The late Bernard Suits was Distinguished Emeritus
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo.
Thomas Hurka is a Canadian philosopher who serves
as the Jackman Distinguished Chair in Philosophical Studies at the
University of Toronto.
Like Erasmus's Praise of Folly and Diderot's Rameau's Nephew,
Suits's The Grasshopper sparkles with wit and fun; and outranks
those wonderful works in clear, firm philosophical conclusions.
Defying certain discouragements, Suits constructs an illuminating
definition of games, which he defends in lively dialogues, amusing
parables, and cascades of subtle analytical distinctions. That is
achievement enough to make a new classic in the history of
philosophy. Suits offers more: an application of his definition in
a discussion of how much we may have to rely on games—deliberately
using relatively inefficient means to reach freely stipulated
goals—if life is to continue to have meaning. We may be able to
regain thereby the meaning lost as advances in technology enable us
to escape one by one the tasks that necessity used to impose on
humankind." - David Braybrooke, Dalhousie University / The
University of Texas at Austin
"The Grasshopper is an amazing book. Philosophically profound, yet
genuinely funny. While primarily an articulation and defense of a
highly plausible definition of games (and we all know what
Wittgenstein said about that), it also manages to raise some of the
deepest and most challenging questions about the meaning of life.
All in the form of dialogues between an insect and his disciples!
There is simply nothing else like it." - Shelly Kagan, Yale
University
"Philosophers are not generally known for fine writing, but once in
a generation or two a book appears out of nowhere, unclassifiable,
inspired, amazing, mesmerizing, wonderful, classic…" - Philosophy
and Literature
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