The Role of Play in the Philosophy of Plato

No human affairs are worth taking very seriously

"Fecundity, geniune seriousness, real understanding, are to be found only in aerial flights of play; without play, our intellectual exertions lead but to fatuous solemnities."

The Role of Play in the Philosophy of Plato
Gavin Ardley
Vol. 42, No. 161 (Jul., 1967), pp. 226-244

10. Games 
"A game at its best is something played for love, for its own sake. A game is disinterested, an end in itself. As with love, there can be no compulsion or necessity in play: its essence is spontaneity and outgivingness. [...] A real game is a case of simple timeless enjoyment."

11. Learning through play
"We learn through playing, and only through playing: this is one of Plato's leading themes."

12. A theology of play
"One of the characteristics of play is repetition: we do the same thing over and over again for the sheer love of doing it. [...] Hence the world-order: it is one of endless repetition of joyful movements, it has the regularity of the dance. Hence, too, the possibility of natural science."

"released from the chains which before held us bound in pseudo-seriousness, now able to play the tragi-comic game of life"

Plato's myth-making

socrates in philebus: a jest is sometimes refreshing when it interrupts earnest