakultät, Dissertation vom 23. Juli 1952).

• Das Spiel. Untersuchungen über sein Wesen, seine pädagogischen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen. Beltz, Weinheim, Berlin 1954; 11, überarbeitete Ausgabe, 1990; ISBN 3-407-34045-1.

• Beiträge zur Theorie des Spiels. Beltz, Weinheim / Berlin [1955].

• Begabung und gleiche Chancen. Zur Frage der „Startgerechtigkeit“ im Schulwesen. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1958.

• Die exemplarische Lehre. Sinn und Grenzen eines didaktischen Prinzips. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1958 (Hamburg, Philosophische Fakultät, Habilitationsschrift vom 27. Juli 1957).

• (als Hrsg.): Theorien des Spiels. 11, überarbeitete und ergänzte Ausgabe; Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 1991, ISBN 3-407-34054-0.

 

 

 

Author Citation Information

Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten, “Hans Scheuerl: Play: An Investigation into Its Nature, Pedagogical Possibilities, and Limits,” ODIP: The Online Dictionary of Intercultural Philosophy (2020), Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (ed.), URL = <Odiphilosophy.com/Scheuerl>.