One of the most pressing points in the philosophy of sport is the question of a definition of sport. Approaches towards sport vary based on a paradigm and position of a particular author. This article attempts to analyse and critically evaluates a recent definition of sport presented by Jim Parry in the context of argument that e-sports are not sports. Despite some innovations, his conclusions are in many ways traditional and build on the previous positions. His research, rooted in the (...) conceptual analysis, starts with a stipulation that sport is paradigmatically Olympic sport. He defines it then as an ‘institutionalised, rule-governed contest of human physical skill’ i.e., identifies six necessary elements of sport: human (not animals), physical (not chess), skill (not jogging), contest (not mountaineering), rule-governed (not ‘field sports’), institutionalized (not hula-hooping). Our claim is that this definition, despite its methodological clarity, is not accurate and does not sufficiently represent sport outside the Olympic context. First, to say for something to be a sport it is necessary to be a contest leads to a narrow concept of sport. Secondly, Parry’s account lacks the emphasis on game and play-like structures that are inherently present in sport (even in the Olympic sport), namely non-necessity, non-ordinariness, arbitrariness and gratuitousness. We try to direct the attention precisely on these structures and offer an alternative account of sport understood as a modern ‘hard core’ sport that nevertheless reaches important congruences with Parry’s definition. The originality of this contribution lies in presenting the essential qualities of modern ‘hard core’ sports, which, although sometimes hidden in the modern emphasis on high level performances, competition, and results, play an important role in the question how sport ought to be played and approached. (shrink)

Over the past several years, I have been arguing that nature sports such as surfing, backcountry skiing, and mountaineering are best described as sports in which athletes interact dynamically with natural features rather than compete with other humans. This article is part of a larger attempt to trace the implications of that view. Specifically, I consider the relationship between nature sports and competition. To this purpose, I address three separate, but related topics: First, I reply to Leslie Howe’s article, ‘On (...) Competing Against Oneself, Or, I Need to Get a Different Voice in My Head’, in which she argues that there is a version of self-competition that is central to nature sports. Second, I argue that adapting nature sports to fit into formal competitive frameworks is problematic because, when we do so, the focus shifts from athletes interacting with natural features to athletes using natural features to outdo other athletes. And third, I argue that nature sports may seem competitive because the in.. (shrink)

Sports such as surfing, mountaineering, and backcountry skiing are often grouped together. But what exactly it is that they share, and the implications of their common characteristics, have not been explained clearly. I refer to such sports as ‘nature sports’ and argue that they share a fundamental structure in which human beings and features of the natural world are brought together. The principal claim I make is that nature sports are those sports in which a particular natural feature, or combination (...) of natural features, plays at least one of the primary roles that human competitors or partners play in traditional or standard sports. This article is a detailed explanation of that claim. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to use Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology for purposes of describing central features of competition. While not accepting all theoretical aspects of this methodology, I employ its central strategies to see how well it works. In carrying out the phenomenological analysis, I examine noetic and noematic correlates of competitive projects including the factors of plurality, normativity, disputation, temporality, and comparability. I finish by reviewing three forms of pseudo or defective competition. I conclude that eidetic analyses like the (...) one produced in this essay have utility in spite of their significant limitations. (shrink)

The old adage has two people out hiking who run into a bear. One starts running while the other asks ‘why are you running? You can’t outrun a bear’. To which the other responds, ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you’. Hiking/trekking is not typically a competitive endeavor characterized by contests but, like many endeavors/pursuits/activities, competition can be injected into it; thereby sportifying it. Swimming is a sport (under certain conditions). At the same time, (...) it is also a recreational activity and a form of physical exercise; likewise angling/fishing, climbing, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, kayaking, rowing, surfing, et al. The categorization of many activities under the umbrella of sport has it uses to understand the wider concept of what is sport, but the purpose of why one engages in ‘physical activities taking place in a natural environment’ can sometimes be more important than whether some activities might or might not qualify to be classified under the rubric of sports at all. Indicators exist to show whether participants are actually engaged toward—driven in a way, even—to further their skills in their focused activity (if it is a focused activity at all!––i.e. a ‘serious leisure’ pursuit or just a recreational hobby). From this perspective (of looking at sport-like and sporting activities in other than Olympic-style forms) this paper explores the differentiations between sport (including nature sport) contests, nature challenge activities (NCAs) and outdoor recreation from the standpoint of the most relevant factors that distinguish them: rules, skill development, purpose for engaging in them. This paper also makes the case that differentiating participants in the above activities by purpose (as either nature challenge recreationalists or nature sport devotees) has utility; to better help research into people’s engagement in physical activities in natural environments. (shrink)

The climb of Gasherbrum IV’s (7,925 m) ‘Shining Wall’ in 1985 by Voytek Kurtyka and Robert Schauer is considered one of the greatest mountaineering achievements in the twentieth century, even though the two climbers did not reach the summit. The article explores three ways of understanding mountaineering without the objective of reaching the summit. I start with a game-playing approach and then a view on mountaineering that takes its inspiration from deep ecology and argue that while both have the potential (...) for explaining important aspects of mountaineering, neither will fully account for the value of climbing mountains without summiting. Finally, I argue that we can supplement either of these two views with a radically different way of understanding mountaineering, which involves creating and appreciating a work of art. (shrink)

Two prevalent assumptions in the philosophy of sport literature are that all sports are games and that all games are contests, meant to determine who is the better at the skills definitive of the sport. If these are correct, it would follow that all sports are contests and that a range of sporting activities, including nature sports, are not in fact sports at all. This paper first confronts the notion that sport and games must seek to resolve skill superiority through (...) consideration of sport activities that have no such aim. The reduction of sport to game is also shown to be untenable and due to misunderstanding the point of sport activities, specifically, why people engage in them. This leads to reconsideration of the dominance of an instrumental conception of sport and the pursuit of excellence as anthropomaximising efficiency. The Norwegian tradition of frilutsliv is explored as a counterpoint to both conventional and nature sport. (shrink)

This paper responds to Kevin Krein’s claim in that the particular value of nature sports over traditional ones is that they offer intensity of sport experience in dynamic interaction between an athlete and natural features. He denies that this intensity is derived from competitive conflict of individuals and denies that nature sport derives its value from internal conflict within the athlete who carries out the activity. This paper responds directly to Krein by analysing ‘intensity’ in sport in terms of the (...) relationship between attention and reflection and the interaction between self and environment. I reply directly to Krein’s rejection of self-competition as based on a mischaracterisation of internal struggle and argue that the weighing of incompatible desires does not involve a fragmented self. I argue that the unique intensity to which Krein refers is strongly comparable to the Kantian conception of the sublime and explore how sublime experience fits Krein’s account and outline some serious problems that such an ideal of experience poses for nature sport. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new way of defining sport that I call a ‘core-periphery’ model. According to a core-periphery model, sport comes in degrees – what I refer to as ‘sport-likeness’ – and the aim of the philosopher of sport is to chart those dimensions along which an activity can be more or less a sport. By introducing the concept of sport-likeness, the core-periphery model complicates the picture of what is or is not a sport and encourages philosophers (...) interested in defining sport to engage with the social sciences in exploring the extension of the term sport in common usage. In this paper I present the results of a small survey about attitudes to sport, and use it to illustrate how a core-periphery definition of sport would proceed. (shrink)