The degradation of modern sport--its commercialization, trivialization, widespread cheating, cult of athletic stars and celebrities, and manipulation by the media--has led to calls for its transformation. William J. Morgan constructs a critical theory of sport that shores up the weak arguments of past attempts and points a way forward to making sport more humane, compelling, and substantive. Drawing on the work of social theorists, Morgan challenges scholars and fans alike to explore new spaces in sport (...) culture and imagine the rich cultural and political possibilities to be found in the pastimes we follow with such passion. (shrink)

This book argues that sport in the era of global or financialised capitalism has undergone a process of fracturing, which requires a re-assessment of longstanding and consensual accounts of traditional-to-modern sporting activity. Considering rival concepts of sport, it presents detailed, illustrative studies of various types of sporting or athletic activity - including soccer, cricket, rugby and track and field - to advance an alternative sociological understanding of sport rooted in the philosophies and theories of critical realism and (...) critical theory. As such, A Critical Realist Theory of Sport will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in sport, research methods and critical realist thought. (shrink)

This essay develops a Kantian theory of sport which addresses: (1) Kant’s categories of aesthetic judgment (2) a comparable analysis applied to athletic volition; (3) aesthetic cognition and experience and athletic volition and experience; (4) ‘free’ and ‘attached’ beauty; (5) Kant’s theory of teleological judgment; (6) the moral concept of a ‘kingdom of ends’ and sportsmanship; (7) the beautiful and the sublime in sport-experience; (8) respect and religious emotion in sport-experience; (9) the Kantian system and (...) philosophical anthropology; and (10) sport and self-knowledge. (shrink)

In this article, I revise the normative account of sport that I proposed in ‘William J. Morgan’s “conventionalist internalism” approach. Furthering internalism? A critical hermeneutical response.’ I first present Habermas’ discursive ethics, placing emphasis on his interpretation of the relationship between moral (Kantian) and ethical (Hegelian/hermeneutical) principles. Then, I provide a reformulation of my account by both drawing on Habermas and going beyond him—as I go beyond Habermas, I will refer to the account as ‘discourse-ethics based.’ To further explore (...) the normative potential of the account, I connect its main tenets to the three main normative theories of sport (formalism, broad internalism, and deep conventionalism) and illustrate it with examples from anti-doping governance. (shrink)

The results of sport would not interest us if either they were necessitated or they were a matter of pure chance. And if either case were true, the playing of sport would seem to make no sense either. This poses a dilemma. But there is something between these two options, namely the dispositional modality. Sporting prowess can be understood as a disposition towards victory and sporting liabilities a disposition towards defeat. The sporting contest then pits these net prowesses (...) against each other. The stronger will tend to beat the weaker but no more than tend. This makes sense of the sporting contest in which the weaker knows they still can win. The stronger team can lose though they do not tend to do so. The dilemma is thus escaped. (shrink)

This article develops a novel theory of sport that I call ‘Confucian mutualism’. Confucian mutualism is underpinned by the Confucian Golden Rule and the Confucian conception of human dignity. It resembles the mutualist theory of sport developed by Robert L. Simon in maintaining that sport participants ethically ought to prioritize promoting sporting excellence both in themselves and in their co-participants. However, while Simon’s mutualism maintains that sporting excellence consists in proficiency at sport constitutive skills, (...) Confucian mutualism maintains that sporting excellence consists in success at achieving the Confucian virtues through sport participation. I provide a preliminary case for why Confucian mutualism’s virtue-centric conception of sporting excellence makes it better able than Simon’s mutualism to explain why sporting excellence is stance-independently ethically significant for all sport participants. I do so by trying to show that we have prima facie justification for believing that Confucian mutualism is not vulnerable to certain kinds of criticisms that have been leveled at Simon’s mutualism. (shrink)

In A moral theory of sports, Richard J. Severson examines modern sports and modern morality from the lens of evolutionary psychology. The author’s primary goals are to interpret modern sport as...

The morality of our distant ancestors bears a remarkable resemblance to the moral experiences of modern athletes. This book brings together stories from today’s sports world and the moral practices of hunter-gatherers to shed new light on both sports and morality and offer a unique interpretation of America’s love affair with sports.

