The title ”Sports Philosophy” could suggest that a sport had gone into philosophical thinking or that philosophy had simply become a sport about defeating an opponent with one's thoughts. Such an association is understandable, as today, it is full of all kinds of philosophies: business, management, and personal.
My understanding of sports philosophy does not seek to impose a philosophical framework onto a field or add unnecessary intellectual complexity to the sport. It's not about making the sport wear a philosophical mask. Instead, it's about acknowledging that sport, at its core, already embodies a philosophy, a form of life wisdom that is not only worth engaging with but also has practical implications in our lives. Sport is a form of human play that is existentially rewarding for both participant and spectator.
The philosopher Randolph Feezell claims that, among other things, this is due to the aesthetic richness and narrative strength of the sport. I agree with him and would add that it is because the sport moves around in all the traditional philosophical categories: Metaphysics, which is about what something is; Ethics and values that are not about what something is, but rather emphasize how something should be or what actions are valuable or perhaps create new values; epistemology is about knowledge, what we know, how we know it and with what convincing arguments, finally, sport contains aesthetic aspects, where it is purely sensory assessed whether something is beautiful.
This Substack serves as an open laboratory, delving into the intellectual depths of sports and philosophy. It's not an attempt to write a philosophical history of sports but rather an exploration of specific concepts from the world of sports, inviting philosophical investigation. The diverse aspects of sports, whether technical, physical, tactical, psychological, or philosophical, are all intellectually stimulating and worth exploring.
I will briefly outline these to provide a clear view of the mission of philosophy.
With technical aspects, an athlete must possess skills to excel in (and even participate in) a particular sport. For example, a competitive freestyle swimmer must be able to perform a specific turn in the pool. This skill involves approaching the pool wall, dropping one's front arm, lowering one's chin to the chest, tucking one's knees in, and flipping over one's feet as they hit the wall. Physical aspects deal with an athlete's fitness, strength, and endurance, which can be measured objectively, while physical elements such as movement and rhythm are more akin to philosophy. The tactical part deals with strategic aspects of athletic performance, e.g., developing technical skills and fitness training planned, corrected, and decided around. Philosophy also contains choices and decisions, but rarely with such a strict objective as in sport. For example, a philosophical decision is not guided by a need to win but by how to live a meaningful and worthy life. However, this does not mean that sports can be exemplary regarding the relevance of philosophical decisions, as sports can sharpen the need to make decisions due to their specific time and place. For example, it might be appropriate to plan to ensure the athlete is in shape when the season begins. Finally, there is the psychological or mental side of athletic performance. It is the area most closely related to philosophy, as philosophy is also something mental and corporal that can promote an athlete's psychological and physical health. The close neighborhood of psychology and philosophy is also where I have the most experience as a teacher of Sports Ethics, Sports Coaching and, especially, Sports Psychology at universities, but also as a mental trainer in high schools and some sports clubs (i.e., chess, boxing, and football).
Philosophy, like psychology, is, to a certain extent, a mind game, just as I would argue that philosophy also, often, if nothing else, takes place in a state of ”flow” or ”in the zone,” where the thoughts crackle. However, the concepts of philosophy are rarely psychological when psychological methods are about creating a particular winning mentality or when – again, depending on the psychological direction – it tries to accept and change certain feelings, thoughts, and behaviors needed to win.
What, then, is the philosophical aspect of sport, the philosophy of sport itself?
This question is the subject of this laboratory called ”Sports Philosophy.”
For example, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze said philosophy is about creating or inventing concepts. He clarified that philosophical concepts are not just words or neologisms, as they do not denote things, living beings, or bodily states. In contrast, the concept expresses an event—the extraordinary, remarkable, and exciting “thing” that happens or takes place. Because the event occurs, philosophical concepts try to understand or grasp this movement while being moved. Deleuze said that philosophy is ethical because it is about becoming worthy of what happens to us. I think that sport can assist us with that.
Something always happens in sports, even when a match or competition is boring. Sport is not unique in this respect because something always happens in life—all parts of life, but sport is exemplary because, in addition to taking place, it always takes place in a specific place and at a particular time (e.g., football's 90 minutes) or within a specific time frame (e.g., cycling or baseball where you keep playing or cycling until you finish).
Sport emphasizes what phenomenology often emphasizes: what matters is not what I will but what I can do. What can I do, or how can I respond to what occurs?
I can only do what I can, and yet, what I can; this capacity can grow and expand due to my willingness to explore what I can. Experimenting with life is like playing a game; perhaps we play because it is ”required” (Suits), or we ”willingly” play (Hurka) for the sake of fun, social identity, challenges, growth, etc., or because we wish to explore who we might become (Deleuze) because we still do not know what our body and minds are capable of doing.
Last, because of the competitive element (I will get back to this concept), an athlete will gradually be able to do more because, together with their opponent (perhaps also teammates), they will investigate and explore how the game might also be played.
What might sports teach us about living a life worth living? I think a lot.