A philosophy of sport - Steven Connor

While previous writing on the
philosophy of sport has tended to see sport as a kind of testing ground
for philosophical theories devised to deal with other kinds of
problems-of ethics, aesthetics, or logical categorization-here Steven
Connor offers a new philosophical understanding of sport in its own
terms. In order to define what sport essentially is and means, Connor
presents a complete grammar of sport, isolating and describing its
essential elements, including the characteristic spaces of sport, the
nature of sporting time, the importance of sporting objects like bats
and balls, the methods of movement in sport, the role of rules and
chance, and what it really means to cheat and to win.

Defined as games that involve bodily
exertion and exhaustion, sports simultaneously require constraint and
the ability to overcome it. Sport, argues Connor, is a fundamental
feature of modern humans. It is shown to be one of the most powerful
ways in which we negotiate the relationship between the human and
natural worlds. Encompassing a huge range of different sports, and
enlisting the help of Hegel, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Adorno,
Sartre, Ayer, Deleuze, and Serres, A Philosophy of Sport will inform, surprise, and delight thoughtful athletes and sporty philosophers alike.