Le regole del gioco. Perché la realtà sociale non è un sistema normativo

Why Social Ontology uses games as paradigmatic examples of social objects? Is social reality a game? In this short essay, shared properties and differences of ludic and social acts are explored to explode the myth of the normative structure of social reality. In order to explain and demonstrate their theories, major authors of our research sector, such as Searle and Smith, appeal to ludic phenomena as unmistakable evidences of regulated social activities. Nevertheless well valued theorists do not recognize that there are tens of different typologies of games, about which it should be appropriate to draw up a regional ontology, as much there are tons of rule types, not always prescriptive and not always descriptive. The article demonstrates that social reality is not explainable by appealing to regulated behaviors, opening in this way a research context that involves the Interactive Fiction of play. Therefore the ludic phenomenon rests the base of social reality, however disconnecting it from the concept of rule, which too much influenced the research on mind, language and culture.