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alex_ellermann 's review for:
Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
by James P. Carse
When I picked up James Carse's 'Finite and Infinite Games,' I thought I was picking up a book about game theory. Rather, I was picking up a philosophy text. Unfortunately, I wasn't picking up a particularly good philosophy text.
The busy reader can find the core of Carse's argument right there on the back cover of the first edition: "There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play." Carse takes this idea and applies it across many roles, behaviors, and stages of life.
In essence, Carse sees the finite game in Nietzschean terms, as the expression of competing wills to power. He sees the infinite game in Zenlike terms, as immersion in the flow of the universe itself. This is interesting stuff, particularly for those not versed in Nietzschean or Zen schools of thought. However, Carse goes astray when seeking to roll his posited dichotomy into a complete worldview. His worldview, shockingly enough, is that of a Professor of Religion at NYU. One gets the sense that, having conceived of his dichotomy, he applied value judgements to the competing worldviews he posited. Having done that, he spends the remainder of the book justifying how those pursuits and ideas which he already likes conform to the worldview he considers most estimable.
In other words, 'Finite and Infinite Games' is 150 pages of a college professor drinking his own Kool-Aid.
Recommended for: armchair philosophers who have yet to discover Nietzche and Zen.
The busy reader can find the core of Carse's argument right there on the back cover of the first edition: "There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play." Carse takes this idea and applies it across many roles, behaviors, and stages of life.
In essence, Carse sees the finite game in Nietzschean terms, as the expression of competing wills to power. He sees the infinite game in Zenlike terms, as immersion in the flow of the universe itself. This is interesting stuff, particularly for those not versed in Nietzschean or Zen schools of thought. However, Carse goes astray when seeking to roll his posited dichotomy into a complete worldview. His worldview, shockingly enough, is that of a Professor of Religion at NYU. One gets the sense that, having conceived of his dichotomy, he applied value judgements to the competing worldviews he posited. Having done that, he spends the remainder of the book justifying how those pursuits and ideas which he already likes conform to the worldview he considers most estimable.
In other words, 'Finite and Infinite Games' is 150 pages of a college professor drinking his own Kool-Aid.
Recommended for: armchair philosophers who have yet to discover Nietzche and Zen.