A Grasshopperian Analysis of the Strategic Foul |
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Authors: | Deborah P Vossen |
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Institution: | St. Francis Xavier University, Human Kinetics, P.O. Box 5000, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, B2G 2W5 Canada Email: dvossen@stfx.ca |
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Abstract: | The question of acceptability in respect to the strategic foul in sport has provoked a rich and seemingly irreconcilable dispute with normative theorists currently divided amongst three schools of thought including formalism, conventionalism and interpretivism. In this paper, I seek to transcend the three-way intellectual stalemate portrayed in the literature via a consideration as to whether or not the strategic foul qualifies as ‘Utopian’. More specifically, after demonstrating that Bernard Suits’ theory of game-playing is fully capable of embracing all three rival accounts, I seek to end the normative debate altogether via a conceptual analysis of the strategic foul as unacceptable via the higher-order point of view afforded by essentialism. |
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Keywords: | strategic foul formalism conventionalism interpretivism essentialism |
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