A Kantian view of Suits’ Utopia: ‘a kingdom of autotelically-motivated game players’

In this paper, I engage the debate on Suits’ theory of games by providing a Kantian view of Utopia. I argue that although the Kantian aspects of Suits’ approach are often overlooked in comparison to its Socratic-Platonic aspects, Kant’s ideas play a fundamental role in Suits’ proposal. In particular, Kant’s concept of ‘regulative idea’ is the basis of Suits’ Utopia. I regard Utopia as Suits’ regulative idea on game playing. In doing so, I take Utopia to play a double role in Suits’ theory of games. First, it highlights the primary condition of possibility of game-playing, namely, the lusory attitude. Second, it provides a normative criterion that serves as a critical principle to evaluate instances of game playing and as a counterfactual assumption that makes game playing possible. I provide further support for my Kantian interpretation of Suits’ Utopia by bringing to light the anthropological assumptions upon which Utopia is built. In doing so, I argue that both Suits’ theory of games, in general, and his Utopia, in particular, lay out the conditions of possibility of game playing, not an analysis on the life most worth living.     

Sport,Aesthetic Experience,and Art as the Ideal Embodied Metaphor

Despite a prevalence of articles exploring links between sport and art in the 1970s and 1980s, philosophers in the new millennium pay relatively little explicit attention to issues related to aesthetics generally. After providing a synopsis of earlier debates over the questions ‘is sport art?’ and ‘are aesthetics implicit to sport?’, a pragmatically informed conception of aesthetic experience will be developed. Aesthetic experience, it will be argued, vitally informs sport ethics, game logic, and participant meaning. Finally, I will argue that embodying pragmatic conceptions of art as its ideal metaphor re-opens space to best realize the deep potential of sport as a meaningful human practice.     

The theatricality of sport and the issue of ideology

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 (Ricoeur). 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.     

Moving into and out of high-performance sport: the cultural learning of an artistic gymnast

Background: High-performance sport has been described as a formative environment through which athletes learn sporting skills but also develop athletic selves. Within this process, career movements related to selection for and de-selection from representative teams constitute critical moments. Further, retirement from sport can be problematic as the athletic self becomes ‘obsolete’. This dilemma is acute in sports that demand an early entry, extreme time investments and a high risk of retirement before adulthood. Women's artistic gymnastics (WAG) is such a sport.

Purpose and scope: This article considers an artistic gymnast's (Marie) experiences of movement into and out of this sport. Marie's construction and reconstruction of her athletic self when she entered gymnastics at the age of six, relocated to a different city in order to train with the national team at the age of 15, and retired from the sport one year later receives particular attention.

Method and theoretical perspective: An in-depth biographical interview was conducted with Marie. Further, the first author's personal knowledge of this gymnast's career experiences was used for contextualisation. The analysis of data involved the identification of learning outcomes during her time in high-performance WAG and post-retirement. Storied accounts surrounding the key learning experiences were compiled. In order to understand Marie's learning, cultural perspective of learning developed by education scholars and the respective metaphors of ‘learning as becoming’ and ‘horizons for action’ and ‘horizons of learning’ are employed.

Findings: Marie's choice of relocating to train with the national team involved her assuming a temporary orientation towards the requirements of the high-performance WAG context she entered. To achieve this, Marie suppressed the dispositions she had brought to this setting and adjusted her training philosophy, relationship with her coach, diet and socialising. Further, despite Marie intending to only momentarily adjust to the practices of the high-performance context, her learning was deep. Upon retiring from gymnastics, she could not leave the high-performance gymnastics self behind. The subsequent process to adjust to life without gymnastics was difficult and testing, and could only be realised with professional treatment.

Conclusion: Learning in sport is not limited to athletic skills. Athletes’ selves are formed in interaction with sporting contexts and actors. This embodiment can become durable and cause significant conflict when moving out of sport. To handle life without sport, adjustment may be challenging and lengthy.

Recommendations: Sporting cultures should allow for more interactive learning and athlete diversity. Coaching practices that allow athletes to voice difficulties should be provided. Athletes should be encouraged to reflect upon their sporting experiences and upon leaving high-performance sport, should be (professionally) supported.     

Three Standards of Athletic Superiority

The aim of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the inherent purpose of sports competitions. In ‘On Winning and Athletic Superiority’, Nicholas Dixon states that the central comparative purpose of an athletic contest is to determine which team or player is superior, or, synonymously, to provide an accurate measure of athletic superiority. Dixon identifies athletic skill as the standard of athletic superiority in competitive sport. However, I argue there are three separate standards of athletic superiority: the demonstration of athletic skill, the achievement of prelusory goal using lusory means, and achievement of superior formal result. This stance responds to Dixon’s argument that failed athletic contests are contests that have not fulfilled the central purpose of competitive sport, because they have been undermined by refereeing errors, cheating, gamesmanship or bad luck. I argue that a failed athletic contest occurs when any of the three standards of athletic superiority conflict.     

