In this paper I take up John Searle's account of ?Background capacities? to render intelligible the presupposed and hidden aspects of the background conditions that enable the performance of skilled movement. The paper begins with a review of Searle's initial account of Background capacities and how this picture can be applied to account for skilled movement in sport. Then an objection to this picture is addressed, claiming that Searle's initial picture might ?overrepresentationalise? background conditions. Moreover, this objection prompts how Searle (...) has modified his initial picture of background conditions in accordance with his more recent ?connection principle?. Searle's recent account of background conditions is then elaborated and discussed in the second half of the paper. The discussion emphasises three distinct levels of analysis in Searle's framework necessary to a full understanding of his background conditions: (i) the neurophysiological level; (ii) the descriptive higher-order practical skill level; and (iii) the logical level of integration. It is argued that Searle's logical framework is found plausible, but that more work is needed to better understand the background conditions of skilled movement in terms of neurophysiological capacities and practical skills from both scientific and philosophical perspectives. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss phenomenological and logical characteristics of skilled behaviour in sport. The paper comprises two parts. The first describes phenomenological characteristics of skilled behaviour through Timothy Gallwey’s two playing modes and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between abstract and concrete movement. The second logical part introduces the concept of intentionality and the distinction Sean Kelly makes between cognitive and motor intentionality. I discuss how this distinction fits the phenomenological characteristics established in the first part of the paper. My argument (...) is that the logical structure of cognitive intentionality fits phenomenological characteristics of abstract movement, whereas the logical structure of motor intentionality fits phenomenological characteristics of concrete movements. (shrink)

A crucial task for sport research is to understand and explain the processes and conditions underlying skillful motor behavior. One way to account for these processes and conditions is to describe and analyze the distinct stages a learner goes through when acquiring a skill. This article starts by elaborating one of the most dominant conceptualizations of motor skills in sport, namely the information-processing approach to skills, and then it briefly recapitulates Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus’s phenomenology of skill acquisition. In a (...) second part, these two distinct perspectives of skills are discussed. The discussion progresses in a dialectical way where the author alternately argues for both perspectives. Emerging from this dialectic, the article presents two arguments for why Dreyfus’s phenomenology of skill acquisition is superior to the information-processing approach. (shrink)

The last decades have seen a rising philosophical interest in the phenomenology of skill acquisition. One central topic in this work is the relation between the athlete's background capacities and foreground attention as an invariant feature of skilful movements. The purpose of this paper is to examine further this gestalt relation from the perspective of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological account of embodied learning and a classical notion from philosophy of sport, namely ?sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome?. In the first part we (...) will explicate how Merleau-Ponty understands embodied learning as a form of gestalt switch that allows the athlete to perceive the world more meaningfully in relation to an ongoing movement project. That is, a skilled athlete perceives more and better opportunities for actions. In the second part, we revisit the classical notion of ?sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome? developed by Kretchmar. This phrase is attributed to the indeterminate back and forth rallies between sport contestants, and to persons facing a sport situation that produces an ambiguity as to whether one will succeed in one's task. In the third part, we then juxtapose Merleau-Ponty's notion of embodied learning and the notion of sweet tension from philosophy of sport in order to draw out the relations between the two notions. In addition, in much of the philosophical work on skill acquisition (for instance in Merleau-Ponty and his much-cited commentator, Hubert Dreyfus) the distinction between everyday skills (such as walking and opening doors) and sport skills is collapsed. Our discussion aims to show that by introducing the notion of ?sweet tension? to the literature on phenomenology of skill acquisition, we are able to highlight a phenomenological difference between everyday skills and sport skills. (shrink)