Work

Toy stories: A metaphysics of playthings

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Although toys are culturally ubiquitous, they have received little attention in the philosophical tradition. Existing accounts define toys in contrast to games or purely in relation to play. I argue that both strategies are inadequate: the former offers only a negative and incomplete account, while the latter is overly broad. As an alternative, I propose a novel definition of toys based on a set of individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions: x is a toy if and only if x is an artifactual, inanimate, and manipulable continuant, whose proper function—by design or appropriation—is to enable open-ended play, and where x, when replicating a technical artifact of kind K, lacks the proper function of the Ks.

Source: The Philosophical Quarterly

DOI: 10.1093/pq/pqag009

Author: Alexandre Declos

Institution: University of Neuchâtel

Language: English

Topic: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Art

Subfield: Philosophy

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,204

Funder: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung