The degradation of modern sport--its commercialization, trivialization, widespread cheating, cult of athletic stars and celebrities, and manipulation by the media--has led to calls for its transformation. William J. Morgan constructs a critical theory of sport that shores up the weak arguments of past attempts and points a way forward to making sport more humane, compelling, and substantive. Drawing on the work of social theorists, Morgan challenges scholars and fans alike to explore new spaces in sport culture and imagine the rich (...) cultural and political possibilities to be found in the pastimes we follow with such passion. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that attempts in the philosophy of biology to show that organisms are processes rather than substances fail. Despite what process ontologists have said, I argue that substance ontology is perfectly able to accommodate the dynamic nature of organisms, their ecological dependence, and their vague boundaries, and that their criticisms are not directed at substance ontology simpliciter, but only at specific (perhaps untenable) characterisations of substances. The paper ends by considering what a processual philosophy of biology (...) that is radically in conflict with an ontology of substances might look like. (shrink)

My argument will proceed as follows. I will first sketch out the broad internalist case for pitching its normative account of sport in the abstract manner that following Dworkin’s lead in the philosophy of law its adherents insist upon. I will next show that the normative deficiencies in social conventions broad internalists uncover are indeed telling but misplaced since they hold only for what David Lewis famously called ‘coordinating’ conventions. I will then distinguish coordinating conventions from deep ones and make (...) my case not only for the normative salience of deep conventions but for their normative superiority over the abstract normative principles broad internalists champion. (shrink)

The Problem of Biological Individuality is the problem of how to count organisms. Whilst counting organisms may seem easy, the biological world is full of difficult cases such as colonial siphonophores and aspen tree groves. One of the main solutions to the Problem of Biological Individuality is the Physiological Approach. Drawing on an argument made by Eric Olson in the personal identity debate, I argue that the Physiological Approach faces a metaphysical problem - the ‘Foetus Problem’. This paper illustrates how (...) metaphysics can contribute to debates about organisms in the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

The contributors to _Somaesthetics and Sport_ explore our embodied experiences of watching and playing sport, including sport’s beauty; the place of exercise in our sense of living a good life; and how we cope with pain and suffering.

This is a book symposium on Steffen Borge’s The Philosophy of Football. It has contributions from William Morgan, Murray Smith and Brian Weatherson with replies from Borge.

Bernard Suits’ groundbreaking work, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, has profoundly shaped the philosophy of sport. Its sequel, Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure, and the Good Life in the Third Millennium, released in October 2022, enriches scholarly understandings of Suits’ views on games, emphasizing the normative aspects of gameplay and its impact on people’s pursuit of the good life. In this book symposium, world-leading Suits scholars analyze the Suitsian conception of gameplay and its relevance to his views on (...) Utopia outlined in the sequel, covering a wide range of topics. Filip Kobiela explores counterfactual situations in Suits’ oeuvre. Christopher Bartel and Gwen Bradford scrutinize the ethical nature and ramifications of Suits’ claim that life is an unconscious game. R. Scott Kretchmar and John S. Russell present thoughtful critiques of Suits’ musings on Utopia. William J. Morgan’s contribution integrates contemporary work studies to illuminate Suits’ utopia. The symposium concludes with the editors, Francisco Javier Lopez Frias and Christopher Yorke, offering their perspectives on Suitsian Utopia, ethics, and metaethics. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Sport is a landmark publication in sport studies. It goes further than any book has before in tracing the contours of the discipline of the philosophy of sport and in surveying the core themes, approaches and theories that form its disciplinary fabric. The book explores the ways in which an understanding of philosophy can inform our understanding of important prevailing issues in sport. Edited by two of the most significant figures in the development (...) of the philosophy of sport, Mike McNamee and Bill Morgan, and with contributions from many of the world’s leading sport philosophers, this is an invaluable companion reference volume for any course in the social scientific study of sport, and an essential addition to the bookshelf of any serious scholar of the philosophy and/or ethics of sport. (shrink)

Martin Buber is considered one of the 20th centuryes greatest thinkers and his contributions to philosophy, theology and education are testimony to this. His thought is founded on the idea that people are capable of two kinds of relations, namely I-Thou and I-It, emphasising the centrality of dialogue in all spheres of human life. For this reason, Buber is considered by many to be the philosopher of dialogue par excellence. After Buberes death the appreciation of his considerable legacy to the (...) various disciplines in which he had worked became rather muted, but was never completely forgotten. There is now a renewed and growing interest in Buberes thought, especially in his philosophy of education. This book brings together aspects of Buberes philosophy and educational practice, and explains their significance for peace dialogue and for conflict resolution, both between individuals and communities. Buber's philosophy of dialogue and views on education are pivotal in demonstrating the personal and social benefits of dialogical education as well as the dangers of non-dialogical education. The book will be valuable reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in Martin Buber, education, peace dialogue and conflict resolution. (shrink)