Aaron Harper defends a new theory of sport—sport realism—focusing on sport operations and the decisions made by sports officials like umpires and referees. Sport realism offers an explanation of sport as it is played, along with normative assessment of ethical issues in sport like cheating and rules disputes.

Morality in Sport Sport continues to make its presence known throughout the world as it prospers at all levels. Amazingly, there is no end in sight to the popularity and growth of sport. Essential to sport's continued prosperity, growth, and overall livelihood is the sustenance of a firm moral base. It is the goal and hope of the author that you find this textbook to be a useful guide in helping you maintain and build upon the (...) foundation of moral good that is required for sport to exist now and in the future. The need to make good moral decisions in sport is constant. And, although opportunities to make such decisions in sport are seemingly endless, what is "moral" can be somewhat unclear. Given the various perspectives on morality and the lack of clear-cut distinctions between moral and immoral actions, disagreements regarding moral behavior and sport are likely to always exist. However, having a blatant disregard for good moral behavior in sport is difficult to defend from most any position. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to reconceptualise the relationship between politics and sporting practice with the aim of gesturing towards broad themes that a political theory of sport could explore. Many philosophical theories of sport, including the dominant mutualist view, are internalist: they suggest that there is some distinctive logic internal to sports that must feature in the best explanation of our sporting practices. Yet, in attempting to articulate this distinctive internal logic, mutualists quarantine sport (...) from its wider context to understand sporting practice on its own terms. This methodological decision, I argue, invites the unwarranted assumption that sporting practice and politics constitute two separate domains bearing little to no relation to one another. Consequently, mutualism provides us with an impoverished understanding of sporting practice – especially in colonial contexts. Against this view, I use CLR James' writings to show how the internal norms and rules of cricket simultaneously perpetuate an oppressive social structure and articulate the beginnings of an emancipatory political project. This, in turn, has the potential to connect debates within the philosophy of sport to questions around resistance and oppression. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport by Aaron HARPERTim ElcombeHARPER, Aaron. Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2022. viii + 172 pp. Cloth, $95.00At a crucial moment in the 2019 World Series all six on-field umpires, in communication with Major League Baseball’s headquarters, engaged in an 8-minute discussion to determine if a baserunner should be called (...) out for interference. The deliberation stemmed from a tension between the formal rules of baseball and the game’s unwritten rules about a baserunner’s traveled path to first base. This example of a “hard case” in sport officiating sets Aaron Harper’s book Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport in motion. Harper’s aim in Sport Realism is to provide a new “theory of sport” drawing primarily from American legal realism—and supplemented by philosophical pragmatism and virtue jurisprudence. Sport realism, Harper argues, serves as the best resource to understand how rules are applied in sport and how officials make in-game decisions, and it highlights the importance of participants being able to develop an expectation for how calls will be made in the future and to make difficult normative judgments.In chapter 1, Harper provides an excellent overview of the sport philosophy literature related to “theories of sport.” Using a chronological approach, he develops a clear and extensive “history” of the evolution of the field’s most influential theories and their connections to legal theory. Harper summarizes how formalism’s rigid commitment to “constitutive” rules that supposedly define a sport led to criticisms from conventionalists who alternatively generated their account of how nonwritten rules or a sporting ethos defines how a sport is played. However, the laissez-faire nature of conventionalism, as well as the inflexibility of formalism, gave rise to now-dominant interpretivist theories of sport that Harper covers in significant detail. Primarily inspired by Ronald Dworkin, philosophers developed theories that relied on the interpretation of principles that affirmed a sport’s point and purpose. Emergent formulations of interpretivism—from realist accounts to antirealist/historicist versions—all relied on the interpretation of some essential starting point (rules, principles, ethos, deep conventions) to both explain sport and provide officials with normative guidance.Harper regularly lauds interpretivism as the best theory of sport developed to date. However, in chapter 2 he highlights deficiencies with interpretivist accounts via two case studies: New York Yankees’ pitcher Michael Pineda’s “illegal” use of pine tar to improve his grip on the [End Page 147] baseball, as well as Tiger Woods taking a favorable drop after hitting his golf ball into a water hazard. From these two cases, Harper concludes that all variations of interpretivism (from realist to antirealist accounts) fall short in the purpose of developing a theory of sport: to both explain sport (Pineda case) and give a wide swath of formal and informal decision-makers tools to make difficult ethical judgments (Woods case).Harper turns to American legal realism in chapter 3 to develop a superior theory of sport. Crucial to Harper’s sport realism account is Oliver Wendell Holmes’s resistance to understanding law as a set of rules or principles, and instead as an ongoing process of “policymaking” best characterized by the role of the appellate courts. “Understanding the law” from a Holmes perspective, Harper writes, “entails successful prediction of how courts will act in deciding cases... which actions will, in fact, prompt sanction by a court.” This alternative view of the law led to the rise of American legal realism—and subsequently serves as the source of Harper’s sport realism account sketched out in the latter half of chapter 3. According to sport realism, sport ought to be explained by how “it is actually played in order to provide a more accurate account of sport as an activity.” This “best explanation of sport” therefore “provides normative guidance” for sporting challenges.Continuing his development of sport realism, Harper sets out in chapter 4 to define cheating as “an instance of rule-breaking [that] warrants a restorative sanction given by sport officials, and we would expect such sanction to be given if the action... (shrink)

