![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
Abstract
What, to borrow a theological phrase, are the marks of a truly holistic kinesiology department? In Kinesis and the Nature of the Human Person (2010), I examined the theoretical impact of Aristotle's definition of kinesis and Polanyi's theory of tacit knowledge on kinesiology. The intention here, however, is practical rather than theoretical. How would a holistic philosophy impact the day-to-day activities within the discipline of kinesiology? What tenets would a holistic department of kinesiology hold? What direction and aims would such a department have? Four areas of impact and reform are offered. First, kinesiologists should engage the humanities. A vibrant humanistic presence in the field will not only make kinesiology more holistic; it will give kinesiologists the tools to articulate a holistic understanding of the nature of the human person. Second, kinesiologists should recognize the importance of experience, practice, and apprenticeship within the field. Third, departments should embrace rather than shun specificity. Finally, kinesiologists are encouraged to acknowledge that a field dedicated to “physical activity” must require, engage in, and passionately profess the actual practice of “moving well.”
Keywords:
Notes
1. Insects for instance, due to their abundance, high nutritional content, and flavor, are on the menu across the globe (CitationDicke & Huis, 2011). However in the United States and much of the Western world the thought of ingesting insects is disgusting. Obviously the consumption of insects is an acquired taste, dependent not upon mere reason, but also upon culture.
2. 1253a19 refers to the Bekker numbers, a cross-translation reference marker for Aristotle's texts.
3. In turn, all of these cultural influences cross-pollinate with our biological inheritance. Genes and ideas are inseparably linked. Our biology limits and influences our choices. Our choices reform and guide our biology. For recent scientific support of this type of thinking see, CitationHedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, and Gabrieli, (2008), “Cultural Influences on Neural Substrates of Attentional Control,” Psychological Science, 19(1), pp. 12–17.
4. Nor should scientists see this call to reconciliation as a threat. Holism does not ignore or denigrate science. It does however boldly insist that a science built on the assumptions of materialism is incapable of adequately describing reality.
5. I would recommend a core history class that covers the broad range of historical engagement with sport and physical activity, as well as a core philosophy class that introduces basic philosophical concepts as well as some of the key philosophic dilemmas in the field.
6. This may be a function of “catch-22” logic. Because the humanities are considered unimportant, course offerings are thin and the courses themselves are often unimpressive. For example, many sport ethics classes are currently taught by people without any training in philosophy. This lack of quality and rigor is then used as evidence to justify the neglect of the humanities. The classes are soft because the subject matter is unimportant. The subject matter is unimportant because the classes are so soft.
7. This is not meant in any way to denigrate the vitally important role science has to play in the promotion of health. The emphatically pro-humanities tone found in this article is a function of the current state of kinesiology, in which the importance of the humanities is doubted on both theoretical and practical levels.
8. Religious dietary restrictions should readily come to mind, but so should the eating habits resulting from the ethical commitments (whether right or wrong) of hunters, vegans, and vegetarians.
9. A similar point is made by Pope CitationBenedict XVI (2007) in his recent Encyclical Spe Salvi. “To put it another way: the ambiguity of progress becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil—possibilities that formerly did not exist. We have all witnessed the way in which progress, in the wrong hands, can become and has indeed become a terrifying progress in evil. If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth (cf. Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.”
10. Even if a philosopher disagrees with the interpretation of the results in a given scientific paper, they must engage the data, methodology, or assumptions of the paper in order to critique it.
11. For it is only within a holistic framework that a department can accomplish two vital goals. First holism allows for pride in the profession, and second holism asserts the vital importance of humanistic inquiry. Dualism allows for the second but not the first. Dualism takes humanistic inquiry seriously, but in quarantining and elevating the mind from the body, leaves kinesiology in a constantly defensive posture.
12. “Whiggish history” refers to the idea that history is necessarily progressive. Tomorrow is always better than today. Things are always getting better. The present moment is necessarily a culmination of all that came before it.
13. It is true that not all arenas of skill should be considered important on the basis of skill alone. Universities seem to rely on arenas of skill that contribute to “human flourishing.” Although the precise meaning of such a term is debatable, it should be clear that skill domains that harm human flourishing (by being cruel, sociopathic, or banal) would not be considered important. As Polanyi saw, adjudicating such distinctions is a matter of tacit knowledge, and personal judgment.
14. Whether this conception of the university still exists has been seriously questioned. “Universities have become, perhaps irremediably, fragmented and partitioned institutions, better renamed ‘multiversities,’ as Clark Kerr suggested almost 50 years ago. I remarked of Aquinas, and I could equally have remarked of Newman, that his conception of the university was informed by his conception of the universe. By contrast the conception of the university presupposed by and embodied in the institutional forms and activities of contemporary research universities is not just one that has nothing much to do with any particular conception of the universe, but one that suggests strongly that there is no such thing as the universe, no whole of which the subject matters studied by the various disciplines are all parts or aspects, but instead just a multifarious set of assorted subject matters” (CitationMacIntyre, 2009, p. 174).
