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Ancient and modern

What Aristotle would have made of Cambridge’s Lego-sponsored professor

The great philosopher wasn’t one to overlook the apparently trivial; but he didn’t share our sentimentality about childhood

20 June 2015

9:00 AM

20 June 2015

9:00 AM

So Cambridge University has accepted £4 million from the makers of Lego (snort) to fund a Lego chair (Argos sells a kit at £8.99) and a research centre into the importance of play (titter). One must not laugh (shriek). Aristotle (384–322 bc) might have approved — in part.

At the start of his ground-breaking treatise on animal form and function, Aristotle pointed out that there was something marvellous in every aspect of the natural world.

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