While sport has been practised since pre-historic times, it is a relatively new subject of systematic philosophical enquiry. Indeed, the philosophy of sport as an academic sub-field dates back only to the 1970s. Yet, in this short time, it has grown into a vibrant area of philosophical research that promises both to deepen our understanding of sport and to inform sports practice. Recent controversies at the elite and professional level have highlighted the ethical dimensions of sport (...) in particular. Lance Armstrong’s use of performance-enhancing drugs raised new issues in the ethics of cheating, middle-distance runner Caster Semenya has challenged prevailing rules around sex classification in sport, and Oscar Pistorius’s prosthesis has problematized the distinction between able-bodied and disabled sport. While philosophical analysis may help to achieve a deeper understanding of sport, such analysis may also illuminate problems of philosophy beyond sport, ranging from the nature of skill to the ethics of altruism. -/- This entry proceeds in three sections. Section 1 introduces the philosophy of sport with particular emphasis on the history of systematic philosophical thinking about sport. Section 2 examines the nature and value of sport, and it considers the main normative theories of sport developed in the literature. Section 3 addresses a cluster of topics that are central to the philosophy of sport, including: sportsmanship; cheating; performance enhancement; violent and dangerous sport; sex, gender, and race; fans and spectators; disability sport; and the aesthetics of sport. (shrink)

One cannot ignore the institutions that surround art if one wants to deliver a theory of art acknowledging that art lives through a community of social relationships and assumes meaning as such. I make the claim that the evolution of sports from mere play, survival, and diversion toward the global phenomenon of modern sports can likewise be understood as a function of social connectivity. In this article, I first outline the theory of art, then link that to (...) class='Hi'>sport as an institution to then develop the thesis that art and sport institutionalize the body in a particular way and deduce that this creates culture. I conclude that both art and sport, a notion somewhat derived from Wittgenstein, are kinds of... (shrink)

The search for a universal theory of reading is misguided. Instead, theories should articulate general principles of neural computation that interact with language-specific learning environments to explain the full diversity of observed reading-related phenomena across the world's languages.

In Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport, Aaron Harper, Associate Professor of Philosophy at West Liberty University, introduces a new realist approach to conceptualize sport. The book is d...

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their connection both to ethical theory and to concrete moral dilemmas that arise in actual athletic competition. This fourth edition has been updated with new examples, including a discussion of Spygate by the New England Patriots and recent discoveries on the use of performance enhancing drugs by top athletes. Two additional authors, Cesar R. Torres (...) and Peter F. Hager, bring to this edition a discussion of the moral issues involved in youth sports and the ethics of being a fan, as well as a fresh perspective on the theories of broad internalism and the quest for excellence. Furthermore, major criticisms of broad internalism by philosophers William J. Morgan and Scott Kretchmar add a new dimension to the discussion on the moral foundations of winning. (shrink)

