SPORT PHILOSOPHY:

INTRODUCTION II
Professor Drs. H. Toho Cholik
Mutohir, MA., Ph.D.
Dr. Made Pramono
 PHILOSOPHY
• Derived from the Greek word “Philosophia” –
“Love of wisdom”
• Contemporary philosophy: can be defined as
the systematic investigation of reality,
knowledge, and values
The Growing Interest in Philosophy
• Sport philosophy is a new area of study
• Rapid progress, retrogression or dubious progress in
the realm of social affairs have forced us to take stock.
However, it is next impossible to gain historical
perspectives on the rapid change that is taking place,
and unprecedented burden has been imposed to
understanding of ourselves and our world.
• Everywhere we see a need for research and then more
research.
• Our endeavor—accelerate scientific and technological
progress, and it becomes an exciting but vicious circle.
The Growing Interest in Philosophy
• There is a gap – more research –more questions to be answered and unanswered.
• The knowledge of the physical fields and the biological processes has vastly
exceeded the development of fundamental knowledge about human behavior
• Rapid progress, retrogression, or dubious progress in the realm of social affairs
have forced available for everyone on earth? We must learn quickly to EMPLOY
and DIRECT SCIENCE in the best possible to serve humanity.
• Question: can we manage the whole affair in such a way that wise and intelligent
decisions will be made in the light of the many scientific findings, and in such a way
that the good life will be available to everyone on earth?
• Thus, we encounter the question of the VALUES by which we live, and we have a
full circle to explain the upsurge of interest in PHILOSOPHY.
• To study the philosophy of Sport & PE (voluminous) versus the study employed
the structural analysis technique of philosophical research (brief). COMPROMISE: 2
QUESTIONS: What is the philosophical task? 2. How many philosophical
investigations are to be related to PE & Sports activities?
 PHILOSOPHICAL TASK
• The are as any definitions of the philosophic
task as there philosophers. To gain consensus
is doomed to failure. The safest approach for
any “quasi philosopher”..simply to state
his/her opinion about philosophic task have
been developed from personal background
reading, experience, & association with others
of like interest.
 PHILOSOPHICAL TASK
• Philosophers approach their work speculatively,
normatively, and analytically.

• Normative: it is concerned with the purpose ends

and values for PE & sport to promote, Principles
for it to follow, Excellences for it to foster, or
Methods, Context, Programs, etc. for it to adopt
or employ

