The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the normative role of conventions in sports. However, the approach I have in mind does not dispatch the theory of interpretivism. What I offer is a synthesis that aims to show how interpretivism works in concert with – and relies heavily on – conventions. To make this point, I will argue that historical, cultural, and even simple preferential needs and desires help to determine what counts as athletic ‘excellence’ in sports.

This essay delineates and analyzes two kinds of questions that sport ethicists tend to ask: questions about athletic excellence and questions about justice. To pass ethical judgements when delving into questions concerning athletic excellence, sportspeople rely largely on a sport’s internal values, primary skills, or sport-specific athletic excellences. In contrast, questions about justice do not and should not include the reference or application of principles derived from the nature of a sport. Instead, sportspeople must refer to general theories, most often (...) based on the rights and obligations of fellow citizens. There are multiple benefits to pointing out this distinction. First, it can help sportspeople and sport philosophers recognize the normative standards most appropriate within specific debates. Second, the distinction may explain why some disputes in sport philosophy remained unresolved. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, an awareness of the differences between these types... (shrink)

In forms of physical recreation associated with ‘wilderness experiences’, such as backcountry hiking or mountain climbing, technology is omnipresent. As a result, some may wonder whether genuine wilderness experiences are possible. In this essay, I argue that wilderness experiences are possible and that they can be enhanced through games. That is, I contend there are often physically challenging aspects to wilderness experiences that certain games can help to promote. This analysis will stress the fact that Bernard Suits delineated two comparable (...) but distinct ways to engage in games. Following Suits’s logic, I explain how ‘literal skills’ like walking or climbing can function as the ‘constitutive skills’ of games. I then consider how games predicated on ‘literal skills’ can help promote the meanings available in wilderness experiences. (shrink)

This paper centers two complementary theoretical approaches to advance the debate about transgender women’s inclusion in elite women’s sports – namely, non-ideal theory and cultural studies. In doing so, the paper highlights divisions between ideal theory and non-ideal theory, normative internalism in sports and normative externalism in sports, and essentialist views of sports compared to non-essentialist views of sports. The paper’s main agenda is to show the value of applying non-ideal theory, externalism, and non-essentialism to the discourse over transgender inclusion.

Phenomenalism, Phenomenology and the Question of Time: A Comparative Study of the Theories of Mach, Husserl, and Boltzmann explores comparative analysis of the concept of phenomenology in relation to Mach’s, Boltzmann’s and Husserl’s works on time. It also explores whether or not phenomenology can be naturalized and the scope of its relation to the question of time, experience, physical processes, and irreversibility.

The theme of Aesthetics in Present Future concerns the new chances the arts have and the deep changes they are undergoing, due to the new media, and the digital world in which we are growingly immersed. That this world is to be understood from an aesthetic point of view, become clear if we think of how much of what we produce, and observe and study is offered through images in particular and perceptual means in general.

ABSTRACTThis essay argues that within competitive sport zero-sum logic and the theory of mutualism are compatible and complementary. Drawing on Robert Simon’s theory of mutualism and Scott Kretchmar’s argument for zero-sum logic, this article shows how athletes can strive for a clear-cut victory and shared benefits such as athletic excellence fully and wholeheartedly at the same time. This paper will also consider how acknowledgment of this dynamic could advance understandings for ethical theories for sport. It will then conclude by describing (...) a subjective approach that will make the affinity of zero-sum logic and mutualism more accessible for sports people. (shrink)