Il gioco e la vita. Del nostro essere eventuali

This contribution takes as a starting point certain aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy which can be connected to a reflextion on play. The present work is guided by two questions: can the relation word-living being be described as play? Can playing activities explain something about this relation? On the one hand, looking through the lesson of some scientists – such as Goldstein, Edelman, and Sacks –, the paper shows that a philosophy of life can benefit from an investigation on play. On the other hand, embracing the suggestions of Paul Valéry, it proposes a reading of his notion of implexe as one of the mean traits of the living being.