Karl Groos (10 December 1861, in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

– 27 March 1946, in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

) was a German

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

who proposed an evolutionary instrumentalist theory of play. His 1898 book on ''The Play of Animals'' suggested that play is a preparation for later life. Groos was full Professor of philosophy in

Gießen Giessen, spelled in German (), is a town in the German state () of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 university students. Th ...

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

and 1911–1929 in

. His main idea was that play is basically useful, and so it can be explained by the normal process of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

. When animals 'play' they are practising basic instincts, such as fighting, for survival. This is translated from the original as "pre-tuning". Lorenz, Konrad 1970. ''Studies in animal and human behaviour''. vol 1, Methuen, London, p91. Despite this insight, Groos' work is seldom read today, and his connection of play with

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

has been termed "misguided".Fagan, Robert 1981. ''Animal play behavior''. Oxford University Press, p4. Another area of study was the psychology of literature, including statistical analysis. Among his scholars is the German philosopher Willy Moog (1888–1935) (doctorate on

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

supervised by Karl Groos in Gießen 1909).

Works

* ''Einleitung in die Ästhetik''. Gießen: Ricker, 1892 * ''Die Spiele der Tiere'' (Jena 1896); translated by J. Mark Baldwin a
''The Play of Animals''
(New York 1898) (3rd German ed. 1930) * ''Die Spiele der Menschen'' (Jena 1899); translated by J. Mark Baldwin a
''The Play of Man''
(New York 1901) (many editions) * ''Des Seelenleben des Kindes'' (Berlin 1904) * 1902: ''Der ästhetische Genuss''. Gießen: Ricker. * 1910: ''Die akustischen Phänomene in der Lyrik Schillers'' * 1920: ''Bismarck im eigenen Urteil'', Stuttgart 1920 * 1922: ''Das Spiel''. Jena: G. Fischer.

References

External links

* German psychologists 1861 births 1946 deaths {{Germany-psychologist-stub