In a wide-ranging study of unusual interest, Paul Weiss, Sterling Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, applies the principles and methods of philosophy to athletics. Every culture, he notes, has games of some kind; few activities seem to interest both children and young men as much as sports do; and few attract so many spectators, rich and poor. Yet none of the great philosophers, claiming to take all knowledge and being as their province, have made more than a passing reference (...) to sport, in part, Professor Weiss suggests, because they thought that what pleased the vulgar was not worth sustained study by the leisured. This seminal book breaks new ground and explores new paths: psychological and sociological forms of human behavior exhibited in games; the physiology of athletics, and the efforts of training and conditioning; and the motivation of athletics—the rhythm and aims of contests and games, and the meaning of team play. More importantly, however, Professor Weiss’s unique contributions lie in his discussions of the distinct contributions that sport makes to civilization. Professor Weiss discusses at length such topics as the Olympic Games and men and women as amateur and pro­fessional athletes—and their sacrifices, defeats, and humilia­tions. And he delineates the stages the athlete must go through in his progress toward self-completion. (shrink)

In a wide-ranging study of unusual interest, Paul Weiss, Sterling Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, applies the principles and methods of philosophy to athletics. Every culture, he notes, has games of some kind; few activities seem to interest both children and young men as much as sports do; and few attract so many spectators, rich and poor. Yet none of the great philosophers, claiming to take all knowledge and being as their province, have made more than a passing reference (...) to sport, in part, Professor Weiss suggests, because they thought that what pleased the vulgar was not worth sustained study by the leisured. This seminal book breaks new ground and explores new paths: psychological and sociological forms of human behavior exhibited in games; the physiology of athletics, and the efforts of training and conditioning; and the motivation of athletics—the rhythm and aims of contests and games, and the meaning of team play. More importantly, however, Professor Weiss’s unique contributions lie in his discussions of the distinct contributions that sport makes to civilization. Professor Weiss discusses at length such topics as the Olympic Games and men and women as amateur and pro­fessional athletes—and their sacrifices, defeats, and humilia­tions. And he delineates the stages the athlete must go through in his progress toward self-completion. (shrink)

Excerpt from Man's Freedom Human originals act in unusual ways at anticipatable times. Their lives are no less surely delimited, ordered, rhythmic than are our own. Unreliable, they nevertheless are never outside the reach of reasonable expectation and control. They behave in regular ways in a recognizable area which happens to be wider than that in which the rest live. The lives of iconoclasts and rebels, of eccentrics and of some men of genius seem to be unordered from the standpoint (...) of the groups to which they normally belong. Their lives, though, are no less ordered than those of ordinary men. Even from the standpoint of their own societies, they can be understood as men who are stable in ways differ ent from the usual - as men whose unconventionalities are only the usual conventionalities modified, defied, or unappreciated - and that predictably. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

As a philosophic work should, it attempts to articulate a vision of the whole of things. This means that it must run counter to the temper not only of ...

v. 1. 1955-1960.--v. 2. 1960-1964.--v. 3. March-November 1964.--v. 4. November 26, 1964-September 2, 1965.--v. 5. September 3, 1965-August 27, 1968.--v. 6. August 28, 1968-May 22, 1971.--v. 7. April 13, 1975-June 21, 1976.--v. 7, pt. 2. September 17, 1977-February 26, 1978.--v. 8. April 28, 1978-July 28, 1980 -- v. 9. August 16, 1980-March 15, 1984 -- v. 11. January 19, 1986-May 27, 1987.

The most extreme form of sacrifice is that in which a man gives up his life or its meaning for the sake of another. It is perhaps the most praiseworthy of all the acts of which he is capable. But how can an act be praiseworthy if it involves the loss of something as precious as a human life? Can an act be at all praiseworthy which precludes the making of further efforts to bring about what is good? Can that (...) act be good which makes impossible further goods? (shrink)

2. Because of the possibility of lies, or the misuse of language, I believe that Professor Hempel's formulation of the problem of empirical certainty must be interpreted as a convenient abbreviation, in linguistic terms, of a question about beliefs. A complete formulation of the question would have to make some reference to the speaker's beliefs as he utters an "experiential statement.".

This text examines the philosophy of Paul Weiss. Much of Dr Weiss's impact has come through his example, discussions, and such activities as founding and editing the Review of Metaphysics and founding and leading the Metaphysical Society of America.

Of course private-public terminology has a certain first-hand obviousness for us. No one does my experiencing for me; there are features of myself evident to me simply by virtue of the fact that I live through them. These features are not available in quite the same way to others. And your situation is the same. Meanwhile we all have the same sort of access to what we can see and touch and explore scientifically, i.e., the public common world. These remarks (...) must not be taken to imply that a human's privacy is identical with awareness or with immediate feelings; privacy is not exhausted in consciousness. Nevertheless the importance of the private-public distinction à propos actualities is its promise for clearing up or at least clarifying many puzzles involving consciousness: problems about perception, mind-brain connections, and even perhaps immortality. At least the distinction is promising if you begin by taking us to be indeed individual centers of an awareness which discloses some private content but also discloses real other bodily beings. That is, something like Weiss's conception of private and public or inside and outside seems to be essential if one holds that mentality has a firm non-dubious place in the natural world. (shrink)