Abstract

This paper addresses the phenomenon of play as an intentional activity. It focuses on the question of whether play can be classified unambiguously as either action or behavior. Such a clear-cut distinction is challenged by ordinary-language approaches to the meaning of play and games, as well as by works in the anthropology, ethology, and sociology of play. The paper discusses these works, and then analyzes the different levels of intention formation in play and how the intentionality of play is characterized by drive structures, arguing that these should be understood as intentional. This yields a reassessment of the variety of play activities as liminal phenomena between action and behavior.