In this article, we introduce a theory on the dynamic development of affective processes, affect regulation, and the relationship between emotions and sport performance. The theory focusses on how affective processes emerge and develop during competitive sport involvement. Based on Scherer’s component process model, we postulate six components of emotion that interact with each other in a circular fashion: triggering processes, physiological reactions, action tendencies, expressive behaviors, subjective experience, and higher cognitive processes. The theory stresses (...) the dynamics of affective processes and describes the consequences for performance in competitive sports. It assumes that the peculiarities of different sports must be taken into account in order to understand the affective processes, and offers starting points on which strategies can be used to effectively regulate affective states. Consequences for research and practice are derived and discussed. To study the development of affective processes, future research should test the assumptions in ecologically valid contexts, such as real competitions or competition-like situations, using multi-component measures of emotions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI present a corrective to the formalist and conventionalist down-playing of physical actions in the understanding of the value of sport. I give a necessarily brief account of the Causal Theory of Action and its implications for the normativity of actions. I show that the CTA has limitations, particularly in the case of failed or incomplete actions, and I show that failed or incomplete actions are constitutive of sport. This allows me to open up the space for (...) another model, drawn from Aristotle, for failed or incomplete actions, conceived of as ‘doables.’ This avoids some of the problems of the CTA. I explain the importance of difficult but doable actions, at which athletes often fail, and suggest that this establishes pro tanto value. Finally, I claim that this account of the actions that are constitutive of sport deepens our understanding of the value of sport as a whole. (shrink)

Time perspective theory provides a robust conceptual framework for analyzing human behavior in the context of time. So far, the concept has been studied and applied in multiple life domains, such as education, health, social relationships, environmental behavior, or financial behavior; however its explanatory potential has been completely neglected within the domain of sport. In the present paper we provide a deepened theoretical analysis of the potential role of temporal framing of human experience for sport-related attitudes, emotions, (...) and athletic performance. We propose a conceptual model in which time perspectives influence psychological functioning and performance of athletes via three major mechanisms: 1) magnitude and persistence of sport motivation and resulting athlete engagement, 2) regulation of affective states during sport performance, and 3) appraisal of one’s performance and coping with resulting emotions. We support the theoretical considerations based on the major assumptions of time perspective theory with research findings regarding the regulatory role of time perspectives in other life domains. We also highlight potential research paths that would allow us to empirically test the present model and determine the actual role of temporal perspectives in shaping crucial aspects of athletes’ psychological functioning, as well as levels of their sport performance. (shrink)

Are sports really supposed to be so competitive that, as Henry R. Sanders once famously said, â oeMen, I'll be honest. Winning isâ ]the only thing!â? (WK 2012) This competitive view of sports can be contrasted with a critical view by William Shakespeare, who wrote in Othello (Act. iv. Sc. 1), â oeThey laugh that win.â (BART 2012) Contrary to these opposing views (and other ones, as will be discussed in the book), sports (in relation to both training and winning) (...) are neither possible (or impossible) nor desirable (or undesirable) to the extent that the respective ideologues (on different sides) would like us to believe. Of course, this reexamination of the opposing views on the value of sports does not mean that sports are unimportant, or that those interdisciplinary fields related to sports, like sports nutrition, physiology, psychology, biomechanics, sports philosophy, sports technology, anthropometry, kinanthropometry, and so on, are not worth studying. Needless to say, neither of these extreme views is reasonable. Instead, this book offers an alternative way to understand the future of sports, especially in the dialectic context of training and winning - while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). More specifically, this book offers a new theory (that is, the modificative theory of sports) in order to go beyond the existing approaches in a novel way. To understand this, the book is organized in four chapters. This seminal project will fundamentally change the way that we think about sports in relation to training and winning from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and its â oepost-humanâ fate. (shrink)

Abstract The last two decades have witnessed a vast expansion in research and writing on the sociology of the body and on issues of embodiment. Indeed, both sociology in general and the sociology of sport specifically have well heeded the long-standing and vociferous calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to social theory. It seems particularly curious therefore that the sociology of sport has to-date addressed this primarily at a certain abstract, theoretical level, with relatively few accounts (...) to be found that are truly grounded in the corporeal realities of the lived sporting body; a ‘carnal sociology’ of sport, to borrow Crossley’s (1995) expression. To portray and understand more fully this kind of embodied perspective, it is argued, demands engaging with the phenomenology of the body, and this article seeks to contribute to a small but growing literature providing this particular form of ‘embodied’ analysis of the body in sport. Here we identify some useful intellectual resources for developing a phenomenology of sporting experience, specifically its sensory elements, and also subsequently examine the potential for its evocative portrayal and effective analysis via different kinds of textual forms. (shrink)

