Abstract
Sociological theory has to deal with processes of type formation within frames of social relevance. Modes of interaction like games, plays, and projected social actions have to be differentiated on the background of a theory of social types. Most discriminative for such an endeavor are differences in the temporal dimensions and in the relevance structures of interactional situations.
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References
The question (see sect. 4.42) of what determines the chance for an arisal of social inconsistencies has thus been answered for an important instance. The prevalence of playing-at-a-theme, of play and also of game, especially in the “play-world of the child,” is a consequence of the incipient state of the child’s typificatory scheme of “body.”
Marilyn Monroe’s attempts to free herself from the limits set by the symbolic type of “sexbomb” show the tragic consequences and the personally uncontrollable inertia of these inconsistencies. —It need not be stressed again that these phenomena are entirely different from the well-known problem in role-theory that reciprocal role typifications also have a certain inertia.
The studies of Plessner and of Merleau-Ponty are among the most important in this field. See: Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (Berlin, DeGruyter, 1928 ), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception ( London, Routledge-Kegan Paul, 1962 ).
G. H. Mead, Present, p. 186.
Compare sect. 1.3.
Quoted by Plessner in Lachen und Weinen, p. 102.
This is a hypothesis. The subsequent analysis will explore and test ist implications.
Some excellent illustrations may be found, for instance, in Eric Berne’s Games People Play. What he describes as “Sexual Games” (pp. 123–131) are “strategically” structured patterns of interaction: hence they are also “games” in the above sense. Their pattern is composed of limits set by enactment of the common symbolic type of “making love.” These limits are social and can hardly be explained by “sexual instincts” as Berne suggests. The interactional mode of “making-love-to-each-other” is, of course, play.
See sect. 5.23: The “more stringent definition of social temporality” stipulates that the passage of interaction has to be structured by the incipient event, resp. by the symbolic type.
This “imposition of rationality” is a phenomenon not sufficiently clarified in sociological theory. It is related to the problem of intersubjectivity. I should like to state a conjecture: If Peirce’ and Durkheim’s claims that logic and rationality have a social basis are correct, then this basis could be clarified by studying further the intermediary phases between play and game. For Peirce see Coll. Pap., 2.654ff, 5.311, 5.354–357, 5.378, 5.384. For Durkheim see especially his The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London, Allan, 1954) esp. p. 418.
See sect. 5.11.
See sect. 5.13.
Sect. 7.1.
Relevance maintained by symbolic types and relevance maintained by typificatory schemes in role interaction must be distinguished. If I talk about “degeneration of social roles into symbolic types” I do not connect any value judgement with the term “degeneration.” I suggest, however, that role interaction has been overestimated in recent sociological theory and that the consequences of the enactment of symbolic types for personal identity and for the perception of social values are considerable.
See sect. 6.24.
If any of these three characteristics is missing, no playing of a game takes place. In this case, the interactional mode of game prevails as such. A systematic study of games would have to introduce further distinctions here. For instance, Goffman distinguishes game, as a “body of rules,” and play as a “particular instance of a given game played from beginning to end.” Playing is the “process of move-taking,” whereas the “varieties of interaction that occur among persons who are face to face” in order to play a game is called gaming. (E. Goffman, Encounters, pp. 35f.) — My terminology, obviously, is different from Goffman’s.
Mathematical game analysis similarly speaks of goals as “imputations.” Compare Neumann-Morgenstern, Theory of Games, pp. 34–37.
See sect. 8.2 for the “tough guy” constituted in playing football.
Compare Goffman’s essay “Fun in Games” in: Encounters, pp. 17–81.
See sect. 5.11.
Compare the similar formulation of Schütz for the span of the project. See Social World, p. 62.
See sect. 1.3.
See sect. 5.14.
A. Gehlen, Mensch, p. 224. — Gehlen quotes immediately following George H. Mead’s notion of “generalized other.” It is hard to see how this Meadian notion can support a teleological concept like Gehlen’s “Zucht.” See sect. 6. 12.
See sect. 5.4.
Sartre, Search, pp. 128f.
Durkheim described this state of affairs as “economic anomie.” See esp. his foreword to the 2nd ed. of Division of Labor.
Compare sect. 5.4.
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© 1970 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Grathoff, R.H. (1970). Toward a Unified Theory of Game, Play, and Social Action. In: The Structure of Social Inconsistencies. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3215-5_7
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