A critique of mutualism’s combination of the Aristotelian and Kantian traditions

In this article, I will identify two key normative principles at the core of Robert L. Simon’s mutualist theory of sport, namely, the respect-for-the-opponent principle and the idea that sport is a practice aimed at pursuing excellence. The former is a Kantian principle grounded in human beings’ rationality, and the latter is an Aristotelian principle related to the development of excellences as a means to human flourishing. After having presented and analyzed both principles, I will critically evaluate Simon’s attempt to combine them within his mutualist approach. To conclude, I will highlight the challenges that mutualism should face to complete such a combination more successfully.

Abbreviation: Categorical imperative (CI)     

‘Race’ talk! Tensions and contradictions in sport and PE

Background: The universal sport discourses of meritocracy and equality are so engrained that few challenge them. The most cursory interest in sport, Physical Education (PE), and society will reveal that the lived reality is quite different. Racial disparities in the leadership and administration of sport are commonplace worldwide; yet, from research into ‘race’ in sport and PE, awareness of these issues is widespread, where many know that racism takes place it is generally claimed to be somewhere else or someone else. For many, this racism is part of the game and something to manipulate to steal an advantage; for others, it is trivial. This paper explores the contradictions and tensions of the author’s experience of how sport and PE students talk about ‘race’ and racism. ‘Race’ talk is considered here in the context of passive everyday ‘race’ talk, dominant discourses in sporting cultures, and colour blindness.

Theoretical framework: Drawing on Guinier and Torres’ [2003. The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. London: Harvard University Press] ideas of resistance through political race consciousness and Bonilla-Silva’s [2010. Racism Without Racists: Colour-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Plymouth: Rowan and Littlefield] notion of colour blindness, the semantics of ‘race’ and racialisation in sport and PE are interrogated through the prism of critical race theory (CRT). CRT is used here to centre ‘race’ and racialised relations where disciplines have consciously or otherwise excluded them. Importantly, the centring of ‘race’ by critical race scholars has advanced a strategic and pragmatic engagement with this slippery concept that recognises its paradoxical but symbolic location in society.

Discussion: Before exploring ‘race’ talk in the classroom, using images from the sport media as a pedagogical tool, the paper considers how ‘race’ is recreated and renewed. The paper then turns to explore how the effortless turn to everyday ‘race’ talk in the classroom can be viewed as an opportunity to disrupt racialised assumptions with the potential to implicate those that passively do so. Further, the diagnostic, aspirational, and activist goals of political race consciousness are established as vehicles for a positive sociological experience in the classroom.

Conclusion: The work concludes with a consideration of the uses and dangers of passive ‘race’ talk and the value of a political race consciousness in sport and PE. Part of the explanation for the perpetuation of ‘race’ talk and the relative lack of concern with its impact on education and wider society is focused on how the sovereignty of sport and PE trumps wider social concerns of ‘race’ and racism because of at least four factors: (1) the liberal left discourses of sporting utopianism, (2) the ‘race’ logic that pervades sport, based upon the perceived equal access and fairness of sport as it coalesces with the (3) ‘incontrovertible facts’ of black and white superiority (and inferiority) in certain sports, ergo the racial justifications for patterns of activity in sport and PE, and (4) the racist logic of the Right perpetuated through a biological reductionism in sport and PE discourses.     

Gene-talk and sport-talk: A view from the radical middle ground

Abstract

In this paper, we explore and reflect critically on what elite sport may expect or fear from genetic technologies. In particular, we explore the language in which we (where ‘‘we’’ denotes scientists, sports scientists, the media, sports coaches, academics) tend to speak about genetics, elite sport, and the human body – we call this language ‘‘gene-talk’’ – which imagines the world of elite sport as one in which genes were always dominant in athletic performance. The dominant question here seems to be whether what is thought to be possible ought to be, and can be realized. We unpack the question by asking whether the practices needed for genetics to intervene so powerfully in elite sport exist in the straightforward and uncomplicated manner that the ‘‘gene-talk’’ literature seems to suggest. We argue that there is a lack of relevant studies to support and analyse the notion of sports performance as an immensely rich and complex practice.We conclude that elite sport may be more complex and heterogeneous than ‘‘gene-talk’’ has imagined to date.     

