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Abstract
Almost thirty years ago, Warren Fraleigh wrote that Paul Weiss’s intellectual contribution to the philosophic study of sport was like a tributary, converging with others to eventuate in numerous scholarly colloquia, a new academic society, new courses and curricula, articles and books. Paul Weiss contends in Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry that sport is a pursuit of bodily excellence. Weiss tells a story about bodily excellence; it is a bodily good that can be realized in the practice of sport. His metaphysic and teleology provide the content and context for his philosophy of sport. For him, sport bodies speak or give voice to a particular metaphysical tradition that I argue is problematic. Weiss’s metaphysic and teleology swallow and sublate sportive bodies and the concomitant goods intrinsic to embodiment and the practice of sports. The net effect is dematerialization and depersonalization of bodily performances and personal identity, respectively. More recently, Feezell and Dombrowski advance theses about sports with Weiss as their primary interlocutor, if not foil. What I put forth travels a different path than Dombrowski and Feezell in that I plumb Weiss’s narrative arc, Platonic imagination and metaphysic, more extensively as it tells a certain story about human embodiment, and thus, grounds his ideal of excellence.
Hace casi 30 años, Warren Fraleigh escribió que la contribución intelectual al estudio filosófico del deporte de Paul Weiss fue como un afluente, convergiendo con otros para concluir en numerosos coloquios académicos, una nueva sociedad académica, nuevos cursos y currículos, artículos y libros. Paul Weiss defiende en Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry que el deporte es la persecución de la excelencia corporal. Weiss cuenta una historia sobre la excelencia corporal; es un bien corporal que puede ser realizado en la práctica deportiva. Su metafísica y teología proporcionaban el contexto para su filosofía del deporte. Para él, los cuerpos deportivos hablan por, o dan voz a, una tradición metafísica particular que yo defiendo que es problemática. La metafísica y la teología de Weiss absorben y niegan los cuerpos deportivos y los bienes intrínsecos relacionados con la encarnación y práctica del deporte. El resultado de ello es la desmaterialización y despersonalización de las actuaciones corporales y la identidad personal, respectivamente. Recientemente, Feezell y Dombrowski han extendido esta tesis con Weiss como su principal interlocutor, si no como contraste. Lo que defenderé va en una dirección diversa a Dombrowski y Feezell en cuanto a que llevaré más allá el alcance del desarrollo argumentativo de Weiss, su imaginación y metafísica platónica, pues éste nos cuenta una historia sobre la corporeidad humana, y de este modo, fundamenta su ideal de excelencia.
Vor fast dreißig Jahren hat Warren Fraleigh geschrieben, dass der intellektuelle Beitrag von Paul Weiss zu philosophischen Studien des Sports einem Nebenfluss gleicht, der mit anderen Flüssen zusammenfließt, um in zahlreichen wissenschaftlichen Kolloquien, einer neuen akademischen Gesellschaft, neuen Kursen und Lehrplänen, Artikeln und Büchern einen gemeinsamen Strom zu bilden. Der Kampf von Paul Weiss im Sport liegt darin, philosophisch zu zeigen, dass Sport ein Streben nach körperlicher Exzellenz ist. Weiss erzählt eine Geschichte über körperliche Exzellenz und deren Verwirklichung in den Praktiken des Sports. Das Metaphysik- und Teleologie-Verständnis von Paul Weiss bildet den Boden und den Kontext für eine Philosophie des Sports. Für ihn findet im sportlichen Körper eine metaphysische Tradition Ausdruck, die, wie ich diskutieren möchte, problematisch ist. Die Metaphysik und Teleologie von Weiss vereinnahmen die sportlichen Körper und die zugehörigen Begleitunstände und heben sie allein in der Verkörperung und den Praktiken des Sports auf. Dies führt zu einer Dematerialisierung und Depersonalisierung von körperlichen Leistungen bzw. von perönlichen Identitäten. Kürzlich haben Feezell und Dombrowski Thesen über den Sport vorgelegt, die Weiss als primären Gesprächspartner, wenn nicht gar als Folie, haben. Was ich hier darlegen möchte, schlägt einen anderen Weg vor. Ich möchte den narrativen Bogen von Weiss dahingehend aufgreifen, dass die platonische Metaphysik eine bestimmte Geschichte über menschliche Körperlichkeit erzählt, die in einem Exzellenz-Ideal gründet
