Push-pin was an English child's

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

played from the 16th until the 19th centuries. It is also known as "put-pin", and it is similar to Scottish games called "Hattie" and "Pop the Bonnet". In philosophy it has been used as an example of a relatively worthless form of amusement.

Rules

1777 etching depicting a couple playing a game of push-pin In push-pin each player sets one pin ( needle) on a table and then tries to push his pin across his opponent's pin. The game is played by two or more players. In "Pop the Bonnet", or "hattie", players place two pins on the brim of a hat. They take turns tapping or "popping" on the sides of the hat trying to cause pins to cross one another. Whichever player causes them to cross takes the pins. This was a form of

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...

, where a player could win or lose their pins, which were valuable as a rare imported commodity at that time. Boys and men might stash several pins on a sleeve or lapel to be prepared to play.

References in philosophy

Push-pin was immortalized by

Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 4 February Dual dating, 1747/8 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.

5 February 1748 Old Style and New Style dates, N.S. 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat pri ...

– 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of mo ...

when he wrote in ''The Rationale of Reward'' that: "Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry."

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...

, who disagreed with Bentham on this point, misquotes Bentham as saying, "quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry". Mill's version is now widely attributed to Bentham. The phrase comes up often in the work of R. S. Peters, a British philosopher of education, who uses some version of the phrase "why poetry is preferable to push-pin" as a way of drawing attention to the question of what is educationally worthwhile. For Peters, only intrinsically worthwhile activities warrant inclusion into the school curriculum. If a case could be made for the intrinsic educational value of push-pin (or a similar pastime), it could warrant inclusion. See for example "The Philosopher's Contribution to Educational Research," ''Educational Philosophy and Theory'' 1(2), October 1969, page 3.

Rules

References in philosophy

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See also