About

Over the last years, computer games have received growing attention from academic fields as diverse as psychology, literary studies, sociology and learning studies. The game philosophy initiative aims to broaden the scope of this effort by facilitating discussions dealing with philosophical issues raised by computer games. By doing so, we do not only want to contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon, we also want to contribute to the establishment of a new philosophical discipline, the philosophy of traditional games and computer games, capable of taking its place alongside such disciplines as the philosophy of film and the philosophy of literature.

The initiative started with a seminar held 2005 when the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at University of Oslo contacted Center for Computer Games Research at the IT-University of Copenhagen about organizing a workshop on philosophical problems that arise in games research. Since then, an ever expanding group of partners has been involved in the effort.

The network is still informally organized. The steering group has the following members: Olav Asheim, Patrick Coppock, Rune Klevjer, Stephan Günzel,  Gordon Calleja, Olli Leino, Anita Leirfall, Sebastian Möring, Chistopher Thi Nguyen and John Richard Sageng.

The effort is interdisciplinary and the conferences serve as a meeting place for traditional philosophers and scholars from game studies, along with many other academic fields.

The side menu contains links to all of the conferences. The programs give a good impression of the kind of work done so far. On this site you will also find archives of video recordings and manuscripts from the conferences.