Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest for Knowledge

INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 14th INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON OLYMPIC STUDIES FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS 6 JULY – 6 AUGUST 2006 PROCEEDINGS ANCIENT OLYMPIA 002s020 10-06-09 10:42 ™ÂÏ›‰·3, 2006

“The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man…” From Homer’s poems it is clear that Greek people liked sport very much. Originally the single aim in Greek athletics was to win. Competitions in Olympia had been called ‘competitions for wreath’ (stefanitis agon) and not ‘competitions for money’ (chrematitis agon). But, why there was such emphasis on winning, on being the best? Sport competitions gave athletes possibility to test and show their arête, their virtues. The meaning of winning was not in defeating other competitors, but to test oneself; to uncover and recognize the truth (alethéia) and the true value of oneself. But in 5th century BC the change in attitude toward original agon become more and more obvious. From that time on, material prize was becoming the main motive for being involved in sport. Adding material prizes to sport represents, as we will see, the first blow to the original value of sport. However, some ancient Greek thinkers noticed that sport did not have meaning just in earning prizes for the best few and making the rest of polis citizens feel happy, but could have a deeper meaning for the human being itself. One of them was Plato (5th-4th century BC). He found the mission of his life was the education of men. So he touched sport many times in his dialogs and exposed its role in the education of young people. For him all education is directed to the development of virtue. The value of sport he found in development of virtue of fortitude. But for him gymnastics and music paideía create just effects of Good, but not the knowledge of Good itself. The later is the aim of philosophical education. In the activity in accordance with reason – in philosophy – Plato saw final point of Greek paideía, as the process of realization of highest human abilities. It is interesting that Plato, who was an athlete himself, didn’t go deeper into the philosophical understanding of sport. He never asked the fundamental philosophical question, question about ‘what is something?’ – also about sport. But, if we want to ‘use’ Plato’s philosophy, we must ask the question ‘what is sport?’. So, what can Plato’s philosophy tell us about what is sport and what is good sport? Probably Plato's best answer to this question can be found in the basic concepts of his philosophy regarding his hierarchical division of the state and human soul on three parts. Since the sport is derived from man also the goodness of sport can be divided in three stages. The lowest stage of sport corresponds to the first part of soul – the appetite soul. On this stage sport is based on the gaining of material goods through the prizes of the competitions. In the philosophic view, this is the lowest possible stage of goodness of sport. The second stage of sport corresponds to the second part of the soul – the emotional soul. Sport on this stage is based on the original ancient agon, which seeks fulfilment in winning and showing arête. The greatest and the most superior is the third part of the soul – the reasonable soul. According to this, sport corresponds to the third part of the soul and is the best kind. For this kind of sport it is no longer necessary to compete with another contestant but to compete and win over oneself. The goodness of sport is no more determined by physical dimensions of space and time; the seconds and meters are no more important because true good sport goes beyond these borders since it is the cognition and improvement of self that is the most important and even essential thing. As Plato clearly shows us, it is not worth being active in sport if the aim of it is beyond us. It is not worth to do sport just to earn money and forget about improving yourself. Beside that not all people have the capabilities to earn money from sport. But everyone can benefit from sport if he takes it in the original ancient meaning: to test myself, to learn something about myself and not only to become better in sport, but to fulfill my potentials as a human being as well: to become better man. This is true and lasting reward which sport can give to everyone of us. And that is the way to make goal of Olympism (“…to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man…”) real.

