Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus.

Martin Buber believed that life's deepest truth lies in human relationships. In this classic work he puts this belief into practice, applying it to the concrete problems of contemporary society.

The paper argues that authentic human selfhood requires the adequate integration of bodily awareness into the self-conception of self, and that a highly significant contributor to this process is athletic activity (sports). The role of athletics in self-integration is examined from phenomenological and moral-political standpoints, and it is argued that, although athletic activity's inherent goal of realizing ontological unity through embodied intentionality is ideally suited to this task, the organization of sport too frequently thwarts this purpose, either through exclusion of (...) potential athletes or exploitation of committed participants. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent.

In the mid twentieth century the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asserted that games are indefinable; there are no common threads that link them all. "Nonsense," says the sensible Bernard Suits: "playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." The short book Suits wrote demonstrating precisely that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is delightful. Suits not only argues that games can be meaningfully defined; he also suggests that playing games is a central (...) part of the ideal of human existence, so games belong at the heart of any vision of Utopia. Originally published in 1978, The Grasshopper is now re-issued with a new introduction by Thomas Hurka and with additional material (much of it previously unpublished) by the author, in which he expands on the ideas put forward in The Grasshopper and answers some questions that have been raised by critics. (shrink)

The work which this author planned to call The Prose of the World, or Introduction to the Prose of the World, is unfinished.

At the time of his death in May 1961, Maurice Merleau-Ponty held the chair of Philosophy at the College de France. Together with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, he was cofounder of the successful and influential review Les Temps Modernes. However, after Merleau-Ponty's two studies of Marxist theory and practice (Humanisme et Terreur and Les Aventures de la Dialectique), he alienated both orthodox Marxists and "mandarins of the left" such as Sartre and de Beauvoir. Perhaps his most lasting contribution (...) to the interpretation of human existence was his formulation of a positive philosophical approach to psychology the foundations of which were clearly outlined in The Structure of Behavior and later more fully developed in Phenomenology of Perception. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION HOW DIFFERENT — HOW DOWNRIGHT INCONGRUOUS — the philosophical essays and the ad hoc, primarily political observations which make up this volume ...

Many philosophers of sport maintain that athletics can contribute to our understanding of ourselves and the environments in which we live. It may be relatively easy to offer accounts of how athletes might acquire self-knowledge through sport; however, it is far more difficult to see how sport could add to the general understanding of human individuals, cultural frameworks or the material world. The study of sport as a way of worldmaking is helpful in understanding how sport can contribute to the (...) pursuit of knowledge in such areas. The position I present is based on arguments made by Gunter Gebauer in his 1993 presidential address to the Philosophic Society for the Study of Sport, 'Sport, theater, and ritual: Three ways of worldmaking', and in my explanation and interpretation of Gebauer's position, I rely heavily on Nelson Goodman's Ways of worldmaking . Gebauer's work is focused on traditional sports, and he argues that such sports create worlds that represent fundamental attitudes and values of the cultures that produce them. I argue that alternative sports are well suited to create new and original worlds that instantiate value systems in opposition to mainstream culture. I argue further that nature sports such as climbing and surfing represent relationships between humans and natural features, and that such sports, as a subcategory of alternative sports, are in a position to create new and original frameworks that can help us to better comprehend our relationships with natural environments. (shrink)

Bodily movement has become an interesting topic in recent philosophy, both in analytic and phenomenological versions. Philosophy from Descartes to Kant defined the human being as a mental subject in a material body. This mechanistic attitude toward the body still lingers on in many studies of motor learning and control. The article shows how alternative philosophical views can give a better understanding of bodily movement. The article starts with Heidegger's contribution to overcoming the subject-object dichotomy and his new understanding of (...) the primacy of the practical involvement with the surrounding world. Heidegger, however, in many ways neglected the role of the human body. Merleau-Ponty took a huge step forward when he focused on the bodily intentionality of our interaction with the world. The next step was taken by Samuel Todes who presented a better understanding of how we are bodily oriented in space. After having seen how the body is oriented outward towards the environment it is proper that the final part of this article goes inward toward the role of bodily awareness and the role of proprioception in human movement. The goal of the presentation is to contribute to a better understanding of what goes on in sport. The article therefore uses examples from sport, especially football, to show the relevance of the new insights for sport studies. (shrink)

(2001). Fruits, Apples, and Category Mistakes: On Sport, Games, and Play. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport: Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 151-159. doi: 10.1080/00948705.2001.9714610.

These lectures are the first extensive application of Husserl's newly developed genetic phenomenology to perceptual experience & to the way in which it is connected to judgments & cognition. Students of phenomenology will find this work indispensable.