Can Sport Exist Without Aggression? On a Certain Thought Experiment by Stanisław Lem

The main objective of the paper is to present and analyse a thought experiment concerning the existence and specifi city of sport in a society completely devoid of aggression. The experiment comes from the novel Return from the Stars by Stanisław Lem, Polish writer and thinker. The article provides an explanation why sports, and boxing in particular, were included in Lem’s refl ections on the problem of evil and attempts to “improve the world”. Lem’s vision of sport in a society subjected to betrization – a procedure that eliminates aggression – is presented and commented on from the perspective of the contemporary philosophy of sport. The presented analysis of Lem’s considerations focuses on their relationships with currently debated issues. An illustration of this thread of considerations is tchoukball – a sport designed to minimise players’s aggression.

Education and Corporeality: Contributions from the Philosophy of Sport

Corporeality is a subject strongly present in educational discussion nowadays. The purpose of this paper is to present an outline of issues we may address from the philosophy of sport that could foster a fruitful dialogue with the philosophy of education. It is understood that the philosophy of education can benefit from reflections on corporeality and human movement, namely from sports and games. Initially, the article introduces the philosophy of sport as a field of study that addresses reflections on human movement from sports and games. They highlight elements that are not specific to such practices and foster reflexions on different areas. Afterwards, it explores the experience of corporeality and the dialogical dimension of human movement based on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. Human movement indicates a unique way of being communicative. Finally, it presents some reflections on playing games as an experience that helps us think about our relationships with others and the environment. From this perspective it is possible to seek some critical features to understand education in the experience of human movement, namely from playing games, such as experience, dialogue, and expressiveness. Thoughts on human movements may reinforce the role corporeality plays in education as a collective experience and the recognition of the body's expressive potential in constructing knowledge.

Life is an Adventure: From Action Theory to Action

Myles Brand was the fourth President of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This essay tracks the progression of Brand's early work in action theory, his theoretical turn to the moral role of education, and finally his legacy of principled leadership on issues of ethics and social justice within intercollegiate athletics during what I refer to as "The Brand Era." I show that Brand's writings and speeches from 1970 through 2002 offer a foundation for the conceptual strategies employed in meeting NCAA challenges from 2003 through 2009. His innovative conceptualization of the applied philosophy of sport moved him forward from action theory into action.

Could Gamification Present a Significant Topic for the Philosophy of Sport?

This article focuses on the phenomenon of gamification in the context of the philosophy of sport. Gamification is usually understood as a process of adding games or game-like elements to some activity in order to encourage participation. Gamification takes the techniques that game designers use to engage players and applies them to motivate people in different spheres of our lives.With the rapid development of cyber games and the penetrating everyday lives of many young people, gamification becomes an important issue for different fields of study. In economic discourse, it is often used as a business strategy. For pedagogy, it can present an educational method or teaching instrument, and psychologists examine gamification as a motivational method.In the context of sports, gamification provides a possibility for various empirical sociological studies. However, the sociological investigations could be supported by studies of philosophical backgrounds of gamification applied in the field of sports. Some authors speak about the concept of meaningful gamification. They are mostly explained more from psychological positions (exploring the theories of motivation etc.) than from the philosophical ones.Virtuality and the virtual worlds connected with cyberspace (from which gamification comes) are often understood as the opposite of reality (or escape from reality). Thus, it could be taken as something inauthentic. Badges and points present "pure" instruments that could strengthen the instrumental approach to the world. However, is it as simple?In the philosophical discourse, we could examine gamification from a range of different positions. This article assesses two possible ways in terms of how to describe and discuss gamification in the philosophical discourse. One is the topic of game and play based on the work of Johan Huizinga. The other is the concept of authenticity and instrumentality based on Martin Heidegger, Jan Patočka, and Hans-Georg Gadamer.It appears probable that gamification in sport is rapidly spreading, and it will be examined within different empirical studies more and more. This article argues that this phenomenon is also as an interesting topic for the philosophy of sport.

The Use of Exergames in Motor Education Processes for School-Aged Children: A Systematic Review and Epistemic Diagnosis

This study aimed to diagnose the current state of knowledge about the use of exergames in the motor education processes of school-aged children. We conducted a systematic review following the PRISMA recommendations. Web of Science, MedLine (via PubMed), ScienceDirect, and Scopus databases were searched in December 2020 with the terms “exergames”, “motor education”, and “children”. We used the Jadad scale and the Systematization for Research Approaches in Sports Sciences instrument to evaluate the surveyed material. Seventeen articles met the inclusion criteria. We observed that: 1) the use of exergames by children can increase the motor skills of locomotion and control of objects, in addition to the levels of physical fitness, but the magnitude and duration of these increments remain inconclusive; 2) the articles exhibited theoretical and methodological weaknesses; 3) empirical-experimental investigations centered on intervention studies are hegemonic; 4) the theories of Sports Training, Didactics, and Human Movement underlie the studies, referring to an interdisciplinary crossing between Sport Psychology, Sport Pedagogy, Sport and Performance, and Sport and Health; 4) researches with alternative designs are necessary; 5) we recommend to approach this issue according to other perspectives, such as Biomechanics applied to Sport, Sports Medicine, Sociology of Sport, and Philosophy of Sport.

How did William J. Morgan shape the ethics of sport?

In this paper, I will argue that William J. Morgan had a decisive role and influence in the shaping of contours and field divisions of the ethics of sport, which is a sub-discipline of the philosophy of sport. In the first part, I will use six Morgan’s edited anthologies in philosophy (1979, 1987, 1995) and ethics of sport (2001, 2007, 2017) to show that in them, Morgan develops and uses a fourfold division of the fields of the ethics of sport – (1) competition and fair play, (2) human enhancements, (3) gender issues, and (4) social issues. I will also argue that these four fields of Morgan’s division have become largely accepted within the discipline as a sort of standard. To provide the rationale for the claim, I will take seven different editions of the ethics of sport, which were most considered and accepted in the field (Parry & McNamee; R. Simon; J. Boxill; McNamee; Simon, Torres & Hager). I will show that in them basically the same field division has been used, while the few detected differences are just placing more emphasis on specific topics or issues from Morgan’s earlier fourfold division. Moreover, I will use different articles on the topic from sports-philosophical literature to support my claims even further. Also, I will make a claim that the origin of Morgan’s division, as well as its strength, derives from the discipline itself or the course of the development that discipline has taken from the beginning. In the end of this part, I will deal with possible anticipated objections. In the final part, I will provide a critical overview of the Morgan’s division, point out detected problems and provide possible solutions.

Challenges, Achievements, and Uncertainties: The Philosophy of Sport Since the 1980s

The philosophy of sport has flourished in some ways and struggled in others since the publication of George Brooks’s anthology Perspectives on the Academic Discipline of Physical Education: A Tribute to G. Lawrence Rarick in 1981. In this article, the authors trace challenges faced by the philosophy of sport, discuss trends and hot topics, analyze opportunities for integrations with other subdisciplines, and speculate on the current issues in and the future of the philosophy of sport. While they conclude that the philosophy of sport’s prospect within kinesiology is uncertain and that it has work to do, they also conclude that this subdiscipline is uniquely positioned to provide kinesiology with the clarity and unity of purpose it needs.