Sport: An Historical Phenomenology

Philosophy ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 68 (265) ◽  
pp. 343-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Skillen
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Common Culture ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Historical Phenomenology ◽  
Human Excellence

Sport often seems to teeter on the edge, on one side of the entertainment industry, on the other of cheating violent aggression: from a make-believe simulacrum of serious play to a nasty chemically enhanced descent into a Hobbesian state of nature. Such perversions lend credibility to reductive views of sport itself as a metonymic feature of capitalism. But that sport as entertainment means fixing it to produce exciting outcomes and amplifying capacities to superhuman proportions, while sport as aggression means treating rules as mere obstacles to brute dominance, shows how far we in fact are from these abysses, even in the days of the Coca Cola/Nike Olympics, Vinny Jones and cricket sledging. In this essay, I try to delineate through history— from Homer to … Gomer?—a common culture of sport and sportsmanship that, with its excesses and perversions, continues to operate as one, albeit complex, ideal of human excellence.

Epidemics as Leisure Killers: The Transformation of Japan’s Entertainment Industry in the Second Half of the 19th Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-217
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Disorganization ◽  
The Other ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The 19Th Century

Among the various human attitudes toward a pandemic, along with fear, despair and anger, there is also an urge to praise the catastrophe or imbue it with some sort of hope. In 2020 such hopes were voiced in the stream of all the other COVID-19 reactions and interpretations in the form of predictions of imminent social, political or economic changes that may or must be brought on by the pandemic, or as calls to “rise above” the common human sentiment and see the pandemic as some sort of cruel-but-necessary bitter pill to cure human depravity or social disorganization. Is it really possible for a plague of any kind to be considered a relief? Or perhaps a just punishment? In order to assess the validity of such interpretations, this paper considers the artistic reactions to the pandemics of the past, specifically the images of the plague from Alexander Pushkin’s play Feast During the Plague, Antonin Artaud’s essay “The Theatre and the Plague” and Albert Camus’s novel The Plague. These works in different ways explore an attitude in which a plague can be praised in some respect. The plague can be a means of self-overcoming and purification for both an individual and for society. At the same time, Pushkin and Camus, each in his own way and by different means, show the illusory nature of that attitude. A mass catastrophe can reveal the resources already present in humankind, but it does not help either the individual or the society to progress.

scholarly journals Markets: Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Edelman
Keyword(s):  
American Culture ◽  
Red Light ◽  
Consumption Patterns ◽  
The Other ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Internet Pornography ◽  
Similar Content ◽  
Online Entertainment ◽  
Legal Barriers

This paper studies the adult online entertainment industry, particularly the consumption side of the market. In particular, it focuses on the demographics and consumption patterns of those who subscribe to adult entertainment websites. On the surface, this business would seem to face a number of obstacles. Regulatory and legal barriers have already been mentioned. In addition, those charging for access to adult entertainment face competition from similar content available without a fee. In the context of adult entertainment, free access offers consumers an extra benefit: online payments tend to create records documenting the fact of a customer's purchase; consumers of free content may feel more confident that their purchases will remain confidential. More broadly, measured levels of religiosity in American are high. On the other hand, social critics often argue that the rise of Internet pornography is contributing to a coarsening of American culture. Do consumption patterns of online adult entertainment reveal two separate Americas? Or is the consumption of online adult entertainment widespread, regardless of legal barriers, potential for embarrassment, and even religious conviction?

Hobbes's State of Nature: A Modern Bayesian Game-Theoretic Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUN CHUNG
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Bayesian Game ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model

ABSTRACT:Hobbes's own justification for the existence of governments relies on the assumption that without a government our lives in the state of nature would result in a state of war of every man against every man. Many contemporary scholars have tried to explain why universal war is unavoidable in Hobbes's state of nature by utilizing modern game theory. However, most game-theoretic models that have been presented so far do not accurately capture what Hobbes deems to be the primary cause of conflict in the state of nature—namely, uncertainty, rather than people's egoistic psychology. Therefore, I claim that any game-theoretic model that does not incorporate uncertainty into the picture is the wrong model. In this paper, I use Bayesian game theory to show how universal conflict can break out in the state of nature—even when the majority of the population would strictly prefer to cooperate and seek peace with other people—due to uncertainty about what type of person the other player is. Along the way, I show that the valuation of one's own life is one of the central mechanisms that drives Hobbes's pessimistic conclusion.

Thomas Hobbes and the external relations of states

1979 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Forsyth
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
External Relations

Hobbes' conception of relations between states has attracted attention from two directions. Students of political theory who have focused on Hobbes have from time to time looked beyond their central preoccupations and noted briefly the relevance of his doctrine for the international arena. The external relations of Leviathan are for them on the fringe of Hobbes' theory. Students of international relations on the other hand invoke Hobbes' name frequently as a kind of shorthand for a particular approach to the international world, one that is also associated with Machiavelli, and usually called the ‘realist’ approach. By contrast with the political theorists, they tend to look from the outside into Hobbes’ theory and to ask whether and how far the ‘domestic’ situation of individuals in a Hobbesian state of nature bears an analogy with the ‘external’ situation of states in relationship to one another.

scholarly journals In varietate Concordia: two perspectives on the European values

Conatus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Liliya Leonidovna Sazonova
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The West ◽  
East European ◽  
Common Culture ◽  
Culture History ◽  
European Values ◽  
The Common ◽  
East West ◽  
The Eu