Sport occupies a significant role in modern society and has a wide following. In his Leftist Theories of Sport, Morgan examines what he considers to be a degradation of modern sport and the lack of proper critical theory to address this challenge. In the latter part of LTS, Morgan presents a reconstructed critical theory with ‘a liberal twist’ in terms of an analysis of what he sees as the internal ‘gratuitous’ logic of sport, and (...) a call for critical deliberation in sporting practice communities. I depart from Morgan’s ideas of the ‘gratuitous’ logic of sport which, I believe, has significant potential and operative force. I interpret the logic of sport as forms of self-imposed constraints at three levels: in the logic of the rules, in norms for fair play, and in a particular interpretation of sporting excellence as a form of human excellence. Using the practical case of performance-enhancing drugs, I demonstrate how this interpretation can exert operative power. I conclude by pointing to th... (shrink)

This second edition of _Philosophy of Sport: Core Readings_ provides an overview of core topics in the field, ranging from fundamental questions about the nature of sport to ethical issues at the forefront of discussions of what sport should be. On the nature of sport, readers will gain a solid understanding of fundamental theories of games, play, and sports, as well as sport epistemology, the esports controversy, and sport aesthetics. Topics in the ethics of (...) sport include performance-enhancing drugs, cheating, gamesmanship, and sportsmanship. This edition has been updated and expanded to include sections on gender and race and to provide broader and deeper coverage of this rapidly evolving area. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBernard Suits and other formalists endorse both the logical incompatibility thesis and the view that rule-breakings resulting in penalties can be a legitimate part of a game. This is what Fred D’Agostino calls ‘the problem of penalties’. In this paper, I reject both Suits’ and D’Agostino’s responses to the problem and argue instead that the solution is to abandon Suits’ view that the constitutive rules of all games are alike. Whereas the logical incompatibility thesis applies to games in which players’ (...) actions are perfectly controlled, it does not apply to sports. This insight not only justifies the rejection of formalism as a theory about the nature of sport but it also helps explain the greater normative complexity of sports, which in turn leads to the idea that in sports ‘cheating’ should be interpreted as a genus. (shrink)

This paper side-steps the question of whether ‘the’ concept of sport exists, or can be usefully analysed. Instead, I try to explain the much more modest aim of exhibition-analysis, which is to seek a description of an actually existing example of some concept of sport internal to a normative position. My example is that of Olympic-sport. I try to set out its logically necessary conditions, which of course are conditioned by its context within a theory that (...) emphasises the values of formal competition, citius-altius-fortius, and excellence in contest, as well as rule-based procedural values related to fairness, justice and equality. In so doing, I readily accept that other kinds of sport can be similarly analysed, and I do not press the value claims of Olympic-sport. Instead, I try to show how Olympic-sport, properly construed, can accommodate the concerns of my critics with regard to sport’s play and game-like characteristics. (shrink)

The article deals with the following: Three brain imaging studies on athletes are evaluated. What do these neuroscientific studies tell us about the brain and mind of the athlete? Empirical investigations will need a neuro-theory of mind if they are to make the leap from neural activity to the mental. The article looks at such a theory, Gerald Edelman's?Neural Darwinism?. What are the implications of such a theory for sport science and philosophy of sport? The (...) article appreciates some of the neurosciences applications, but questions the hope of giving a complete theory of mind. (shrink)

