Philosophy of Sport

My project examines the pedagogical approach of the Stoic Epictetus by focusing on seven vital lessons he imparts. This study will deepen our understanding of his vocation as a Stoic educator striving to free his students from the fears and foolishness that hold happiness hostage. These lessons are (1) how freedom, integrity, self-respect, and happiness interrelate; (2) real versus fake tragedy and real versus fake heroism; (3) the instructive roles that various animals play in Stoic education; (4) athleticism, sport, and (...) game-playing as analogies for striving to live virtuously; (5) place, time, and progress in the journey to self-realization; (6) how to live with death and exit life fearlessly; (7) how teaching wisdom is one of several ways the Stoic sage loves others. (shrink)

Esports’ rise in popularity has led the Olympic Movement to consider esports as a possible addition to the Olympic programme. A positive stance on the part of the OM towards certain aspects of...

My purpose in this article is to raise the problem of meaning in sport. The problem has two aspects. One is whether sport has any meaning in itself. The other is about how sport can be a part of a...

The work of Bernard Suits continues to be discussed in the sports philosophy field, over forty years after the publication of his brilliant book, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. Much of t...

This is a review and discussion of Ask Vest Christiansen’s book Gym Culture, Identity and Performance-Enhancing Drugs: Tracing a Typology of Steroid Use. As indicated by the title, the book...

When behaviours or character traits match sociocultural expectation, heteronomy is a natural suspicion. A further natural suspicion is that the behaviours or character traits are unhealthy for the...

Cheng Man-ch’ing is as responsible as anyone for the wide popularity of taijiquan in the West. While his stature as a master and teacher of taijiquan is legendary, he is less well-known...

In Johan Huizinga’s most prolific study of play, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture he states that for play to be considered authentic, genuine and real it must be fun, free, spont...

Bullfighting has a strong historical tradition in Spain, but now it is beginning to be challenged by various sectors in society. The debate about the ethics of bullfighting is by no means new. But,...

Successful sports teams are able to adopt what is known as the 'we-perspective,' forming intentions and making decisions, somewhat as a unified mind does, to achieve their goals. In this paper I consider what is involved in establishing and maintaining the we-perspective on a racing sailboat. I argue that maintaining the we-perspective contributes to the success of the boat in at least two ways: (1) it facilitates the smooth execution of joint action; and (2) it increases the chance that individual (...) crew members will exert their best effort in fulfilling their particular roles on the boat. (shrink)

In this article, I consider Alkis Kontos’ and Allan Bäck’s critiques to Suits that his theory of games and good living lack ontological grounds or rests on the wrong foundations. Taking these criti...

In this article, we examine scholarly analyses of justice and develop a framework that can help assess the claims from the parties in the Russian state-led doping scandal, including, but not limite...

This article analyses different ways of perceiving sports based on the study of cinematographic documentary of the first Olympic Games. The aim is to explore the political discourses and aesthetic...

Among the many themes in which the Irish modernist novelist, James Joyce, was intellectually and emotionally engaged, the issue of British imperialism and Irish nationalism was paramount. While Joy...

This article contributes to an ongoing discussion within sports philosophy concerning how to understand intentional movement in sporting activities. The operations of ‘representation intentionality...

In this paper, we argue that in a possible world there is a determinate ranking of teams. Our argument rests on the premise: In theory, nothing prevents a determinate better than ranking. This premise in turn rests on assumptions with regard to stipulations regarding ‘better than’ and nature of a competition as well as a right answer theory of interpretation. We then speculate that in some actual leagues in some years, there were determinate rankings. We consider objections that focus on (...) ties, noise, intransitivity, meaning of ‘better than’, and league recognition of the best team. We finish by noting that the issues involved in sport also apply to ranking candidates to occupy roles in our lives. (shrink)

Cage-Fighting, also known as Mixed Martial Arts, is a combat sport that allows participants to grapple, punch, kick, elbow and knee—a combination of elements from many martial arts. While it...

Professional sport, like most human activities undertaken for pay, is subject to Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An athlete’s ’work’ can be...

Every cultural phenomenon is multifaceted and only with great difficulty can it fit into the framework of one general concept. The term ‘sport’ is such a broad concept, because the great wealth of...

The idea of human-like robots with artificial intelligence engaging in sports has been considered in the light of robotics, technology and culture. However, robots with AI can also be used to...

The relation between sport and a good life presents a fruitful philosophical challenge and it has been discussed extensively within the philosophy sport literature. This paper will investigate the...

In this paper, I argue that the central ontological presupposition in the philosophy of sport is the ‘sport-as-play’ paradigm. In reconstructing its archaeological origins, a normative narrative is...

In Testing for Athlete Citizenship: Regulating Doping and Sex in Sport, Kathryn E. Henne provides ‘a genealogical account of anti-doping regulation by questioning the meanings we take from sport’ (...

The aim of this article is to present and critically discuss a game-theory-based argument in favour of the view that sports organizations ought to ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs in spor...

This paper examines a single relevant source regarding Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and his attempt to explain how we perceive and experience the Other. In the fifth chapter of the...

On 12 October 2019, Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a ‘marathon’, known as the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, in less than 2 hours in a time of 1:59:40.2. However, his time was n...

Shāhnāmeh, Book of Kings, is one of the greatest epics in the world, beautifully put into verse by Abolqāsem Ferdowsi. It is the great Persian epic which makes the Persian language proud. One of th...

In this paper, I approach the trolley problem from a different angle, and align the perspective with non-Western models of philosophy as instruction for life. I argue that the trolley problem is an...

In the world of elite sport, pain and suffering are inherent. In exploring return-to-play treatments and decision-making in sports medicine, two overarching areas seem to dominate the existing lite...

This paper examines Epictetus’ use of athletic imagery as a pedagogical tool and what this tells us about his views on what philosophers can learn from athletes. This paper argues that this imagery...

In this paper, we examine the legal case involving the Court of Arbitration of Sport, the Union of European Football Associations, and the Turkish team Eskişehirspor to analyze the leg...

I consider what draws us to perceiving beautiful bodies in art and athletics--repeatedly and over time--that is informed by viewers' changing perceptions derived from recent publications in fashion and sport, the philosophy of sport, feminist film theory and aesthetics under the ever-expanding umbrella of somaesthetics.