• Analytical: it is concerned merely with Analysing,

Clarifying, or Elucidating, criticizing, and
Evaluating our thinking about PE & Sport.
 Philosophical questions
History philosophy
What is Play? • What are essential
• Can we find examples of characteristics of play? How
play in ancient cultures? is it different than work?
Is rule bending morally
acceptable?
• Did Homeric Greeks bend • What arguments can be
game rules, and did they given to show that rule
regard it as morally wrong bending is morally wrong or
to do so right
 Philosophical questions
History philosophy
Was the last 3-m dive
beautiful?
• Have all cultures been impressed • What are criteria of beauty,
with beauty? Have conceptions of
beauty changed? and did that last dive satisfy
them?
Why are athletes so often
considered dumb jocks?
• Are there any historical • What arguments can be
occurences or influences given to show that rule
that would help us account bending is morally wrong or
for this current attitude? right
 Philosophical questions
History philosophy
Should physical education be
required in public school?
• What historical precedents • What is the value of
might help us understand physical education? Does
the merits and demerits of this value justify the loss of
required physical freedom under a
education? requirement?
 Philosophical questions
1. Metaphysical 2. Axiological
Concerning the nature of Conncerning what should be
reality –what is • It asks how people should act. It
• It is concerned with WHAT THINGS and looks at specific values e.g.
ACTIONS are and HOW they are similar to excellence and truth and broad
or dissimilar from one another.
values: the composition of the
• It is descriptive. It lays out the qualities,
characteristics, features, or aspects of good life.
physical things (like chairs), nonphysical • Sample axiological claim: Youth
(hope, heaven, & all forms of actions like league sports are good for
running and believing).
children.
• Sample lmetaphysical claim: Dancers are
more creative than athletes. • Axiological question: Is
• Metaphysical questions: What is the competition itself a positive value
nature of sport?
 Philosophical questions
3. Ethical 4. Epistemological
Having to do with Good Having to do with the People
Behavior Know
• It focuses on how people affect people for • It is about theory of knowledge—about what
better or worse. It looks both at how human beings know, how they know it, and with
what assurance they hold different beliefs or
individuals treat one another and how
have different insights.
they should treat themselves.
• It looks at very specific issues of understanding,
• Sample ethical claim: It is morally wrong suc as the knowledge that may be be present in
to take anabolic steroid to enhance young children’s reflexes…
performance. • Sample epistemological claim: In order to be a
• Ethical questions: On what grounds is it good coach, teacher, or trainer, a person must
wrong? Because it is it is unfair? Illegal? have first been a good athlete, dancer, or
performer.
Dangerous to health? Coercive?
• Epistemological question: What is the
Unnatural? Opposed to the spirit of Play?
relationship between playing basketball, for
What is the nature of sport? example, and teaching it? Is competition itself a
positive value
 Philosophical questions
5. Aesthetical 5. Aesthetical
Having to do with What is • Aesthetical questions: What exactly
is athleticism? Are the requirements
Beautiful of athleticism (display strength in
• It is concerned with WHAT IS GOOD? multiple rotation jumps) necessarily
• Aesthetics focuses specifically on matters in opposition to the requirements of
of sensual, artistic good – on what is beauty?
beautiful or pleasing to the eyes, ears,
palate, or sense of touch, on what is • Are challenges presented by
balanced, harmonious, expressive, and so aesthetics as demanding as the
on challenges presented by athletic
• Sample aesthetics claim: Figure skating displays of speed, power, and
today is not as beautiful as it once was jumping ability? Is there an ideal
because skaters, coaches, and judges are balance to be struck between these
placing ever increasing emphasis on two emphases in figure skating? If so,
athleticism.
what would it be?
 The Empirical Turn Vs The
Philosophical Turn
Empirical Turn Philosophical Turn
• Look for physical or factual • Philosophers Look inward to find
evidence their data. They reflect and
• Measure or interpret things that abstract. They describe, measure,
can be seen, heard, felt, tasted and judge concepts.
and smell • They employ laws and logic.
• Analyze documents, electrical • They want to clarify ideas, the
impulse, chemical reactions, nature of things, relationships,
spoken or written testimony, values, characteristics, and ways
observed behavior of knowing—not the actual
• Rely on meaning, using concepts weight of molecules, not the
and ideas in the scientific works physical characteristics of electric
impulses, not the fact that
certain people really had certain
ideas at some time.
 Philosophic turn meaning
• Philosophic turn does not mean that
philosophers cannot or do not concern
themselves with physical reality or real world
experience. On the contrary, most of the
material on which philosophers work is stuff
of human beings’ day-to-day life—both
physical reality (eg. chairs) and nonphysical
reality (hope or friendship)
 Developing Skills in Pursuing
Philosophic Answers
• Philosophers, just like any scientists, must have some data to work.
• Philosophers do this primarily through acts of REFLECTION. That is, they
recollect or picture something and, in a sense, hold it there, turn it
around, and look it over.
• Thus, you need an issue, a problem, some question to work on. Select one
of the 5 areas: ontological (metaphysical), axiological, ethical,
epistemological, and aesthetics.
• Skills—1. Begin with definitions, clarifications, and descriptions of the
object to be analyzed, 2. Analysis: inductive, intuitive, deductive reasoning
• For example, an issue: What is at the heart of good sportsmanship?—
three words—at the heart (essential, central, of the utmost important),
good (positive behavior), and sportsmanship (moral behavior in sport)
 3 fundamental procedures
• Inductive Reasoning – is based on the ability
to move from the small to the large, the
specific to general, from the concrete
examples to abstract understandings.
• Intuitive Reasoning – is based on the ability tp
see something directly and describe what we
see.
• Deductive Reasoning –begin with one or more
broad claims and then look for specific facts
that logically follow from them.
 3 philosophers approach
• Speculatively – they may speculate about what we know and
believe about the universe and our own sphere of human
affairs within this framework
• Normatively – they may approach these questions
normatively and evolve systematic and coherent plan
whereby a human way live
• Analytically – they may seek to analyze other philosophical
approaches critically and to make comparisons.– clarify the
concept and to present evidence, and finally they may go so
far with critical analysis that language analysis and semantics
will come to seem their primary task.
 Philosophy: Areas of Study
• Epistemology: the study of the nature of
knowledge
• Metaphysics: the study of the nature of
reality
• - Ontology: the study of the nature of being
• - Cosmology: the study of the nature of the
universe
• - Theology: the study of the nature of God
 Philosophy: Areas of Study
• Axiology: the study of the nature of value
• - Ethics: the study of the nature of good
• - Aesthetics: the study of the nature of beauty
• - Politics: the study of the nature of the
common good
 METAPHYSICS
• Metaphysics – the ultimate nature of reality –
distinguishes between the real and unreal
• Ontology – branch of metaphysics; that deals
with reality related to humans and ”being” –
Does being involve only mind or mind and
body?
• Metaphysics Ontology
- matter -- body
- idea. -- mind
Ontology: Nature of Mind & Body
• The relationship between mind and body is critical to
understanding the text

