Sports philosophy
Sports philosophy is a sub-area of sports science and summarizes various philosophical research directions that deal with the topic of sport and examine its nature, function and characteristics. This includes sports research from an ontological , historical-materialistic , socio-critical , action-analytical and structural- ethnological perspective. There are various overlaps with other sub-areas of sports science, especially sports sociology , sports psychology and sports ethics .
Origin and meaning of sport
The sport philosophy seeks u. a. also about the origin and meaning of sport. Sport has its origins in the evolution of life, when the ability to control one's own movement developed at will. Today sport fulfills the following functions, which at the same time give it its purpose:
- in top sport
- Presenting role models to the general public for top performance and resilience in the event of setbacks, which can be inspiring not only in the field of sport
- to strengthen identification with this region through the successes and even failures of individual athletes and clubs from their own region
- to promote the awareness of a region beyond this by reporting on sporting events
- Promote physiological and neurological knowledge that can be particularly noticeable in top-class sport (e.g. in the context of successes and failures and the release of messenger substances )
- in popular sport
- improve the physical fitness of the population through exercise and prevent diseases
- to promote the integration of immigrants through joint sporting experiences
- To create a sense of achievement / self-efficacy that can also have a motivating effect on other areas
- to train fair handling, especially in team sports and martial arts
So the sense of sport is not in winning itself, but in the effects that go beyond it. The preoccupation with sports philosophy helps the athlete to cope with defeat.
Equity of opportunity
When it comes to the admission of athletes with prostheses to competitions for non-disabled athletes, there are also philosophical questions regarding the consideration of possible advantages and disadvantages of prostheses. On the one hand, the inclusion of athletes with disabilities is to be promoted. On the other hand, there are ethical conflicts if the approval of beneficial prostheses gives incentives to induce physical limitations. Public discussions on this were held with the South African sprinter and Olympian Oscar Pistorius and the German athlete Markus Rehm . Sports-philosophical questions also arise in cases where top athletes have to accept disadvantages with existing sponsorship contracts when they are pregnant or whether intersex athletes can be required to lower their testosterone levels with medication so that they can be admitted to women's competitions. The latter was requested by the International Sports Court in 2019 from the intersex 800-meter runner Caster Semenya .
literature
- Herbert Haag (Ed.): Sportphilosophie - Ein Handbuch , Schorndorf 1996
- Volker Caysa : sport philosophy ; Reclam Leipzig, 1997, ISBN 9783379015783
- Elk Franke : Sports Philosophy in Germany after 1945 (available as PDF file )
- Volker Caysa : body utopias. A Philosophical Anthropology of Sport. ; Campus Verlag Frankfurt am Main / New York, 2003, ISBN 9783825812027
- Henning Eichberg : Bodily Democracy - Towards a Philosophy of Sport for All . London and New York: Routledge 2010
- Henning Eichberg: Do we need an existential philosophy of the railway? Why then a philosophy of sport? In: Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 8 (2014), 1, 77 - 84
- Interview with Prof. Dr. Joachim Bauer , "Unconscious Victory Inhibitions" - Effect of the Brain in Sport, FAZ online, March 7, 2013
Web links
- John William Devine, Francisco Javier Lopez Frias: Philosophy of Sport. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .