Nature sports include pursuits such as paragliding, white-water kayaking, free diving, mountaineering, and surfing. Participants in nature sports interact with geographical features (e.g. mountains, rivers, oceans, snow fields, ice sheets, caves, rock faces) as well as the dynamic forces that produce them (e.g. gravity, waves, thermal currents, flowing water, wind, rain, sun). In this article, I engage a representational approach to analyze how participants in nature sports interact with nature. Anthropocentric representations privilege participants’ interests, wants, desires, and ends; they typically (...) refer to claims of conquest/achievement in nature, or praise nature for its therapeutic qualities. In contradistinction, ecocentric representations recognize humankind as one entity in an interdependent world that comprises all living organisms and the geological processes and geomorphological features that sustain them. Ecocentric representations of nature sports highlight networks of participants and landforms that help preserve a balance between people and the environment. Yet, notwithstanding the allure of ecocentric representations, especially in the wake of evidence that human-induced greenhouse gases are predisposing environmental calamities, there is a substantial gap between the ontological concepts and categories of ecocentrism and lived sporting experiences and practices in nature. (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)

This article addresses the question whether skiing as a nature sport enables practitioners to develop a rapport with nature, or rather estranges and insulates them from their mountainous ambiance. To address this question, I analyse a recent skiing movie from a psychoanalytical perspective and from a neuro-scientific perspective. I conclude that Jean-Paul Sartre’s classical but egocentric account of his skiing experiences disavows the technicity involved in contemporary skiing as a sportive practice for the affluent masses, which actually represents an urbanisation (...) of the sublime, symptomatic for the current era. (shrink)

The conclusion of this paper will be that e-sports are not sports. I begin by offering a stipulation and a definition. I stipulate that what I have in mind, when thinking about the concept of sport, is ‘Olympic’ sport. And I define an Olympic Sport as an institutionalised, rule-governed contest of human physical skill. The justification for the stipulation lies partly in that it is uncontroversial. Whatever else people might think of as sport, no-one denies that Olympic Sport is sport. (...) This seeks to ensure that those who might wish to dispute my conclusion might stay with the argument at least for as long as possible. Secondly, the justification for the stipulation lies partly in its normativity—I have chosen an Olympic conception of sport just because it seems to me to offer some kind of desirable version of what sport is and might become. Thirdly, I give examples which show how prominent promoters of e-sports agree with my stipulation, as evidenced by their strenuous attempts to comply with it i... (shrink)

Mental representation has long been central to standard accounts of action and cognition generally, and in the context of sport. We argue for an enactive and embodied account that rejects the idea that representation is necessary for cognition, and posit instead that cognition arises, or is enacted, in certain types of interactions between organisms and their environment. More specifically, we argue that enactive theories explain some kinds of high-level cognition, those that underlie some of the best performances in sport and (...) similar practices (dance, martial arts), better than representational accounts. Flow and mushin (mindfully fluid awareness) are explained enactively to this end. This results in a mutually beneficial analysis where enactivism offers theoretical and practical advantages as an explanation of high performance in sports, while the latter validates enactivism. (shrink)

This is a book symposium on Kevin Krein’s Philosophy and Nature Sports. Gunnar Breivik, Jim Parry and Irena Martínková, and Rebekah Humphreys provide critical commentary on the text. The critical comments are followed by a response from Krein. The discussion covers a broad range of topics. These include the definition of “sport,” comparisons between nature sports and friluftsliv, the role of risk in nature sports, the experience of flow and the sublime in nature sports, and the understanding of nature. Krein (...) argues, as he does in the book and elsewhere, that nature sports provide a framework that facilitates intimate and meaningful interactions with nature. He argues further that the discussion included here shows how deeply our understanding of nature, and our understanding of nature sports, influence both our experiences within those sports and our broader experience of the world. (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)

Freeride skiing is the fastest-growing sector of the skiing industry, but there are no studies analyzing its nature and values. First, we provide descriptions of freeride skiing and competitive freeride skiing, trying to analyzing the nature of these activities in comparison and contrast with conceptions of traditional sport and nature sport. Whilst freeride skiing must be seen in some sense as a nature sport, competitive freeride skiing is best seen within the category of traditional sport. However, these ‘new’ sports raise (...) questions about the adequacy of our current categories, leading us to our second task, which was to identify and discuss the values of freeride skiing. We identify freedom and creativity as primary values, which lead to a greater rapport with nature, and a greater attention to risk, danger and safety, as concomitant values. Finally, we briefly indicate further values of the activity, such as responsibility, community and preservation of the practice. (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)

ABSTRACTSince the 1960s environmental problems have increasingly been on the agenda in Western countries. Global warming and climate change have increased concerns among scientists, politicians and the general population. While both elite sport and mass sport are part of the consumer culture that leads to ecological problems, sport philosophers, with few exceptions, have not discussed what an ecologically acceptable sport would look like. My goal in this article is to present a radical model of ecological sport based on Arne Naess’s (...) version of deep ecology called ecosophyT. After outlining the Naessian ecocentric view of biospheric egalitarianism I present the consequences for sport and physical activities. I also give examples from Arne Naess’s own practice of sport which was guided by the principle ‘Richness in ends, simplicity in means!’ I discuss whether Naessian deep ecological sport is what we will all end up with after the ecocatastrophe or whether it can be an inspiring ideal for many of us right now. (shrink)

In this article, I will examine the role of risk in the risky nature sports. Risky nature sports are identified as nature sports where participants may reckon with the possibility of severe injury or death if things go wrong. The first part of the article identifies some evolutionary, historical, and conceptual characteristics of nature sports and risk. In the second part of the article, I discuss the concept of risk and its meaning in risky nature sports. Additionally, I address questions (...) concerning the moral tone and context of risk-taking. In most academic disciplines, risk is typically understood as something negative that should always be avoided. But risk also includes positive possibilities, which may, such as in risk sports, outweigh the negative or can even be inherently positive and a value in itself. In the third part, I discuss how important risk is in nature sports. Is it a defining core or more peripheral? This leads to the question of the value. Does the risk element add to the value of the sport? I finally discuss how risk sports can be meaningful parts of the participants’ lives. (shrink)

The increasing global warming and the loss of biodiversity should concern us all. Some feel that outdoor activities, which take place in natural surroundings, should have a special obligation to ch...