On practising in sport: towards an ascetological understanding of sport

Abstract

Within the philosophy of sport, the phenomenon of practising (askēsis) has received very little attention, whereas other related aspects of sport such as excellence (aretē) and competition (agon) have been subjected to many and thorough studies. This essay will attempt to clarify this particular phenomenon of practising through the notion of athletic ascetics, which will be analysed as a special variant of askēsis. Drawing especially on Foucault’s lectures on ascetics in ancient philosophy and Sloterdijk’s anthropology of the practising life, the essay outlines and interrogates the potential relevance of an ascetological understanding of sport. Through both descriptive and normative analysis, it is argued that athletic ascetics can refine our understanding of performance in sport and comprise an embodied account of the formative aspect of ethics, with implications for ethical considerations related to performance enhancement.

Keywords:

• Askēsis
• Practising
• ethics
• testing
• resilience
• Stoicism

Acknowledgements

The perspective presented in this essay has been developed as part of a Nordic research network on ‘Human Practising’. Discussions with colleagues in this network have contributed to the analyses. I am also thankful to Scott Kretchmar and Paul Gaffney, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for thoughtful comments and suggestions that helped improve the essay.

Notes

1. See Hadot (1995, 82, 128) and Foucault (2005, 250) for a discussion of Christian asceticism.

2. In his analyses of askēsis Foucault drew on ancient philosophy and in particular Roman Stoicism, with references to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (2006), Musonius Rufus’ Reliquiae (1905), Epictetus’ Discourses (1925, 1928) and Seneca’s On Benefits (2011).

3. See also Aggerholm (2015b, 95–96) for a phenomenological analysis of this.