 The first volume of In the Cross of Reality, The Hegemony of Spaces, is primarily a work of method. It simultaneously provides a critique of the philosophical inheritance that Rosenstock-Huessy argues distorts our social understanding or reflexivity and participation or actualization, whilst excavating more primordial elements, moods, and insights that emerge in social experience. Rosenstock-Huessy’s argument is predicated upon the distinction between spaces of play and living spaces. He claims that play prepares us for life. Thus, like Horace Bushnell (whose work inspired him to rethink his earlier drafting of the first volume of In the Cross of Reality) and Johan Huizinga, he sees play as generating crucial conditions of reflexivity.