In the first chapter of the paper we elaborate on the attitude towards the Other in the European Union by discussing two adversative yet simultaneous processes taking place in the EU. The first tendency is a legacy from the centuries-lasting model of European unification against certain important Others. The second one refers to the aspiration of the supra-national European project to encourage in an unprecedented manner the co-existence with the otherness. We argue that this ambivalence results from the fact that the transformation of the attitude towards the otherness takes place with different tempo in the different social spheres.   In the second chapter we develop further the reflection on the EU attitude towards the Other by focusing on the East European Other. We discuss the normative and de facto application of the European values both in the West and in the East part of the continent.In the last chapter we articulate two separate discourses framing the European values. The first one refers to the essentialist approach looking for a metaphysical reasoning of their universality by developing the common culture, history and spirit rhetoric. The second reading of the European values presents them in a more postmodern and debatable way and offers a mechanism for reconciling the heterogenic East-West European society.

scholarly journals Voting in Three-Alternative Committees: An Experiment

Games ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Johanna M.M. Goertz ◽  
Kirill Chernomaz
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Unknown State ◽  
Small Committee ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Committee Election

We design an experiment to test how voters vote in a small committee election with three alternatives. Voters have common preferences that depend on an unknown state of nature. Each voter receives an imprecise private signal prior to the election and then casts a vote. The alternative with the most votes wins. We fix the number of voters in our experiment to be five and focus on differences in the information structure (prior and signal distributions). We test three different treatments (different prior and signal distributions) that pose different challenges for the voters. In one, simply voting for one’s signal is an equilibrium. In the other two, it is not. Despite the different levels of complexity for the voters, they come relatively close to the predicted strategies (that sometimes involve mixing). As a consequence, the efficiency of the decision is also relatively high and comes close to predicted levels. In one variation of the experiment, we calculate posterior beliefs for the subjects and post them. In another, we do not. Interestingly, the important findings do not change.

THE FIRST MAJOR CHALLENGE AGAINST THE BRITISH COLONIALISM BY THE NAGAS: 1879-1880 A CRITICAL APPRAISAL

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-31
Author(s):  
Talichuba Walling
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
The Other ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
The World

The Nagas since time immemorial were never under any foreign powers. They lived in a state of nature where any principality that ever encompassed them was rudimentary, unscathed and the purest that nature could provide them. Their primordial worlds had endured for generations until the modern century without being bothered and unaware of what was happening around them. British Colonialism had shaken the world entirely right to its core; altering every fundamental structures in it. Nagas however continued to live in a state of perpetual bliss on this side of the 'promised land'. Not before long, the ray of the British Empire inltrated into the Naga territory and disturbed their ethnic environment. What another considered as a convenient expansion of power; turn out to be the abrogation of existence for the other. In the light of this argument, we shall pursue in studying and observing the underlying factors that led to the Nagas challenging the powerful British authority over the Naga Hills, and the consequences that followed

Writing the Social Contradiction: Rousseau’s Literary Politics

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Beenstock
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Conformity ◽  
General Will ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Literary Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

This chapter explores Rousseau’s account of the tension between community and individual by examining the Second Discourse and the Social Contract on the one hand, and Julie on the other. In his political theory Rousseau defines the state of nature as a mere fantasy which belongs to an optative imagined past. In leaving the state of nature, people trade basic needs for decadent desires. Rousseau introduces the general will as a practical device for managing the asociability of the private will, which is driven mainly by appetite. To safeguard the general will from its wayward members, individuals must form a social contract which transforms them into sociable beings. In Julie Rousseau explores the sacrifices that individuals make in joining the general will, as Julie is torn between personal desire on the one hand and social conformity on the other. Rousseau’s literature suggests that the two are incompatible and thus ‘judges’ his philosophy, exploring the deathly outcome of contract. Rousseau’s use of literature to critique the social contract constitutes his major legacy to British Romantic writers.

Man is a Wolf to Man1

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Still
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The State ◽  
Fruit And Vegetables ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Natural Man

This focuses on Derrida’s analysis of the figure of the wolf in the first volume of The Beast and the Sovereign, particularly in La Fontaine’s fables (where the wolf can represent the sovereign as well as the outlaw) and in political philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, notably Hobbes’s De Cive and Rousseau’s Discourses. This is developed with reference to other texts of the period such as the Encyclopédie in which wolves are represented as man’s enemies, rivals for scarce resources, notably food. The wolf is typically evoked as solitary and hungry; for Hobbes he, like man in the state of nature, is dangerous. For Rousseau, on the other hand, both wolf and pre-social man are shy rather than violent, preferring flight to fight – and food is naturally abundant for natural man who would in any case prefer fruit and vegetables to meat. The politics of food and taste are critical both in the self-fulfilling prophecy that man will become a wolf to man, and in the extermination of wolves.

L.M. Singhvi

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-34
Author(s):  
Abhishek Manu Singhvi ◽  
Lokendra Malik
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Social Reformer ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Human Excellence

L.M. Singhvi was an eminent jurist, a distinguished parliamentarian, a renowned author, and a successful diplomat. He was the second longest serving Indian High Commissioner to England after Krishna Menon. A lawyer by profession, a professor by attitude, a politician by compulsion, a parliamentarian by choice, a researcher by nature, a gentleman by character, and a humanist by heart—each manifestation excelling the other, he graced many fields of human excellence for a long time. The creativity of a poet, the aesthetics of an art lover, the precision of a professional, the urge of a social reformer are innate elements of his being, which burst out at the slightest touch as flowers blossom in the spring. He was a born genius who left an indelible ...

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