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. (shrink)

At IAPS Ljubljana conference (September 2007) Dag Vidar Hanstad and Sigmund Loland presented a paper on elite-level athletes' duty to provide information on their whereabouts, to decide between two opposing positions: is this WADA demand justifiable anti-doping work or an indefensible surveillance regime? They concluded that on moral grounds this regime is conditionally acceptable, the condition being the acceptability of a general framework and objectives embodied in anti-doping global legislative foundations (the World Anti-Doping Code). But, as they said, principled objections (...) against the system have more universal relevance, which has to be taken seriously . To take this ambiguous and intriguing conclusion a step further, I propose a legal rather than ethical approach, from the aspect of constitutional and international human rights law, and the possible clash of two legally acknowledged values - the concept of elite sport without doping, and the concept of individual human rights. This conflict between ideological or moral values and the legality of individual rights is not a novelty. This paper presents three instances of this conflict: Bernard de Mandeville's differentiation between public and private values; Eug ne Sue's parallel legal and civil morals; and the contemporary moralisation of law which conflates legality into morality. The subordination of legality to morality has potentially dangerous consequences: here, Agamben's 'state of exception' comes to mind, with his analysis of potestas and auctoritas. However, in the case of sport and the war against doping, the origin of power is not in the nation state; it originates in civil society's non-governmental national and international bodies recognised as autonomous sources of legal order. (shrink)

In my previous texts on aesthetics of sport and of football, the accent was on dramatic aesthetic properties and on everyday aesthetics as a proper framework for the aesthetics of sport in general and football in particular. Here, following this starting point, the character of football as a game of social interactions and its character of purposive sport are examined, to find out what could be the most important aesthetic condition for playing the game and being-in-the-game. To get at the (...) core of the aesthetic side of football, the concept of aesthetic imagination is introduced as a necessary condition for playing the game of football, and three aesthetic regimes for creation of possible worlds or symbolic forms such as football are discussed. There are two steps where the aesthetic imagination helps. The first one is at the entrance where we are leaving ordinary everyday life behind, being ready to accept the world of.. (shrink)

Political philosophy is an examination of distribution of power in human communities and institutions. In previous period when identity issues were the most important political approach philosophy of sport had to deal mostly with discrimination and much less with the distribution of power in sport governance. Recent scandals revealed that at the top of sport governing bodies. Even more: it exposed the political character of the distribution of unleashed power in sport. That is why it is not enough to punish (...) ad to prevent. It is necessary to change the distribution of power, reform the models of control over political power in sport and to rethink the whole system of governance in sport. The proposal of this paper is just one short step in this direction with two points of departure: a change in initial sport’s associational character of aristocratic distribution of power into contemporary state of corporation with managerial distribution of power; and political philosophy’s proposals for models of democratic control at the global level. (shrink)

From the institutional inauguration of the discipline in 1972, philosophy of sport tends to expand, spreading itself around the world from one country to another, and including new philosophical in...

The aim of this paper is to defend the position that aesthetics and ethics in sport are not two separate domains or aspects. In sport, the aesthetic and the ethical both arise from sport’s attractiveness or from the pleasure sport offers to its activists and consumers. To think about sport philosophically, we should find a link and a principle beyond this division as a source of both the aesthetic and the ethical in sport. The philosophy and philosophical sociology of Jean-Marie (...) Guyau is presented as a response to this problem. Two points of fundamental importance are considered critically here: his criticism of any reductionism, and life or the idea of life as key principle of a philosophical system which puts ethics and aesthetics together. (shrink)

Martin Strel, a Slovenian hero, swam all 3004 km of Danube in 200, and Mississippi in 2002, to become one of nominees for the sportsperson of the year award. Surprisingly, an orchestrated attack on his status as a sportsperson and on status of his achievements as sport records followed successfully. Martin did not get the award. He continued with his activities, swimming Parana, Jang Tse, and Amazonas lately, but was never mentioned in sport context again. This case is examined to (...) show how definition struggles serve to strengthen the border control between sport as such, and its internationally institutionalised realm. To make a comparison, the case of art and its definition is mentioned. Martin Strel did not endanger sport, being a false pretender on sport-status, but he endangered sport management and sport business. He was thrown out of the ?sport city?, to swim ?extra portes? and to inhabit a place where sport as ?esportes? originally belonges. (shrink)

Naturalist aestetics, strictly speaking, is a move to establish naturalist explanation of aesthetic phenomena. It was nearly forgotten, at least in the history of aesthetics, where, if mentioned, it was put aside as something dead and despised. Its reappearance in recent years, among other occasions at the XIVIVth International Congress of Aesthetics (Rio de Janeiro, 2004), came as a surprise and a challenge. Its second modernity has predecessors in the first modernity, and Darwin is only one of the many, and (...) its background in contemporary naturalist proposals in social and human sciences (biosociology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, etc.). Contemporary proposals to explain some basic aesthetic preferences of taste, and aesthetic pleasure itself in terms of evolution, may be illuminated by historical background. We can also understand them (in Ulrich Beck's vocabulary) as second modernity, as a move to deal with uncertainties of aesthetics. What still makes contemporary naturalist aesthetics a continuation of aesthetic modernity, however, is its inability to take (contemporary) art seriously. (shrink)

V Kantovi in Longinovi obravnavi vzvišenega naletimo na vzporednice, ki skorajda potrjujejo misel Danka Grliča, da tu ni bilo kakšnega posebnega miselnega napredka. Izkaže se, da modernistična zastavitev potiska v pozabo psihologistično estetiko in njeno obravnavo vzvišenega v francoski in angleški tradiciji. Pri Longinu ni najti modernistične strasti po spreminjanju razmer in izboljšanju človeštva. Pri Longinu nas vzvišeno s svojim učinkom ne pokliče v funkcijo subjekta napredka, ampak nam da čutiti, da smo poklicani v pozicijo opazovalca dovršenega naravnega teatra. Moralni (...) zakon, ki ga zbudi vzvišeno pri Longinu, je »conso-latio philosophiae«, medtem ko gre pri Kantu za »moralni entuziazem«. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, we address the aporia(s) of the Olympic discourse produced by the troubled split between sport and politics. To start our argument, we will show that sporting governing bodies continuously insist that they are still on the other side of any kind of politics. Guided by Aristotle, who presented the reciprocity of ethics and politics, we will unveil the fallacy of this discourse. In a short genealogy of the relationship between sport, ethics, and politics, we will highlight (...) the Munich Olympics 1936 and Mexico Olympics 1968, where political engagement of sport was exposed clearly. At the same time, the supposed political neutrality of sport manifested an aristocratic preference for radical right regimes. After that, we will analyse the contemporary relation between sport, ethics, and politics in the light of recent developments, including sport’s ambiguous reaction on the Ukraine war. Further argument will be that sport’s in- and external politics, supported by sport ethics and the inherited mantra of the split between sport and politics, is more than just a hypocrisy. At the start, modern sport claims autonomy of governance to keep away from state domination, yet this very autonomy also freezes sport’s ethical core, forbidding athletes, coaches and others active in sport, to express any political engagement, other than passive acceptance of the regulation by governing sport bodies, as the only politics to be respected without deliberation. In the final part an alternative understanding of the dynamics between politics, the political and sport’s ethical core, will be presented to be included in the philosophy of sport and fully developed in following articles. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, we address the aporia(s) of the Olympic discourse produced by the troubled split between sport and politics. To start our argument, we will show that sporting governing bodies continuously insist that they are still on the other side of any kind of politics. Guided by Aristotle, who presented the reciprocity of ethics and politics, we will unveil the fallacy of this discourse. In a short genealogy of the relationship between sport, ethics, and politics, we will highlight (...) the Munich Olympics 1936 and Mexico Olympics 1968, where political engagement of sport was exposed clearly. At the same time, the supposed political neutrality of sport manifested an aristocratic preference for radical right regimes. After that, we will analyse the contemporary relation between sport, ethics, and politics in the light of recent developments, including sport’s ambiguous reaction on the Ukraine war. Further argument will be that sport’s in- and external politics, supported by sport ethics and the inherited mantra of the split between sport and politics, is more than just a hypocrisy. At the start, modern sport claims autonomy of governance to keep away from state domination, yet this very autonomy also freezes sport’s ethical core, forbidding athletes, coaches and others active in sport, to express any political engagement, other than passive acceptance of the regulation by governing sport bodies, as the only politics to be respected without deliberation. In the final part an alternative understanding of the dynamics between politics, the political and sport’s ethical core, will be presented to be included in the philosophy of sport and fully developed in following articles. (shrink)