Il y a près de trente ans , Warren Fraleigh a écrit que la contribution intellectuelle de Paul Weiss à l'étude philosophique du sport était comme un affluent, la convergence avec d'autres pour se produire dans de nombreux colloques savants, une nouvelle société académique, de nouveaux cours et programmes d'études, des articles et des livres. Paul Weiss affirme Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry que le sport est une poursuite de l'excellence corporelle. Weiss raconte une histoire d'excellence corporelle, c'est un bien corporel qui peut être réalisé dans la pratique du sport. Sa métaphysique et téléologie fournissent le contenu et le contexte de sa philosophie du sport. Pour lui, les organismes de sport parlent ou donnent la parole à une tradition métaphysique particulière que je présente comme problématique. La métaphysique et la téléologie de Weiss avalent les corps sportifs et les biens concomitants intrinsèques de la corporalité et la pratique du sport. L'effet net est respectivement la dématérialisation et la dépersonnalisation des performances corporelles et de l'identité personnelle. Plus récemment, Feezell et Dombrowski avance des thèses sur le sport avec Weiss comme leur principal interlocuteur, si pas déjouer. Ce que je mets en avant se déplace sur une voie différente de celle Dombrowski et Feezell en ce que je plombe l’arc narratif de Weiss, l'imaginaire et la métaphysique platonicienne, plus largement car elle raconte une certaine histoire de l'incarnation humaine, et donc, des motifs de son idéal d'excellence.
幾乎在30 年以前, Warren Fraleigh 寫了有關 Paul Weiss 對運動哲學的智慧性貢獻就如注入一股強心針, 帶領並帶動許多學者對此一學門的探討、成立新的學術社群、建立新的課程及產生出許多文章與書籍。Paul Weiss 在其所著的一書 Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry 所主張的是運動為一種身體卓越的追求。Weiss 所要表達的是有關身體卓越的故事; 它是一種身體上的善可以藉由運動練習來達成。他的本體論與目的論提供了其運動哲學的內容與脈絡。對他而言, 運動身體會說話, 或者可對一種特殊性的本體傳統論述來發聲, 我對此說法認為是有問題的。Weiss 的本體論與目的論吞噬及揚棄了運動的身體, 以及對身體內存善與運動練習的聯結。這種論述所產生的效應便是去除身體表現與個人身份認同的去物質化與去人性化。最近, Feezell 與 Dombrowski 更進一步以Weiss 對運動的論點來做主要的對話。我想要運用的方式與這兩位學者的進路有所不同, 我直接呈現Weiss 的描述進路、柏拉圖的想像與本體論, 更進一步的去陳述有關人類身體(身心具型化) 的故事, 也因此闡明他對卓越性的理念。
Acknowledgements
I want to thank John Byl and Shirl Hoffmann for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. I also would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for the journal for helpful comments which improved the clarity of the final version of the paper and Stacy Lubbers for her assistance in formatting this paper to meet the journal’s specifications and compiling the accompanying bibliography.
Notes
1. Weiss states that sport is a subject for which humans are serious about and for which philosophical reflection is worthy. His purpose is to illuminate ‘instances of general principle’ which may have been hidden or neglected (Weiss Citation1995, 656; Dombrowski Citation2009, 37–39).
2. Weiss, Sport, viii. See also Feezell (1981).
3. Dombrowski, Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals, 38–39. Cf. Dombrowski (Citation1995).
4. Loland, ‘Normative Theories of Sport,’ 116; see Simon (Citation2004) who rehabilitates the moral status of competition as a mutual quest for excellence, which when this goal is satisfied then competition in principle and in practice is not only ethically defensible, but also allows members of this practice to share in a plurality of goods that a zero-sum logic itself precludes. This mutuality of achieving excellence has been helpful in terms of teleological accounts of sport in the sport ethics literature.
5. Weiss, Sport, 4. Because Weiss used the masculine pronoun almost exclusively, I have tried to drop this altogether for the sake of gender inclusivity, or avoid it when context and referencing Weiss permits it, or balance it when it would have been awkward to eliminate it completely based on Weiss’s original text.