This book brings together ten seminal European philosophers to critically discuss their socio-political and dialogical views, and the implications of these for education. Chapters explore the work of modern philosophers, including Martin Buber, Mikhail Bakhtin, Lev Vygotsky and Hannah Arendt, positioning their contributions within the European tradition of dialogical philosophy, reflecting on their continuing theoretical relevance to the field of education and critical pedagogy, and offering an analysis of key extracts and points of discussion.

Antonio Gramsci is one of the major social and political theorists of the 20th century whose work has had an enormous influence on several fields, including educational theory and practice. Gramsci and Education demonstrates the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's thought for contemporary educational debates. The essays are written by scholars located in different parts of the world, a number of whom are well known internationally for their contributions to Gramscian scholarship and/or educational research. The collection deals with a broad range (...) of topics, including schooling, adult education in general, popular education, workers' education, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, and the role of intellectuals in contemporary society. (shrink)

The Jewish philosopher and educator Martin Buber (1878–1965) is considered one of the twentieth century’s greatest contributors to the philosophy of religion and is also recognized as the pre-eminent scholar of Hasidism. He has also attracted considerable attention as a philosopher of education. However, most commentaries on this aspect of his work have focussed on the implications of his philosophy for formal education and for the education of the child. Given that much of Buber’s philosophy is based on dialogue, on (...) community and on mutuality, it is puzzling that relatively little has been written on the implications of Buber’s thought for the theory and practice of non-formal adult education. The article provides a discussion of the philosophy underpinning this aspect of Martin Buber’s life and work, and its implications for adult non-formal education. (shrink)

Most of what has been written about Buber and education tend to be studies of two kinds: theoretical studies of his philosophical views on education, and specific case studies that aim at putting theory into practice. The perspective taken has always been to hold a dialogue with Buber's works in order to identify and analyse critically Buber's views and, in some cases, to put them into practice; that is, commentators dialogue with the text. In this article our aims are of (...) a different kind. First and fundamentally, we demonstrate the political and social ontological basis of Buber's thought; that is, we show that Buber, the philosopher of dialogue, held an authentic dialogue with his time, and demonstrate that Buber's work, in this case I and Thou, holds a dialogue with its Zeitgeist; that is the text dialogues with its Zeitgeist. This approach leads us to our second aim, which is to demonstrate that Buber's thought remains relevant to our times, particularly when it serves as a dialogical educational tool with which to resolve conflict of all types and to aid dialogue towards peace in inter-community relations. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Del Mar offered two main criticisms of Marmor’s account of social conventions. The first took issue with Marmor’s claim that the constitutive rules of games and kindred social practices determine in an objective way their central aims and values; the second charged Marmor with scanting the historical context in which conventions do their important normative work in shaping the goals of games. I argue that Del Mar’s criticism of Marmor’s account of the normative (...) centrality and force of constitutive rules in games and the like fails, but that his criticism faulting Marmor for giving short shrift to the normative work conventions do in these social practices is on the mark. So while I reject Del Mar’s claim that a closer look at the social and historical contexts in which the conventions of games and the like carry out their normative tasks undermines Marmor’s account of constitutive rules, I think his argument that conventions play a far more important, even if supplementary, role in shaping our understanding of and participation in these social practices than Marmor allows is persuasive. (shrink)

Martin Buber (1878-1965) is one of the most significant existentialist philosophers of the twentieth century and a leading scholar of the Hasidic tradition in Judaism; even more important for this article is that Buber is considered by many to be the philosopher of dialogue par excellence. This article expounds Buber’s conception of dialogue and its implications for our conception of the Other.