• - Relationship between mind and body changes over time

• - Relationship of sport is directly related to the value of the

body in a given culture
. The more important the body is, the more central sport is
. The more important the mind the less central sport is
 Definitions: Sport, Play & Game
• Sport
• - From French (de )s) porter and Latin
deportare “Amusing oneself”
• - Modern interpretation: encompasses
competition in numerous forms
• A working definition of sport involves play
and games
 Definitions: Sport, Play & Game
• Game
• A play activity which has explicit rules,
specified or understood goals … , the element
of opposition or contest, recognizable
boundaries in time and sometimes in space,
and a sequence of actions which is essentially
“ repeatable” every time the game is played
 Sport: Working Definition
• Sport … a playful physical activity that has:
• Continuity (longevity)
• Division of roles
• Dynamic interaction with an audience
• A supporting sport establishment
 SPORT
Pre-Modern Modern
• Organization • Organization
- Non-existence or Informa - Forma
- Arrange directly or - Differentiate at local,
indirectly regional, and national levels
• Rules • Rules
- simple, unwritten - formal, standard, written
- based on local - rational and overseen by
customs/traditions an organization
 SPORT
Pre-Modern Modern
• Competition • Competition
- Locally meaningful - national & international
• Roles -- Specialists • Roles -- Specialists
- loose distinction among - distinction between
players/spectators players/spectators
 SPORT
Pre-Modern Modern
• Public information • Public information
- limited. Local, oral - Regular: in local & national
• Stats/record mediums
- nonexistent, perhaps • Stats/record
anecdotal - kept regularly
- important measures of
achievement
 Classical Western Philosophies
• The mind/body relationship determines much
of what is taught and how it is taught in
physical education
• Platonic and Descartes' rationalism
- Have in common the view that the mind and
body are separate distinct entities.
Hobbes’ empiricism: argues that there is only
thematerial world and physical bodies in it.
 From Dualism to Monism
• Twentieth-century philosophies try to
reconcile mind and body
• Monist philosophies: view humans as an
integrated whole
- Mind and body are not separate
Knowledge exists in the entire person
- Focus is not on the nature of a person, but
how that person experiences reality
 Twentieth Century Monistic
Philosophy
• Pragmatism – one of the first to reject
dualism
- Pragmatists argue that experience, and
therefore the body, is where one begins to
come to know the reality
-- Pragmatists also argue that man is an
embodied entity (mind and body are
integrated)
 Existentialism
• Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
• Argued the existence of God
• Religion is useless if we “reason” our way
back to God
• Three stages of life experience: Aesthetic,
Ethical, Religious
• Some progress through stages, others remain
in the first stage forever
 Existentialism
• The third stage is superior
• All three stages reflect the attempt to win
salvation and achieve satisfaction or “life’s
greatest good”
• Was an existentialist because of emphasis
 Phenomenology
• Emphasizes Epistemology
• - Body accesses world/knowledge (instrument)
• - Body has inherent meaning
• - Body is not the enemy of reason/mind
• Emphasizes Experience
• - Meaning not explained by mind or senses alone –
must be LIVED
• - Awareness and meaning associated with
movement
Phenomenology and Existentialism
• Both promote subjective experiences that enhance
life
• Promote movement and experiences within
• Experience is where one comes to know reality
Writing report