6. Weiss, Sport, 14, 17. See Feezell (Citation2004); cf. Feezell, ‘Sport, Pursuit of Bodily Excellence or Play? An Examination of Paul Weiss’s Account of Sport,’ 257–270. Feezell examines Weiss’s account of sport and insists that a more plausible explanation for why men (and women) seek the good of sport is ‘based on the classic accounts of play offered by Huizinga and Caillois’ (Feezell, Sport, Play and Ethical Reflection, 5). Although I do not directly critique Feezell in this essay, I do consider his hypothesis in my dissertation (White Citation2011).
7. Paul Kuntz identifies in Weiss a cosmos that is law-abiding; there is an ordered-realism detected in the cosmos which gives directional structure to actualities (Citation1995, 118–138).
8. Weiss, Sport, 3. Weiss appears to give dignity to humankind and that some kind of hierarchy exists because humans possess abilities, like appreciating excellence, which other beings do not.
9. I should note that my criticism of Weiss is not with bodily excellence in itself for when excellence is properly understood in a larger axiology and narrative of sports (and a robust anthropology) then it is one among many standards of excellence, which can be used to judge whether members of a practice are doing well. My hang-up as indicated by my entire argument is that Weiss fails to find a holistic way to conceptualize and present it, though this should not detract from our indebtedness to his notion of excellence as an enduring value.
10. MacIntyre points this out in general when addressing arete in heroic societies (Citation1984, 122).
11. See Reck (Citation1995), for he draws similar conclusions in regard to Weiss four modes of being for each mode is imperfect and in need of the other modes, one of which is God. In an odd sort of way, these different modes appear to resemble what some theologians more recently refer to when discussing how the Trinity functions as a social ontology for togetherness is central to how each of Weiss’s modes interpenetrate and relate to each other.
12. For a more detailed metaphysic on how actualities relate to other actualities and to final reality, Actuality, an ultimate of Being, see Weiss (Citation1971, 678–679). This inner teleology is another Aristotelian commitment on the part of Weiss.
13. Weiss, Sport, 6. Weiss makes this point in reaction to Aristotle. According to Aristotle, since God preoccupies himself with the most pure and noble thoughts, then our philosophical investigations should not be wasted on such common and popular activities like sport for it could not contain significant truths. However, Weiss believes this is ridiculous for our speculations begin with an ordinary world that is imperfect, impure and corrupt. It might appear that these predications are similar to what a theist means when she claims the world is fallen. But I do not believe he does as my reasons bear out in my argument. Weiss holds that actualities in their existence in one sense are not structurally good.
14. Weiss purports that evil is not ontologically necessary but then later subscribes to the belief that in this world evil is metaphysically necessary in order for this world to be. Again, I sense a dualistic hypothesis especially in Man’s Freedom where evil will always be in existence, our cosmos ‘always had and always will’ have evil, for he claims that it is the essence of things to urge, impress and impose their goodness on others without limit (Weiss, Man’s Freedom, 244).
15. Weissian scholars may object because Weiss himself saw the defect of his earlier pre-modal ontology. However, Reck asserts that this formula of incompleteness pervades all his later thinking, and beside the fact Weiss, in Sport, operates from this ontology (Reck, ‘The Five Ontologies of Paul Weiss,’ 141).
16. Reck, ‘The Five Ontologies of Paul Weiss,’ 144–145. Reck identifies Weiss’s connection of morality to ontology which means creatures from their beginning live in this dynamic state between nothingness and being. Perhaps, Weiss diagnoses our radical contingency which has him recoil both at the shock of nonbeing and our inability to comply perfectly with God’s obligations. Becoming is under the duress of guilt simply because we are finite creatures. Granted our existence is fragile; however, Weiss contends our guilt is substantive because when human beings stand in the presence of God, they inescapably are ontologically guilty. This guilt is a state identified with our existence. Even if human beings cannot meet all of their moral obligations as creatures, Weiss places them in a cosmos where each actuality strives to atone for this condition through their achievements. In fact, in Man’s Freedom, Weiss, he states that man ‘reduces his guilt to the degree he perfects others and himself’ (Weiss, Man’s Freedom, 262). These achievements when identified with excellence hook them up to a God who eventually realizes the ‘ought’ that mankind falls short of. In sum, human beings are guilty as substantial entities because their being when put beside finality like God lacks the fullness of his being. I am not sure how hope ever figures in because this appears to be a never-ending struggle unless pantheism is accepted so that our being is absorbed into the Ultimate itself, where all such good and evil distinctions are irrelevant. Weiss dogmatically avers that even God cannot atone for the absolute guilt native to our human constitution for this obligation can never be fulfilled (Weiss, Man’s Freedom, 262).
