ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the role of play and playfulness within the domain of performance philosophy. It shows how philosophy is affected by the ludic experience in performance and how play helps philosophy to avoid both escapism on the one hand and an overly serious attitude in the face of reality on the other. The argument is structured in three steps. First, there is a summary of the main characteristics of play in general (fun, superabundance, autotelic activity, critical interruption). Secondly, the ethos of performance philosophy is described as generated by the phenomenon of play within performance (restored behaviour, doubleness of the self, secondary positionality). In a third step, the ludic practice of performance philosophy is exemplified by means of an account of the conference “How Does Performance Philosophy Act? Ethos, Ethics, Ethnography” which took place at the Academy of Performing Art in Prague in 2017.
