How does George Gadamer in The Play of Art explain the “play drive?”
George Gadamer is a philosophy expert with particular interest and expertise in the philosophy tradition of hermeneutic. He pursues the playful character of art in his “The Play of Art”. In the reading, the author investigates how a play can be used to understand art.
In “The Play of Art”, Gadamer refers to “play-drive” as the need to play which depicts the thin line separating humans and animals? According to him, unlike the previous misconceptions, “Play drive” is influenced significantly by natural phenomenon. Gadamer reasserts that the decisions to play as any other decisions made by human beings are not entirely decided through free will. He states that other forces like compulsive drives, interests, and other unconscious factors influence people’s decisions which include play. For instance, Gadamer gives an example that artists too, paint for the expression of “play drive”. According to Gadamer,despite the human thoughts that they play “at something” unlike children and animals who play “with something”, the two are related. He argues that we mimic nature and the natural human existence structure through play.
According to Gadamer, there is a relation between play and communication. He states that play as an imitative representation can act as a communication medium when taken as a pure representation without any changes. Understanding play as mimetic representation seeks to be understood in its kind but not only to be believed. However, he reasserts that for a play to act as a communicator, it must be understood by the one who the information is intendedto; otherwise, it will seem like any other form of play. He states that for mimic representation to parlay as communication, both the sender and the recipient must have the full grasp of the matter at hand. Artistic representations, according to Gadamer are simply appearances or shows that communicate something. As such, play as a product of natur