Intensity and the Sublime: Paying Attention to Self and Environment in Nature Sports

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 13 (1):1-13 (2017)
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Abstract

This paper responds to Kevin Krein’s claim in that the particular value of nature sports over traditional ones is that they offer intensity of sport experience in dynamic interaction between an athlete and natural features. He denies that this intensity is derived from competitive conflict of individuals and denies that nature sport derives its value from internal conflict within the athlete who carries out the activity. This paper responds directly to Krein by analysing ‘intensity’ in sport in terms of the relationship between attention and reflection and the interaction between self and environment. I reply directly to Krein’s rejection of self-competition as based on a mischaracterisation of internal struggle and argue that the weighing of incompatible desires does not involve a fragmented self. I argue that the unique intensity to which Krein refers is strongly comparable to the Kantian conception of the sublime and explore how sublime experience fits Krein’s account and outline some serious problems that such an ideal of experience poses for nature sport.

Other Versions

reprint Howe, Leslie A. (2019) "Intensity and the Sublime: Paying Attention to Self and Environment in Nature Sports". Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 13(1):94-106

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Author's Profile

Leslie A. Howe
University of Saskatchewan

References found in this work

The world as will and representation.Arthur Schopenhauer & E. F. J. Payne - 1958 - [Indian Hills, Colo.]: Falcon's Wing Press. Edited by Judith Norman, Alistair Welchman & Christopher Janaway.
Critique of judgement.Immanuel Kant - 1952 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Nicholas Walker.
The ethics of ambiguity.Simone de Beauvoir - 1948 - New York,: Philosophical Library. Edited by Bernard Frechtman.
Critique of Judgement.Immanuel Kant - 1911 - New York: Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Nicholas Walker.
Aesthetics of the natural environment.Emily Brady - 2003 - Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

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