My argument will proceed as follows. I will first sketch out the broad internalist case for pitching its normative account of sport in the abstract manner that following Dworkin’s lead in the philosophy of law its adherents insist upon. I will next show that the normative deficiencies in social conventions broad internalists uncover are indeed telling but misplaced since they hold only for what David Lewis famously called ‘coordinating’ conventions. I will then distinguish coordinating conventions from deep ones and make (...) my case not only for the normative salience of deep conventions but for their normative superiority over the abstract normative principles broad internalists champion. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential thinkers of the past 150 years and On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) is his most important work on ethics and politics. A polemical contribution to moral and political theory, it offers a critique of moral values and traces the historical evolution of concepts such as guilt, conscience, responsibility, law and justice. This is a revised and updated edition of one of the most successful volumes to appear in Cambridge Texts in the (...) History of Political Thought. Keith Ansell-Pearson has modified his introduction to Nietzsche's classic text, and Carol Diethe has incorporated a number of changes to the translation itself, reflecting the considerable advances in our understanding of Nietzsche in the twelve years since this edition first appeared. In this new guise the Cambridge Texts edition of Nietzsche's Genealogy should continue to enjoy widespread adoption, at both undergraduate and graduate level. (shrink)

This book presents a history of spiritual exercises from Socrates to early Christianity, an account of their decline in modern philosophy, and a discussion of ...

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to his (...) rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. On Benefits, written between 56 and 64 CE, is a treatise addressed to Seneca’s close friend Aebutius Liberalis. The longest of Seneca’s works dealing with a single subject—how to give and receive benefits and how to express gratitude appropriately—On Benefits is the only complete work on what we now call “gift exchange” to survive from antiquity. Benefits were of great personal significance to Seneca, who remarked in one of his later letters that philosophy teaches, above all else, to owe and repay benefits well. (shrink)

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their ...

Throughout his career, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche explored the concept of the will to power, interpreting it variously as a psychological, biological, and metaphysical principle. This posthumously produced volume, drawn from his unpublished notebooks, collects the nineteenth-century philosopher's thoughts on the force that drives humans toward achievement, dominance, and creative activity. Misunderstandings of Nietzsche's previous works compelled the author to attempt to express his doctrines in a more unequivocal form. These writings elucidate the principle that he held to be the essential (...) factor of all existence — the drive and energy to develop independently according to one's nature, rather than being dominated by outside forces. A work that both illuminates and extends our understanding of Nietzsche's earlier books, this volume offers reflections on art, morality, Christianity, nihilism, and other topics that provide absorbing glimpses into the mind of one of philosophy's great thinkers. (shrink)

Represents a selection from Nietzche's notebooks to find out what he wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, and the theory of knowledge, among others. Nietzsche's notebooks, kept by him during his most productive years, offer a fascinating glimpse into the workshop and mind of a great thinker, and compare favorably with the notebooks of Gide and Kafka, Camus and Wittgenstein. The Will to Power, compiled from the notebooks, is one of the most famous boooks of the philosophy. Here is the (...) first critical edition in any language. Down through the Nazi period The Will to Power was often mistakenly considered to be Nietzche's crowning systematic labor; since World War II it has frequently been denigrated. In fact, it represents a stunning selection from Nietzsche's notebooks, in a a topical arrangement that enables the reader to find what Nietzsche's wrote on a variety of subjects. Walter Kaufmann, in collaboration with R. J. Holilngdale, brings to this volume his unsurpassed skills as a Nietzsche translator and scholar. Professor Kaufmann has included an approximate date of each note. His running footnote commentary offers information needed to follow Nietzsche's train of thought, and indicates, among other things, which notes were eventually superseded by later formulations. The comprehensive index serves to guide the reader to the extraordinary riches of this book. (shrink)

This paper argues that human psychological resilience is a central virtue in sport and in human life generally. Despite its importance, it is an overlooked virtue in philosophy of sport and classical and contemporary virtue theory. The phenomenon of human resilience has received a great deal of attention recently in other quarters, however. There is a large and instructive empirical psychological literature on resilience, but connections to virtue theory are rarely drawn and there is no agreement about what the concept (...) refers to. This paper attempts to clarify the concept of resilience and explain how it fits into and supports a traditional Aristotelian conception of virtue. It shows how resilience figures centrally in sport and can extend and enrich our understanding of virtue and success in sport and of sport's internal values. The investigations into the nature of resilience in sport can also help us to understand better sport's contributions to human culture and well-being. (shrink)

'Why don’t young athletes in sport just quit?’ Starting with this question and drawing on existential philosophy, phenomenology and hermeneutics, Talent Development, Existential Philosophy and Sport seeks a deeper understanding of the experience of being a talented young sportsperson striving to become an elite athlete. -/- As an alternative to conventional approaches to talent development governed by a worldview of instrumental rationality, the book introduces key ideas from educational philosophy to describe talent development through the concept of elite-Bildung. It pursues (...) an existential understanding of developing in sport as a process of freedom, self-transcendence, striving for excellence and building up habits. -/- The book highlights a range of ambiguous and intriguing existential phenomena – most prominently wonder, question, expression, humour and repetition – and reveals an existential layer of meaning within talent development in sport, which can facilitate the process of becoming an elite athlete and give young athletes a number of reasons not to quit. -/- By deepening our understanding of performance and development in sport, and the process of becoming an elite player, this book is important reading for any serious student or researcher working in the philosophy of sport, sports coaching, sports development, sport psychology or applied sport science. (shrink)