(Analytic) Philosophy of Sport: at the Turn of the 20th to the 21st Century

Abstract

This article explores the philosophy of sport today, particularly its development within the analytic tradition. Within this subfield of philosophy—the philosophy of sport—various interpretations of sporting activity have emerged following Bernard Suits’s seminal work The Grasshopper (1978). These range from “sport conventionalism,” in its “reductive,” “deep,” or “ethical” variants, to “sport interpretivism” (or “broad internalism”), whose main version during the first decades of this century has been the “mutualist” approach. The debate is presented through the voices of its main interlocutors: W.J. Morgan, R.L. Simon, and J.S. Russell. In the end, the initially expository tone gives way to a more critical indication pointing toward the future of the debate.