Groos came to see
in play the guarantor of youth: “Animals also do not play be
cause they are young; they are young because they have to
play.”82
He therefore distinguished play ac
tivity involving (a) the sensory apparatus (the sense of touch,
heat, taste, odor, hearing, color, shape, movement, etc.); (b )
the motor apparatus (feeling about, destruction and analysis,
construction and synthesis, games involving patience, throwing,
throwing and striking or pushing, rolling, turning, or sliding
movements, throwing at a target, catching moving objects); (c)
intelligence, emotion, and will power (games of recognition,
memory, imagination, attention, reason, surprise, fear, etc.). He
then went on to what he called secondary drives, those which
are derived from the instincts of fighting, sex, and imitation.
There is scarcely any doubt that the desire to freely respect
an agreed-upon rule is essential. In fact, Chateau, following
Piaget, recognizes the importance of this point as well, in that
he begins by dividing games into two classes, those with rules
and those without. For the latter he condenses Groos’ contribu
tion without adding anything new. For regulated games he
proves much more instructive. The distinction he establishes
between figurative games (imitation and illusion), objective
games (construction and w ork), and abstract games (arbitrary
rules, prowess, and competition) no doubt corresponds to reality.
It is also possible to agree with him that figurative games lead to
art, objective games anticipate work, and competitive games
foreshadow sports
Pg168
Me: Implicit is the unfortunate positivism endemic to the social scientists of the 20th century.
Lacan might locate this stance
Interesting Mind