‘Being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’: the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence

Sports studies is currently dominated by the intellectualist approach to understanding skill and expertise, meaning that questions about the phenomenological nature of skilled performance in sport have generally been overshadowed by the emphasis on the cognitive. By contrast, this article responds to calls for a phenomenology of sporting embodiment by opening up a philosophical exploration of the nature of athletic being-in-the-world. In particular, the paper explores the conceptualisation of immanence and transcendence in relation to the embodied practice of dance, engaging with Merleau-Ponty’s important insight that the body can be a source of transcendence. I also draw on data from in-depth qualitative interviews with professional contemporary dancers to explore dancers’ concepts of ‘being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’, and to suggest that during the actual embodied practice of dance, dancers do not experience transcendence and immanence as they are conceptualised in philosophy. Rather, I argue, dancers experience a third mode of being that is somehow in-between these two binary terms. I have called this ‘inhabited transcendence’.     

Transforming,storing and consuming athletic experiences: a coach’s narrative of using a video application

The analysis of sport performance in competitive contexts has become synonymous with the use of a range of software applications and hardware e.g. heart rate monitors and gps systems. With the prevalence of technology in mind, a small but growing corpus of literature has begun to consider this phenomenon and its influence upon the coaching process. This study adds to this literature by detailing the autoethnographic experiences of a case study coach; Derek. A contextualised and richly described narrative account of Derek’s experience of using coaching applications is provided. Analysis of Derek’s narrative suggests that technology can be a useful means by which individuals make sense of their experience. Specifically, (1) technology can be a ‘ready-to-hand’ instrument that enhances the coaching process. Unfortunately, (2) technology may become the only and ‘calculative’ means by which individuals come to understand their performance. In such instances, it is important to note that (3) the videos we use to understand our performance are transformed and incomplete representations of lived athletic experiences. Thus, Derek’s story illustrates how technology can be both an enabler and barrier to athletes who wish to holistically understand their own lived experiences and engage in coach-athlete relationships. The accompanying analysis draws upon concepts from Heideggerian philosophy to add insight into the use of technology within the coaching process. In so doing, the study prompts coaches to critically view their coach-athlete relationships as situated in a wider world which contains, and can be mediated by, technology. In addition, Derek’s story (re)directs researchers and coaching practitioners interested in technology to a useful literature (philosophy of technology) which may further inform their understanding of coach-athlete relationships.     

Playing to win vs. playing for meaningful victories

John Laumakis has offered a thought-provoking, but ultimately unpersuasive argument in favor of playing to your opponent’s strength(s) (PTS) instead of playing to their weakness(es) (PTW). In the course of this reply, we hope to show (1) that the idea of PTS not only undermines the real goal of athletic competition, but it also (2) rests upon a confusion between matters of morality and the aims of sports, as well as (3) equivocations on the kind of ‘excellence’ one pursues, and the nature of the ‘challenge’ involved in sport. We also (4) plan to raise a serious objection against the logical consistency of PTS and (5) note its incompatibility with real-world game smarts and tactics. Finally, we (6) offer our own explanation for why ‘it is improbable that many coaches and athletes will shift their strategy from PTW to PTS.’     

论武术散打与军人的战斗力培养

武术散打运动作为一项我国传统的对抗性体育项目,在中国有着深厚的群众基础,历来深受广大官兵的喜爱和欢迎。散打对军人除了具有全面发展身体、增强体质的功能外,还可以磨炼军人的心理素质和意志品质,锻炼他们的格斗技巧以及增强他们的战术意识,在现阶段的部队训练中,适当开展这项体育运动对于提高战士的综合素质,提高军人的战斗力有着重要的意义。     

Match-Fixing: Working Towards an Ethical Framework

How does match-fixing, or other unfair manipulation of matches, that involves under-performance by players, or refereeing and umpiring that prevents fair competition, be thought of in ethical terms? In this article, I outline the different forms that match-fixing can take and seek to comprehend these disparate scenarios within Kantian, Hegelian and contractualist ethical frameworks. I tentatively suggest that, by developing an ethical opposition to match-fixing in sport, we can give much greater substance to popular phrases such as ‘respect for the game’, encompassing the value of sport itself and respect for other players, fans, sponsors and organisers. Arguing that match-fixing denies recognition to these ‘others’ demonstrates how fundamentally match-fixing ‘hollows out’ sport because a fixed match is of no worth: the whole value of the game has literally been evacuated.     

Novak's Analogies

We argue that new meta-theoretically based applications of non-traditional perspectives of knowledge in science, and sport science, that highlights the question of ‘being woman’, and our understanding of woman as a social and biological being through sport, can enrich the general understanding of gender, identity, body and sport by developing and deepening a critical humanistic sport science perspective through athletes’ artistic reflections of their own athletic female body.     