17. My use of the ladder metaphor is purposeful in that in Plato’s dialogue (Citation1997), the Symposium, Diotima’s speech (211a-c) describes the quest for universal beauty as a climb to Eternal Beauty. This trek involves stepping from rung to rung of a ladder beginning first with lower (temporal) beauties and leading eventually to the Form of Beauty beyond the physical world. For Weiss like Plato, the goal is to journey toward the transcendent ideal which implies that our participation in or encounter with excellence (Beauty) on this earth has only instrumental value for any experience with excellence in the here and now is partial and impure. The excellence we are attracted to in sports draws us ultimately out of and beyond this world because the Form or source is not in or of this world.
18. Weiss, Sport, 244. The italics are mine for the purpose of noting the metaphor. Weiss in an early publication, Man’s Freedom, divides humanity’s modes of life into practical and theoretical. The former concentrates on the real and the latter on the ideal. I believe these divisions relate to the athlete and the scholar modes that Weiss invokes broadly throughout Sport but with some variations.
19. Weiss, Sport, 156. Weiss develops the separateness of games from ordinary time in chapter 10. Weiss revisited the concept of games years later with views which are comparable to MacIntyre’s notion of practice. See Weiss (Citation1980). MacIntyre’s notion of practices is important when evaluating excellence in regard to the social imaginaries and social contexts of modern sports, that is, the institutions of sports, economic markets, political systems, labor-relations, owners, media, etc. all of which discipline sports with alien aims, external goods, that habitually undermine standards of excellence intrinsic to sportive practices. William Morgan, working with MacIntyre’s definition of practice, perceives that there are competing visions between the institutions of sports and the practitioners of sport (See Morgan Citation1994). Certainly, there is a tension between the two but institutions do support practices even if they routinely corrupt them with the weight they place on extrinsic goods. My point is that the line between the two is blurred and we cannot conclude marketers, for example, do not appreciate the pursuit of excellence by the members of the practice-communities, even, if marketers at the same time push sport as play more toward work because of what it can promote and produce. I do not intend to resolve this real world dilemma and how sport practices are vulnerable to the influence and logic of institutions, but I mention it so that we remember that the formal logic of sports and its relative autonomy are also inextricably embedded in a wider network of values and institutional contexts.
20. Weiss, Sport, 244. My criticism of how Weiss denigrates temporality and materiality equally applies to how cultural practices such as art have been devalued. If, however, we see art and sports as particular practices which fully engage us in basic goods constitutive of who we are as embodied creatures, then there is no apparent reason to denigrate or privilege other activities over these practices. Moreover, with both art and sport, what attracts and fascinates people are standards of excellence or beauty which the mode of play makes sense of for each practice (see Kretchmar Citation1992).
21. See Weiss (Citation1971, 268). Weiss recognizes the artificiality of sport for it is detached from everyday drama but it is this vital struggle toward excellence which characterizes ordinary life for all men, including sportspersons. I believe Weiss’s agonism is not only a physical struggle endemic to the logic of sports, but, because of his Platonism, this agonism is spiritual and thus, as a form of asceticism, his teleology purposes to turn away from and do away with the body.
22. Protagoras 322a; Symposium 208b; Republic VI 486a; Phaedo 100c. I acknowledge that there are other readings of Plato (e.g. see Badiou Citation1999); however, I follow the traditional interpretation of Plato.
23. David Carr concludes that one serious hindrance to using Plato’s metaphysical fiction for constructing an account of the value of sportive activity is dualism, which Plato’s asceticism precludes our bodily grounded passions from being educative for human excellence (Citation2010, 13).
24. Weiss, Sport, 11. Cf. Feezell, ‘Sport: Pursuit of Bodily Excellence or Play?’ 261. Perhaps, it need not be mentioned but Weiss’s focus on young men alone is sexist and difficult to uphold, for Ellen Gerber persuasively argues that women just as much as men live in their bodies and women can enhance themselves by having good bodily experiences. Weiss claims women are naturally one with their bodies while young men must learn to subordinate their bodies (Gerber Citation1979, 186).