15. The most obvious content area in which to develop such literacy, as well as the one most historically associated with physical education is that of games, play and sport. While the case could be made that games, play, and sport are not the necessary province of physical education, such recreational and athletic activities are important human activities and would therefore (especially after being buttressed by Aristotle and Polanyi) seem to be worthy of academic study. Why would kinesiologists, of all people, want to distance themselves from games, play, and sport? Are they not our “pearl of great price”? If games, play, and sport are not, what is?
16. Such a re-commitment to the role of skill, apprenticeship, and experience could also facilitate the growth of cross-disciplinary research in kinesiology. If the sub-disciplines of kinesiology are built on the same epistemic foundation, and if the sub-disciplines of kinesiology actually cross-pollinate each other, then cross-disciplinary research is not only politically advantageous, but may actually be a key to deepening the efficacy of research within the field.
17. By political rationalization, I mean that “movement” sells better. By educational rationalization I mean simply that play, games and sport are often accused of being both non-academic and childish, while movement sounds serious and scientific. By ontological rationalization I mean something similar. This type of rationalization claims that sport is ontologically insufficient because it is merely a “body” activity. Given such assumptions, abstraction makes perfect sense.
18. Nor is the ultimate logical insufficiency of “play, games, and sport” unique. It is true that a core defined as “play, games, and sport,” cannot exclude chess or monopoly from a literal interpretation of the core, but neither can a literal interpretation of art exclude quilting or fashion design or carpentry from its core. Similarly everyone knows what physical education is, even though the term itself is—if taken literally—overly broad.
19. I am convinced that “physical activity” has been accepted as the core of the field—in the name of inclusion—despite the fact that it aims at, and hits no nails on the head. It is of course true that the type of specificity I am proposing, if it were to avoid a sense of insular self-superiority and chauvinism, would need a broad, outward looking disposition.
20. One speculative answer for the resistance to specificity is that ambiguity makes it is easier to recruit “big-time” or “name” faculty to a kinesiology department. A department centered around an abstract core like “movement” instead of “sport” is an easier sell, especially to scientists who do not have a background in kinesiology, but who may be a potential source of grant money and prestige. In that sense, it may be the tail (Research Universities) that is wagging the dog.
21. For a rigorous defense of this claim, see my article Kinesis and the Nature of the Human Person (2010).
22. The point is not to say that “sport” is the thing that gives meaning to our lives, but rather to get a place for “games, play, and sport” at the table. Certainly there are myriad other human arenas that move people just as profoundly including, literature, art, music, theater, dance, and religion. It also true that science, when pursued in a spirit of wonder, can have much the same effect.
23. Just as Shakespeare, Van Gogh, Beethoven, and my wife's new favorite, Jane Austen, are not justified on the grounds of utility. Similarly, the confidence with which I hold Shakespeare in high regard makes me functionally immune to criticism; that is, it is the critics' loss, not mine. Kinesiologists should be in the same position but with a different yet no less fascinating love.
24. I am unconvinced by the counter argument that most “students are already doing it.” Undergraduates are already writing, and yet we require them to take writing intensive classes, because the Academy values and emphasizes the importance of writing well.
25. The typical counter-arguments that not all children are athletic, or that not all children like “sports” are unpersuasive. Not all children speak well. Not all children are good with numbers. Not all children read well. Not all children like Shakespeare. Not all children enjoy history. Yet we make children study Shakespeare, we make children study history, and we make children master mathematics and reading because we believe the basic mastery of such material is important; even in cases where there is no practical or useful application for the material. (Few job applications quiz applicants on whether or not Hamlet had an Oedipal Complex. Yet school districts and universities around the country continue to insist that studying literature matters.) Likewise, to complain that students don't need to master “basketball” because demonstrating competence at “basketball” is an “arbitrary” and “accidental” measure is not convincing. The same could again be said of Shakespeare. We don't ask students to study “literature” absent of specific content, nor should we ask them to study “physical activity” absent of specific content. Basketball and Shakespeare are contingent only in the way that the entire culture is contingent.
26. This would be above and beyond any activity requirement that may be mandated by a college or university's general education requirements. The lack of such requirements in many kinesiology departments reflects on their own sense of self-respect. English department after all do not consider the requirement of a general education requirement in English Composition as sufficient engagement by their students with the activity of writing well. Instead they have additional requirements—within their own departments—because engaging the English language is at the heart of who and what they are.