ABSTRACTIn a recent article in this Journal, Eric Moore criticized an earlier essay of mine published in this same Journal on two fronts. On the first, he criticized my criticisms of broad internalism for relying on abstract moral principles too far removed from the practice of sport to adjudicate normative conflicts in which disputants cannot agree on what is the purpose of sport. On the second front, he criticized my reliance on what he called Rorty’s “controversial” views of truth and (...) rationality to back up my criticisms of broad internalism. I find both criticisms forceful but not persuasive. In my reply, therefore, I defend both use of Rorty’s and other similar historicist takes on rational justification and my criticisms of broad internalism principles-based approach to normative inquiry in sport. (shrink)

A quiet revolution in genetics is increasingly rendering our milieu strange and artificial. Epigenomics, informatic cousin of epigenetics, is a xenoforming process, giving birth to an alien milieu, replacing the natural with the technical. If epigenetics is understood as the heritable changes in gene expression that do not alter DNA sequence, epigenomics takes as object the set of epigenetic modifications. Environmental, social, even political aspects of life’s variability are re-understood digitally in epigenomic profiles, the previous categories computationally accounted for as (...) potential triggers of epigenesis. Following Gilbert Simondon, the xenoforming procedures of epigenomics can be understood as the concretization and adaptation processes of a technical object, the invention of which gives birth to a technogeographic milieu. In this article, the author examines Simondon’s work, especially, ‘On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects’, alongside contemporary scholarship on epigenetics. (shrink)

This definitive dictionary and linguistic resource by Robert Young is once again available.

The sheer number of fans who watch sports and cheer on their favorite teams is astonishing. What is further eye opening is the typical passionate fervor with which fans watch them, often acting like their very lives depend upon whether the teams they root for come out on top. The wide following that sports attract and the passionate responses of sports fans are puzzling to many because the outcomes of games rarely if ever have any appreciable bearing on the rest (...) of the lives of the fans. Philosophers like Kendall Walton think that what they call this “puzzle of sport” can be explained roughly in the same way that what they call the “puzzle of fiction” can be explained. For just as enthusiasts of fictional films, stories, and plays are able to get emotionally caught up in characters that do not exist and made-up stories about them simply by make-believing that they exist and that their stories are real, so sports fans are able to get emotionally caught up in game outcomes simply by make-believing that winning is much more important and valuable than they know it really is. I reject this make-believe account and argue instead that what lies behind fans’ emotional fixations on game outcomes is that winning is a valuable end in its own right because it represents a significant human achievement. If I am right about this, then there is no puzzle of sports fandom that needs solving in fictionalist or other fanciful theoretical terms. (shrink)

The article explores E.M. Forster’s story The Machine Stops as an example of dystopian literature and its possible associations with the use of technology and with today’s cyber culture. Dystopian societies are often characterized by dehumanization and Forster’s novel raises questions about how we live in time and space; and how we establish relationships with the Other and with the world through technology. We suggest that the fear of technology depicted in dystopian literature indicates a fear that machines are mimicking (...) the roles that humans already play in relational encounters. Our relationship with machines frequently suggests a classical “I-it” situation. However, a genuine dialogue is where there is no master and where communication and understanding are achieved through the encounter and through openness to difference and to change. The article examines the ways machines and automata are imagined and become part of lived human existence, in the light of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and otherness. The problem seems to be how everyday technological interfaces can change the way we first perceive the world and the possibility that with certain types of mediation there is a loss of connection with the Other. It is argued that understanding dialogical conditions could help turn the relationship with technology into something more humane. Literature such as Forster’s is considered as an example of such a dialogical condition, suggesting ways of dealing with human dilemmas by exploring the field of possibilities. (shrink)

The article considers Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein’s views on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. In 1914, Rubinstein completed a doctoral thesis at the University of Marburg, Germany, in a school of Neo-Kantianism led by Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp. In the Soviet Union, under the domination of Marxist-Leninist ideology, Kantian philosophy, although criticised, was not banned as it was classified as part of German classical philosophy, regarded as the forerunner of Marxism. In Rubinstein’s long career, one may thus observe various periods (...) of analysis and evaluations of Kant’s critical idealism, which aimed to demonstrate the fallacy of a purely subjective-idealist approach to cognition. Rubinstein’s objective was to achieve a unified ontological and epistemological concept. They should not be subordinated to one another, as in materialism (consciousness is a derivative of being-matter) or idealism (being is a construct of consciousness). For Rubinstein, the phenomenon of activity provides such a connecting phenomenon of being and cognition (consciousness) into a single whole, which not only leaves them relatively independent and not an instrument for reducing one to the other, but, on the contrary, through a correlation relationship, activity becomes a means of transforming and improving them both. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that sports at their best qualify as final ends, that is, as ends whose value is such that they ground not only the practices whose ends they are, but everything else we do as human agents. The argument I provide to support my thesis is derived from Harry Frankfurt's provocative work on the importance of the things we care about, more specifically, on his claim that it is by virtue of caring about things and practices, (...) really caring about them ? even loving them ? we are able to regard and treat them as final ends. Sports, I claim, are paradigmatic examples of practices cared about and loved in these deep ways, and as such deserve to be considered, rather than dismissed because of their supposed triviality, as one of those ends around which a life most worth living can be legitimately forged. (shrink)

One of the many brilliant insights of C. Thi Nguyen’s brilliant book, Games: Agency as Art, is the connection he draws between the distinctive agency of game play and one important feature of a lif...