2021

The focus of the book Philosophy of Sport. Emergence and Development of a Discipline is on a drawing and critical analysis of the history and development of the philosophy of sport as a separate branch of philosophy, but also the ethics and bioethics of sport as its key subdisciplines. In the first chapter of the book, the author discusses the question of what sport is. He first presents and critically considers the definitions of play, game, and sport as set out by B. H. Suits in his masterpiece Grasshopper. Games, Life and Utopia and some of his articles. Namely, Suits’ definitions and understandings of the “tricky triad” (play, games, sport) are the foundation and starting point of the philosophy of sport, as well as the framework for understanding sports and all its problems and issues. In relation to Suits', the author also considers the definitions of Huizinga, Wittgenstein, Fink, Guttman and Nguyen, and lay the foundations for the philosophy of play and games as separate discipline or area of philosophical consideration. The author concludes that the definition of sport cannot be provided in a logical and unambiguous way. Therefore, he turns to consideration and critical examination of the different characterizations and conceptualizations of sport presented in the literature – testing and contesting, the spirit of sports, the integrity of sports, Olympic sports. The chapter concludes with the author’s evaluation of the literature on the defining sport. In the second chapter, the author gives his definition of the philosophy of sport and a brief overview of all sub-branches developed so far. Then, he presents his own view of the history of the philosophy of sport in three phases. The first is the Ancient Phase or ‘the ancient Mediterranean roots of the discipline’, where he immediately points out that it is incorrect to call ‘ancient competitive games to honour the gods’ – a sport. Namely, sport per se, as well as its name, originate from the 19th century or over 2000 years after the ancient period. As the content relevant to the philosophy of sport in Ancient Greek period, he finds depictions of competitive games in the Iliad and Odyssey. Furthermore, in the works of Plato and Aristotle, he finds numerous passages that speak of the important role of physical exercise and competitive games in honour of the gods, especially in the terms of education. The second phase the author calls the Pre-Disciplinary Phase, which on the one hand, includes the post-ancient history of philosophy as the pool from which sport-philosophy pulls out relevant authors and works for better philosophical consideration and understandings of the sport, and on the other hand, includes the theory of sport in the 19th and 20th Century which is the forerunner of the philosophy of sport as a philosophical discipline. The third is the disciplinary phase that begins in 1972 – the point in time in which the philosophy of sport became a separate and distinct branch of general philosophy. Within the disciplinary phase, the author points out and critically examine the key points of development. At the end of the chapter, he gives a brief overview of the development of sports philosophy outside the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. In the third chapter, the author critically reflects and considers the role of William John Morgan in the development of the discipline. The author identifies Morgan as one who has made key contributions to the development and global spread of the philosophy of sport in several ways. He puts emphasis on Morgan’s consideration of economization and commodification of the modern sport as one of the fundamental reasons for almost all problems of today's sport. The author makes the second emphasis on the possible solutions for sports, which Morgan finds in sport practice communities and the application of J. Habermas’ deliberation process and J.-P. Sartre’s discourse ethics. Finally, the author brings his own addition to the solution for a (more) moral sport – proper upbringing and education. In the fourth chapter, the author critically examines and considers the ethics of sport, a dominant field or subdiscipline of the philosophy of sport from the 1990s. Firstly, he puts careful and detailed attention to the (development of) contours and divisions of the ethics of sport, where he makes a claim that in the ethics of sport there are actually only four fields of consideration: competition, enhancements, gender issues, and social issues in sport. Then he determines the key points in the development of the ethics of sport and puts critical considerations of them. Finally, he elaborates on possible directions for further development. The fifth chapter brings critical discussion over the normative theories of sport and of the internal or intrinsic values of sport. The author provides a critical account of the theories of formalism, conventionalism, and internalism in five variants: W. J. Morgan’s internalism, J. S. Russell’s interpretivism, R. Simon’s broad internalism, S. Kretchmar’s pluralistic internalism, and S. MacRae’s shallow interpretivism. The author points out, and this is mostly unrecognized in the discipline, that W. J. Morgan was in fact the originator of internalism on one hand, and on the other hand, that he got the idea from A. MacIntyre’s book After Virtue. Here, the author presents his critical understandings of the internal values of sport and suggests that they should be called intrinsic because they are not only internal but, moreover, essential. After the critical observation and evaluation of the debate between the proponents of rationally oriented broad internalism whose aim is to rationally extract the essence of sport and use it as normative guidance on the one side, and Morgans emphasis on the view that there is no essence of sport and that we need to historicize and socialize internal values on the other side, the author puts the emphasis on the possible solutions or ways out of the debate. Thus, on the one hand, he presents the (new) model of intrinsic values in sports that he has developed: intersubjective, emotional, spiritual, sensual, cognitive and ethical. On the other hand, he expresses a clear position on the impossibility of formulating intrinsic values of sports except through personalized narratives of sports practitioners. Finally, he presented three directions of possible exits from the current situation. In the sixth chapter, the author focuses on the bioethics of sport subdiscipline. A the beginning, he offers a (new) definition of the bioethics of a sport that would correspond to all present understandings of bioethics. He then presents a brief history (which is indeed very short) and considers the thematic spectrum in two different understandings of the bioethics of sport, which the author calls narrow bioethics of sport and broad bioethics of sport. In a narrow version, the concept of bioethics as the new medical ethics the term bio is reduced to biomedicine and biotechnology. Thus, the thematic scope is pretty narrow, including eight groups of issues: sports medicine, health, doping, genes, biotechnology, gender, Paralympics, and transhumanism. In a broad version, the term bio is understood as bios or life and refers not only to issues of human life but also to non-human and to all the life forms in general. Thematic spectre is thus very wide: human body issues, animal use, environmental issues, danger and threat issues, psychological and socio-political-economic issues, and the issues of ethical committees and codes in sports… Furthermore, the author defines the bioethics of sport as the one that deals with and solves the most difficult cases of sport today, but also as the one that creates and develops scenarios for the future of the sport. In that regard, the author analyzes cases of doping, cyborgization, intersexuality and the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, in his view of the future of sport, he recognizes and elaborates ten scenarios for the future development of sport. In the final, seventh chapter, the author brings the first history of philosophy, ethics and bioethics of sport in Croatia through three aspects: 1) organized classes at universities, 2) published publications with specific topics, and 3) organized conferences and gatherings. At the very end, the author brings several scenarios for possible further development.