Through the overall situation of athletes’ competition pressure, the pressure level of participating athletes can be understood and revealed. Analyzing the sources of stress and influencing factors of athletes can find measures to relieve and reduce stress and provide theoretical reference for the regulation of athletes’ competition pressure. Based on genetic algorithm and neural network theory, this paper proposes a method of tracing the sports competition pressure based on genetic algorithm backpropagation neural network to solve the problem that traditional (...) neural network learning algorithm is slow and easy to fall into local minimum. There is no significant difference between male and female athletes in the level of competition pressure. Athletes have the same training methods and the same goals, and the competition pressure tends to be the same, with no obvious difference; athletes with different educational backgrounds have no significant differences in training, academics, sports injuries, interpersonal relationships, social expectations, and evaluations. Due to the particularity of the stage, the competition pressure of fourth-year undergraduate and third-year masters is significantly higher than that of other grades. The number of athletes participating in college table tennis tournaments has very significant differences in competition dimensions. There is significant difference in training and self-expectation dimension difference. The competition pressure of athletes who participated in the college table tennis championship for the first time was significantly higher than that of athletes who participated repeatedly. There were significant differences between athletes before and after adapting to the venue. Before adapting to the venue, the competition pressure of athletes is generally greater. After adapting to the venue, the competition pressure of athletes has been relieved. (shrink)

Bernard Suits and other formalists endorse both the logical incompatibility thesis and the view that rule-breakings resulting in penalties can be a legitimate part of a game. This is what Fred D’Ag...

While previous writing on the philosophy of sport has tended to see sport as a kind of testing ground for philosophical theories devised to deal with other kinds of problems—of ethics, aesthetics, or logical categorization—here Steven Connor offers a new philosophical understanding of sport in its own terms. In order to define what sport essentially is and means, Connor presents a complete grammar of sport, isolating and describing its essential elements, including the characteristic spaces of (...) sport, the nature of sporting time, the importance of sporting objects like bats and balls, the methods of movement in sport, the role of rules and chance, and what it really means to cheat and to win. Defined as games that involve bodily exertion and exhaustion, sports simultaneously require constraint and the ability to overcome it. Sport, argues Connor, is a fundamental feature of modern humans. It is shown to be one of the most powerful ways in which we negotiate the relationship between the human and natural worlds. Encompassing a huge range of different sports, and enlisting the help of Hegel, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Adorno, Sartre, Ayer, Deleuze, and Serres, _A Philosophy of Sport _will inform, surprise, and delight thoughtful athletes and sporty philosophers alike. (shrink)

In 2020, the sudden outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 has had a great impact on the health and life of people all over the world, and the sports industry is facing unprecedented challenges due to its participation and strong clustering. Based on the questionnaire survey, literature analysis, and other research methods, this study introduces the stimulus-organism-response theory, takes the sports and consumption of Kunshan citizens as the research subject, and draws lessons from the structural equation model to build a (...) theoretical model of sports consumption characteristics and future consumption willingness. The results of empirical analysis show that physical sports consumption has been greatly affected by the epidemic, but because people realize the importance of sports, the willingness of residents to consume sports increases, and the venue and other factors affect the ornamental and participating sports consumption willingness decreases. At the same time, the restrictive factors, such as lower educational background, increased age, and lack of time, make the sports consumption willingness of this characteristic group significantly lower than that of other citizens. This study puts forward some suggestions for relevant government departments to improve the sports consumption willingness of citizens. In order to expand the development prospect of sports industry from a long-term perspective, it can provide reference for the development of sports consumption. (shrink)

Through the study of Richard Gruneau and Gunter Gebauer’s respective works, this article examines the social significance and theoretical implications of sport’s capacity to represent social life in a theatrical manner. The drama-like images and representations sporting practices produce, institutions codify, and television programs enhance is considered in relation to ideology’s integrative, legitimating, and distorting functions . Acknowledging the filiations of ‘theatre’ with ‘theory’ – both words stand for ‘to contemplate, to see, to observe’ – this study considers (...) theatricality as a valuable theoretical notion that enables a synthetic and reflexive understanding of athletic practices’ bodily dimension, symbolic representations, and institutional determinants. (shrink)

Question: Where, when and under what circumstances did the two of you get to know each other?Fischer: It was in the early seventies, in Frankfurt, after the dissolution of the gauche proletarienne and while there were still leftist groups in Germany. It must have been 1972. Question: Was that a private visit?Glucksmann: We had private discussions. We also participated in rallies and demonstrations.Question: That was in the late phase of the student movement.Fischer: We kept in contact through my old room-mate, (...) Daniel Cohn-Bendit. He was our link to France, so to speak.Question: And was this the link between the French and the German Left that existed then? (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Sport is a landmark publication in sport studies. It goes further than any book has before in tracing the contours of the discipline of the philosophy of sport and in surveying the core themes, approaches and theories that form its disciplinary fabric. The book explores the ways in which an understanding of philosophy can inform our understanding of important prevailing issues in sport. Edited by two of the most significant (...) figures in the development of the philosophy of sport, Mike McNamee and Bill Morgan, and with contributions from many of the world’s leading sport philosophers, this is an invaluable companion reference volume for any course in the social scientific study of sport, and an essential addition to the bookshelf of any serious scholar of the philosophy and/or ethics of sport. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the relationship of sport to art. I do not intend to argue that sport is one of the arts. I will rather argue that sport and art have a commonality, in that both are alienated philosophy. This is to propose – in an argument that has its roots in Hegel's aesthetics – that sport and art may both be interpreted as a way of reflecting upon metaphysical and normative issues, albeit in (...) media that are alien to philosophy's conceptual language. The medium of art is the manipulation of sensuous materials, such as stone, paint, or sound. The medium of sport is the pursuit of a physical challenge, at which the athlete may fail. I will develop this argument by borrowing from the philosophy of art of Arthur C. Danto. In particular, I will suggest that a parallel to his concept of ‘artworld’ can be seen in a ‘sportworld’. As the artworld is an ‘atmosphere of theory’ and a ‘knowledge of history’ through which an event is interpreted and thereby constituted as art, so a sportworld is the atmosphere of theory through which an event is constituted as sport. I will argue that much of the existing discussion of the relationship between sport and art is grounded in an ill-conceived aesthetics. In order to be appreciated and appropriately interpreted, sport must be understood within a modernist aesthetics and hermeneutics. As such, the core issue of an aesthetics of sport is not that of beauty, but rather of the meaning of the sport, and what I shall call the capacity of sport to ‘speak as a world’ – to bring to consciousness through play the taken-for-granted cultural conditions through which our social lives are constituted, and within which metaphysical and normative problems are articulated. I will propose that the hermeneutics of music provides a useful model for the interpretation of sport. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Die Überwindung von Theorie-Praxis-Differenzen wird entlang der Unterscheidung zwischen wissenschaftlicher Rigorosität und Relevanz geführt. Der direkte Übertrag von wissenschaftlichen Befunden in die Praxis könnte im Sport auch durch die Übernahme von Führungspositionen gelingen. Forschungen, in welchem Maße und warum WissenschaftlerInnen Führungspositionen im Sport parallel zu einer Position an der Hochschule begleiten, liegen bislang noch nicht vor. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass nur ein geringer Teil der Vorstandsämter in DOSB/dsb, Landessportbünden und olympischen Spitzenverbänden durch forschende WissenschaftlerInnen besetzt ist und (...) diese bei Amtsübernahme und -ausübung nicht die Lösung der Theorie-Praxis-Differenz priorisieren. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Zur Analyse der Mitgliederbindung in Sportvereinen wird ein akteurtheoretisches Modell entwickelt, das auf der verallgemeinerten Handlungstheorie von Esser basiert. Dabei wird die Frage der Bindung von Sportvereinsmitgliedern als Entscheidungshandlung zwischen Austritt oder weiterer Mitgliedschaft konzeptualisiert und das Austrittsrisiko anhand der subjektiven Erwartungen und Bewertungen der Mitglieder sowie ihrer spezifischen Eingebundenheit in die Organisation Sportverein erklärt. Die aus dem Modell abgeleiteten Hypothesen werden auf der Grundlage zweier Mitgliederbefragungen in 20 bzw. 14 ausgewählten Sportvereinen empirisch geprüft und bestätigt. Es besteht ein (...) positiver Zusammenhang zwischen den Faktoren solidargemeinschaftliche Handlungsorientierung und Zufriedenheit mit den Leistungen des Vereins sowie der Mitgliederbindung. Jüngere Vereinsmitglieder treten eher aus dem Verein aus als ältere Mitglieder. Der Effekt des Faktors solidargemeinschaftliche Handlungsorientierung ist größer als der Effekt der Faktoren Zufriedenheit und Alter. Bei hoher solidargemeinschaftlicher Einbindung steht ein möglicher Austritt außer Frage. (shrink)