In today’s media-driven world, it seems there is always a scandal in the news involving athletes. Whether it’s performance-enhancing drugs in cycling, domestic violence in football, or sexual assault in college athletics, new problems pop up as soon as old issues disappear. As we struggle to understand and, hopefully, correct these problems, we face the difficult reality that the lines between fact and fiction are often blurred by the media, and sports governing bodies can be slow to make the necessary changes in their respective fields. In Sport Philosophy Now: The Culture of Sports after the Lance Armstrong Scandal, Matthew James McNees scrutinizes the current sports philosophy available and updates it in the “post-Lance Armstrong” age. While many philosophers have turned a blind eye to the realities of sport by focusing on ideologically-driven abstract ideals, this book offers an engaging alternative. Examining the field primarily through the competitive world of cycling, McNees explores such issues as authenticity in sport, our tendency to create superficial high-minded meaning from the actions of athletes, and American capitalism in sports. Other issues discussed include childhood, play, language, and economics. This book critiques the field of sports philosophy from its beginning, offers a new paradigm for the field, explains journalistic mistakes specifically through the lens of the Lance Armstrong scandal, and sheds light on the mysteries of cycling’s milieu of governing bodies and influential parties. This book aims to inspire and support those who want to take up rigorous, worthwhile, and difficult questions in the field of sports philosophy. It will be of interest not only to scholars, but also to the cycling community and those who wish to learn more about the interactions between sports, culture, and philosophy.

The study of sport is characterised by its inter-disciplinarity, with researchers drawing on apparently incompatible research traditions and ethical benchmarks in the natural sciences and the social sciences, depending on their area of specialisation. In this groundbreaking study, Graham McFee argues that sound high-level research into sport requires a sound rationale for one’s methodological choices, and that such a rationale requires an understanding of the connection between the practicalities of researching sport and the philosophical assumptions which underpin them. By examining touchstone principles in research methodology, such as the contested ‘gold standard’ of voluntary informed consent in the natural sciences and the postmodern denial of ‘truth’ in the social sciences, McFee demonstrates that epistemology and ethics are inextricably linked. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from the laboratory to the sports field, McFee explores the concepts of ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’ in sports research and makes a powerful case for a philosophical deepening of our approach to method and methodology in sport. This book is important reading for all advanced students and researchers working in sport, exercise and related disciplines.

The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Sport features specially commissioned essays from a team of leading international scholars. The book, by providing an overview of the advances in the philosophical understanding of sport (and related practices), serves as a measure of the development of the philosophy of sport but it also constitutes an expression of the discipline's state of the art. The book includes a critical analysis of the historical development of philosophic ideas about sport, three essays on the research methods typically used by sport philosophers, twelve essays that address vital issues at the forefront of key research areas, as well as four essays on topics of future disciplinary concern. The book also includes a glossary of key terms and concepts, an essay on resources available to researchers and practitioners, an essay on careers opportunities in the discipline, and an extensive annotated bibliography of key literature.

This volume is dedicated to Mario Bunge in honor of his sixtieth birthday. Mario Bunge is a philosopher of great repute, whose enormous output includes dozens of books in several languages, which will culminate with his Treatise on Basic Philosophy projected in seven volumes, four of which have already appeared [Reidel, I 974ff. ]. He is known for his works on research methods, the foundations of physics, biology, the social sciences, the diverse applications of mathematical methods and of systems analysis, and more. Bunge stands for exact philosophy, classical liberal social philosophy, rationalism and enlightenment. He is brave, even relentless, in his attacks on subjectivism, mentalism, and spiritualism, as well as on positivism, mechanism, and dialectics. He believes in logic and clarity, in science and open-mindedness - not as the philosopher's equivalent to the poli tician's rhetoric of motherhood and apple pie, but as a matter of everyday practice, as qualities to cultivate daily in our pursuit of the life worth living. Bunge's philosophy often has the quality of Columbus's egg, and he is prone to come to swift and decisive conclusions on the basis of argu ments which seem to him valid; he will not be perturbed by the fact that most of the advanced thinkers in the field hold different views.

Why do billions of people around the world love sports? The popular media is increasingly dedicated to the heated rivalries of sports teams, academic institutions are held in its thrall, sports metaphors are commonplace in our language, and most individuals participate in athletics or follow a team sport in some variation. This entertaining and informative book attempts to find out why—by examining sports in all its facets. The authors provide an overview of the history of sports, with a constant focus upon the social conditions through which sport arises and by which it continues to thrive.