I argue that one of the chief social and political problems that plague Western liberal democracies is the encroachment of market norms and their trademark good money into every facet of the lives of its citizens. Sport is no exception in this regard, in which economic considerations of profitability too often get the first and last word on how it is treated and conducted. As a consequence, the norms, standards of excellence, and goods internal to sport are subordinated to the (...) private preferences of market actors, who shape them to further their own economic ends with scant regard for the distinctive role they play in the practice of sport itself. I argue the way to remedy such market overreach is to rely on the true-and-tried liberal device of what Walzer calls the ‘liberal art of separation’. I put Walzer’s art of separation to use by drawing a line between the market and sport beyond which the market is not allowed to tread. The purpose of drawing such a line is to ensure that the special non-instrumental logic and social goods of sport are not co-opted by market norms, which not only have no intrinsic connection to sport but jeopardize its perfectionist character. (shrink)

(1985). Chance, Skill, and Sport: A Critical Comment. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 62-63. doi: 10.1080/00948705.1985.9714429.

From the beginning of history sounds have played a fundamentally important role in humanity’s development as ways of expression and of communication. However in contemporary western society, and indeed globally, we are experiencing an excess of speech and a relentless encouragement to expression. Such excess indicates a misunderstanding about what expression and dialogue should be. This condition encourages us to think about silence, solitude and contemplation and the role they might play in restoring the realm of personal understanding of the (...) Self and of one’s authentic experience of the Other. The purpose of this article is to explore the potency of a silence that arises from our participation in the world. We present first some ideas about silence as a human phenomenon. This is followed by an examination of silence and language, an investigation of silence in dialogue, and of its educational implications. The article concludes by emphasising the value of silence as potency in itself, assisting in recovering the expressive powers of language. We argue that it is important to understand the positive status of silence in order to recognise and avoid repressive speech and to introduce its potential for reflective learning. (shrink)

I argue that ethical features of sport strongly interact with aesthetic features of sport, such that all pro tanto ethical merits/defects count as aesthetic merits/defects. This is a much-debated topic in the philosophy of art and aesthetics literature, in which recent critics have taken to task this interactionist take on how ethical evaluative properties interact with aesthetic ones. The critics’ main argument against this view is that far too many works of art than theorists of this strong interactionist kind care (...) to admit either lack the evaluative ethical properties they claim for them, or their ethical properties do not appreciably affect their aesthetic properties. Sport, I argue, is a notable exception. That’s because in sport ethical flaws in athletic performances double as aesthetic flaws with very few exceptions, or so I will argue. Unlike artworks, therefore, the interactionist thesis holds mostly true across the entire athletic spectrum, which is why, in my view, it warrants far more serious attention and appreciation than it is commonly given in both the philosophy of art and aesthetics and philosophy of sport literature. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide a comment on Simone Weil’s brief but seminal essay ‘Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.’ It complements an earlier one on Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy. The essay was sent via a letter to her friend and mentor, the Catholic priest, and Dominican friar, Father Joseph-Marie Perrin O.P. It set out her belief that school studies should provide the individual pupil or student with (...) an education in the value and acquisition of attention. This, Weil believed, would be of fundamental value when reaching out to God through prayer. Such a capacity for attention would also enhance the student’s general academic and social learning providing a basis for authentic dialogue with others, and not only teachers and schoolfellows. The article introduces her as a religious philosopher, explains the origins of the essay, and Weil’s friendship with Father Perrin, who was her Christian religious mentor, examines the text itself, considers some critical commentaries, and assesses its relevance to the philosophy and practice of education today. (shrink)

Education has two distinct but interconnected layers. There is an outer layer concerned with knowledge transfer and skills and an inner layer concerned with the development of character and relationships with others, both individually and socially. This inner layer provides the individual with the capacity to influence and to change society. In that sense, such an inner layer is ‘political’. In this article we argue that the ‘political’ in education can take two distinct forms: either that of dialogue or of (...) defiance. We claim that the former is epitomised by the philosophy of Martin Buber and the latter by the philosophy of Frantz Fanon. Our analysis contrasting these two philosophies clarifies the implications for education, and thereby for the individual and for society. (shrink)