25. In addition to my criticism above, Weiss’s picture of young, fit and healthy men constitutes a cult of the body in that he idealizes and objectifies a quest for perfection which implies a rejection of those bodies that are disabled and unable to realize strength and manliness. Therefore, his ideology of the human body not only alienates women but handicap people whose bodies appear recalcitrant and broken when compared to Weiss’s able-bodied Actuality.
26. Feezell points out that Weiss’s emphasis on young men is counterintuitive in that excellence is not age-specific for many older people (and women!) equally participate to experience bodily excellence among other goods native to sport; and further, this betrays Weiss’s own lack of sport-specific experience as an ‘outsider’ to this phenomenon. See Feezell (1981, 257–270) and Feezell (Citation2004, 3–18).
27. See Spivey (Citation2004, 11–16) and Kyle (Citation2007, 198–216), for a thorough overview of the motives, myths and mobility of Greek Athletes.
28. Dombrowski drew my attention, from his consultation of Miller, to the fact that ‘hero’ was a technical term in ancient Greece, and what makes a hero depends on certain criteria (i.e. a person who achieved a semidivine status) of which might not be related to their athletic accomplishments (Dombrowski, Contemporary Athletics, 13–28). See also Miller (Citation2004, 160–165). However, Kyle points out that our data about ancient athletics is incomplete, unreliable and some of the so-called heroes (e.g. Theagenes of Thasos) of ancient Greece might not meet Miller’s supposed criteria (Kyle Citation2007, 198–216)
29. See Belliotti (Citation2008). Belliotti never mentions Weiss but his analysis of Lombardi draws out the value of winning and excellence which in many ways parallels Weiss, yet more concretely with Lombardi as an insider and American football coach.
30. See Taylor (Citation2004). My tacit movement between Weiss’s myth or social imaginary and its implication for sportive practices assumes, for elucidation purposes, some of Taylor’s poetical concepts, though there is purposeful irony for Weiss’s transcendence fails to hook up to this real world.
31. Taylor’s Catholic sacramental imagination envisions a world where the transcendent is miraculously present in the quotidian, enchanting the ordinary and therefore not flattening everyday life experiences. It would seem that Weiss aims for something similar because of his pre-modern sentiments (Platonic-modeled cosmology) but the scope of his work (especially in his ‘Metaphysical Excursus’) does not allow for mutual relations which thoroughly remain part of this world, and thus his telos instrumentalizes and empties this world of any ontic goodness.
32. For a careful delineation of Nietzche’s criticism of idealism (which guides my own reading of Nietzsche) and what this implies, because this metaphysic is antagonistic toward the earth and thus, diverts faithfulness from earthly performances to another world, see Hovey (Citation2008).
33. For an argument that detects idealism in Shirl Hoffman’s Christian theology of sport, see White (Citation2012).
34. To be exact, Feezell argues that the problem for Weiss lies not only with his outsider stance, that is, his reflection on sport is a second-order activity without first-order experience, but also with how sport experiences are instrumentalized for they are undertaken primarily because of a goal (telos), namely ‘that-for-the-sake-of-which’ (Feezell, Sport, Play and Ethical Reflection, 15–18.). My point is that Weiss’s Platonic metaphysic more plausibly determines his philosophy of sport than his stance on play or his teleology, since his teleology is made intelligible by his study of being and the nature of reality, metaphysical commitments. In conclusion, for Weiss, athletes can be properly understood only by reference to Actuality which Feezell misses in his argument against Weiss; and thus, he neglects the larger meta issues for evaluating an athlete’s attraction to and concern for excellence, and in fact, Feezell never interacts with Weiss’s final chapter, ‘Metaphysical Excursus,’ which I argue throughout this essay is the hermeuntical key for unlocking his theory of sports.
35. See Ward (Citation2009, 223). Though I am sympathetic to Radical Orthodoxy’s participatory metaphysic which makes bodies heavy with meaning, my argument turns more on how Weiss’s Eternal Form (the divine) enervates, competes with and depletes embodied existence.
36. For a helpful exposition of Platonic self-sufficiency, though I do not agree in total with her account of Augustine, see Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, 531–535.