"Emphasizes the positive aspects of sports as they affect and are affected by values and culture. Ranges widely in its scope, moving from violence, gender, race, religion and economics, to the role of sports in high school and college life. Includes American and international aspects of sport, and a brief history from antiquity to the present" -- Provided by publisher.

In lieu of an abstract, here is the chapter's first paragraph: JOHN DEWEY AND BERTRAND RUSSELL were two of the premier philosophers of the twentieth century. During their long lives (each lived to be over 90), their paths crossed on several occasions. While cordial enough when in each others presence, the two men were definitely not on the best of terms. Sidney Hook, who knew and admired them both, once said that there were only two men who Dewey actively disliked—Mortimer (...) Adler and Bertrand Russell. Russell, for his part, never tired of making disparaging remarks about the pragmatists in general and Dewey in particular. This irked Dewey immensely. Still, the two men shared many philosophical traits—an internationalist outlook, a high regard for the scientific method, a concern for social matters, and a suspicion of dogma, especially religious dogma. In this chapter, I will focus upon the educational theories of Russell and Dewey, including the curious fact that each of them (for a short period of time) ran their own elementary schools. (shrink)

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) famously proclaimed that “God is dead and we have killed Him.” Might one say similarly that in today s “winner take all” society “sportsmanship is dead and we have killed it”? Is the very concept no longer relevant in the modern age of competitive sports? In this essay I will show how three long dead philosophers—Aristotle, Kant, and the aforementioned Nietzsche—still have much to teach us about sportsmanship and its continued relevance for the present day.

In this paper, I will examine Aristotle’s concept of friendship as found in his famous work The Nichomachean Ethics, and then explore its relevance to the present-day, by comparing it to the work done by social psychologist Stanley Milgram on “familiar strangers.” I will also look at two works of popular culture, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s children’s novel The Little Prince, and the television program “Seinfeld” to show how they support the view that Aristotle’s writings are still good models for understanding (...) how friendships are formed and maintained. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, below is the chapter's first paragraph. Best known as the editor-in-chief of the monumental Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Edwards (1923-2004) was a modern philosophe. Like the Enlightenment writers he himself so admired, Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert, he spent his career defending the ideas of rationalism, freethought, materialism, and the application of scientific methodology to philosophy. In addition, deeply influenced by the Vienna Circle, he used his editorship of the Encyclopedia to keep alive the memories of (...) many of the philosophers connected with that particular Logical Positivist movement. As a Positivist of sorts himself, he had no love for philosophers whom he considered to lack clarity, and like the philosophes—especially Voltaire, whose work he anthologized in a volume entitled Voltaire Selections—he had a gift for using biting humor to attack those with whom he disagreed. One of his foremost targets was Søren Kierkegaard, whom he considered to be the very model for how one should not do philosophy. While he referred several times in his writings and lectures to Kierkegaard's life and work, Edwards' best-known critique is found in the 1971 article "Kierkegaard and the 'Truth' of Christianity," published in Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is the chapter's first paragraph: IN DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER JOHN MICHAEL MCDONAGH'S 2011 Quentin Tarantino-Hke comic film The Guard, there is a bizarre scene where three hit men, for no apparent reason, while driving down an Irish road get into a heated debate over who the world's greatest philosopher might be. It is amusing that the chauvinistic characters are willing to reconsider Russell's greatness once they can stop thinking of him as an Englishman, but no doubt (...) Lord Russell himself, given his cosmopolitan leanings as well as his oft-professed love for his Englishness, might have been doubly offended by their banter, not to say their subsequent actions of gunning down a police officer in cold blood. Still, it's yet another example of Russell's ubiquitiousness. His name and image often pop up in the most unexpected places. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is the chapter's first paragraph: In 2004 I became a professor of philosophy at St. John Fisher College, a small liberal arts institution in the Rochester, New York founded in 1949 by a Catholic religious order called the Congregation of St. Basil (CSB). Some years after joining the college, while working on a project with Diane Lucas, our then-campus archivist, I was startled when she mentioned to me in passing that Marshall McLuhan’s daughter Stephanie (...) had been doing research in our archives on her father’s work. Marshall McLuhan?! I was astonished to hear that name mentioned, as it had been years since I had thought about the communications guru who had coined the phrases "the global village” and "the medium is the message". More to the point, what possible connection did he have with St. John Fisher College? To my astonishment, Diane told me that McLuhan had been a faculty member at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, which was run by the Congregation of St. Basil, the same order of priests which had also started St. John Fisher College. McLuhan, it turned out, had been on close personal terms with the founding fathers of the college, many of whom had been his students at St. Michael’s. In addition, he had been active in helping to found our Department of Communications, and often came to campus to give talks and meet with the faculty and students. Stephanie McLuhan had come to our archives to do research on a book she later edited of her father’s unpublished lectures, some of which had been delivered at St. John Fisher College. It was later published as Understanding Me: Lectures and Essays, edited by Stephanie McLuhan and David Staines, with a foreword by Tom Wolfe [MIT Press, 2005). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is the article's first paragraph: The topic of personal identity is one that I have in recent weeks really started to take personally. I’ve had some serious doubts as to just who I am, all because of uncertainties about the one fact I once felt completely confident about – my name. If there’s one thing you should be able to rely upon to know who you are it should be your own name, but lately (...) I’m not so sure. (shrink)