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2017

Xlinguae, 2022

Already the Homeric period meant a high social status for successful athletes. However, it was exclusive; it excluded those whose time was needed to work for a living. Democratization in Athens and the militarization of sport in other fields had brought the spread of sport to the wider classes. Xenophanes became the first critic of the sport as a philosopher. Sophists, in turn, emphasized the importance of educational training for life, including sports education. Although the character of the historical Socrates is problematic, it is generally believed that Socrates left behind the legend of a physically immensely disposed, resilient man. Plato consolidated the role of sport through his role in social philosophy. Specifically, he spoke of the importance of the virtue ἀνδρεία. Although Aristotle characterizes kalokagathia and defined the role of sport within virtues, he was critical in its evaluation. He refused to practice sports if it led to a deterioration of the body. Partly archaic, especially classical Greek philosophy provided a theoretical rationale for recognizing sport as a meaningful activity, but also its critique.

Journal of The Philosophy of Sport, 1982

This book examines the relationship between athletics and philosophy in ancient Greece and Rome with special emphasis on changing ideas about the connection between athleticism and virtue. Its aim is to enable a foundational understanding of ancient sport and philosophy that makes a sincere dialogue with modern practices both possible and fruitful. The book begins by observing that the link between athleticism and virtue is older than sport, reaching back to the athletic feats of kings and pharaohs in early Egypt and Mesopotamia. It then traces the role of athletics and the Olympic Games in transforming of the idea of aristocracy as something acquired by birth to something that can be trained. The idea of training virtue through the techniques and practice of athletics is examined in relation to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Then Roman spectacles such as chariot racing and gladiator games are studied in light of the philosophy of Lucretius, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The concluding chapter connects the book’s ancient observations with contemporary sports issues such as the use of athletes as role models, the relationship between money and corruption, the relative worth of participation and spectatorship, and the role of females in sport. The author argues that there is a strong link between sport and philosophy in the ancient world, calling them offspring of common parents: concern about virtue and the spirit of free enquiry. In order to preserve this connection between enquiry, virtue, and sport, she concludes, we must understand its ancient origins.

This book examines the relationship between athletics and philosophy in ancient Greece and Rome focused on the connection between athleticism and virtue. It begins by observing that the link between athleticism and virtue is older than sport, reaching back to the athletic feats of kings and pharaohs in early Egypt and Mesopotamia. It then traces the role of athletics and the Olympic Games in transforming the idea of aristocracy as something acquired by birth to something that can be trained. This idea of training virtue through the techniques and practice of athletics is examined in relation to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Then Roman spectacles such as chariot racing and gladiator games are studied in light of the philosophy of Lucretius, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The concluding chapter connects the book’s ancient observations with contemporary issues such as the use of athletes as role models, the relationship between money and corruption, the relative worth of participation and spectatorship, and the role of females in sport. The author argues that there is a strong link between sport and philosophy in the ancient world, calling them offspring of common parents: concern about virtue and the spirit of free enquiry.