Between sport and tragedy: Hemingway's passion for bullfighting

ABSTRACT

‘It is a sport’ writes Hemingway on the subject of bullfights in public places, ‘a very wild and primitive sport and, mainly, a true sport of amateurs. I fear however that because of danger of death which it implies, it never has great success among the sporting-men of America and England’ (Death in the afternoon, Gallimard, 1938, p. 27). Hemingway was interested in sport since his young age: athletic, a follower of sports at Oak Park's High School, fascinated by horse racing and later an enthusiast for deep sea fishing, hunting, boxing etc, in other words what we would call today the ‘extreme sports’, he had a passion for bullfighting in Spain, which he tested, although unsuccessfully. In his papers for the Toronto Weekly Star, his novel The Sun also rises published in 1926, and especially in his essay Death in the afternoon, a true treaty of bullfighting, he undertakes a close study of the specific techniques of this very particular sport; yet what interests him most of all is its artistic value. Art or sport? Such is the key question that he poses throughout the pages of this work, which are actually a deep reflection on the origins of the sport and the finality of art; the relations between sport and art are quite complex and, according to him, have to be reconsidered, since writing for him is also linked to moral and physical effort, and is even a kind of ‘intimate bullfighting’.     

New directions in the arts and sport? Critiquing national strategies

Abstract

Taking as its starting point the Fields of Vision initiative’s interest in promoting the potential benefits of bringing sports and arts closer together, this paper reviews how national (English) policy addresses that challenge. Four key strategic documents (the Government’s Sport Strategy and its Culture White Paper as well as the strategies of Arts Council England and Sport England) are examined. That is supplemented by the views of significant individuals from this interface, including the research network funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Noting the similar social remit ascribed to sport and the arts by the government, shortcomings in the current strategies are identified as barriers to integration. ‘Play’ and ‘movement’ are briefly discussed as integrating concepts alongside our assessment of the potential of the arts/sport nexus, in areas including aesthetic innovation, promoting health and wellbeing, and encouraging wider participation and engagement. Having challenged existing national policies the paper suggests possible future directions.     

The Rise of ‘The World's Largest Sport and Athletic Outfitter’: A Study of Gamage's of Holborn, 1878–1913

This essay explores the evolution of modern sporting goods retailing through the development of Gamage's (A.W. Gamage Holborn Ltd.) before the First World War. The essay examines how Gamage's exploited new models of fashionable consumerism to create a unique retail environment that directly targeted young male consumers enjoying modern forms of sporting and recreational activities. By the end of the nineteenth century, the so-called ‘People's Popular Emporium’ purported to be the ‘world's largest sport and athletic outfitter’. The essay considers Gamage's rise to prominence in a crucial period in the development of commodity culture. It examines the changing cultural form of shops and shopping in relation to the desires of a burgeoning mass market that sought to express and visibly display its economic, sporting, and social status.     

Sport: a scientific experiment?

Abstract

Science plays an increasingly important role in sport. Innovative high-tech equipment and research-based exercise regimes are vivid examples. In more subtle forms, scientific ways of thinking impact how sport is understood and practiced. I examine the possibilities and limits of scientific rationality in the set-up of competitive sport. Standard requirements on reliability and validity make sense when it comes to the quest for equal opportunity, and for fair and impartial evaluation of performance. However, whereas the instrumental aim of science is ‘certified’ knowledge, I argue that sport has primary meaning and value in itself. In further analysis of the normative structure of sport, an alternative ludic rationality emerges with elements of merit, chance and luck. I argue that sport is structured to cultivate not only athletic but human excellence. I conclude that upholding ludic rationality, operationalized in norms for fair play, is crucial for realizing sport’s characteristic values.     

Sport as a drama

Argument of this text is that: to develop aesthetics of sport, we should not begin with aesthetics as philosophy of art but with aesthetics of everyday life; to start with aesthetics of sport, we should not begin with beautiful of ‘pure aesthetics’ but with the dramatic; to analyze the dramatic in sport, we should not open the analysis with analogy between theater and sport, but with sport as a sort of performance; to get at the meaning of sport as a drama, we have to discuss different meanings ‘drama’ has in theory and everyday communication; to map the dramatic in sport as performance, we have to discuss some features of sport which determine its dramatics first, and its potential as spectacle later. To proceed with the argument, we have to take into account contemporary state of aesthetics, recent development of aesthetics of everyday life, and theory of performance, together with Bernard Suits’ definition of game, Gadamer’s idea of play, and Lévy-Strauss’ account on conjunctive and disjunctive ritual.