This is the first substantial academic book to lay out the philosophical terrain within the study of the martial arts and to explore the significance of this fascinating subject for contemporary philosophy.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section concerns what philosophical reflection can teach us about the martial arts, and especially the nature and value of its practice. The second section deals with the other direction of the dialectical interplay between philosophy and the martial arts: how the martial arts can inform philosophical issues important in their...

'Why don't young athletes in sport just quit?' Starting with this question and drawing on existential philosophy, phenomenology and hermeneutics, Talent Development, Existential Philosophy and Sport seeks a deeper understanding of the experience of being a talented young sportsperson striving to become an elite athlete.

As an alternative to conventional approaches to talent development governed by a worldview of instrumental rationality, the book introduces key ideas from educational philosophy to describe talent development through the concept of...

Phenomenology is a philosophical approach to the study of consciousness and subjective experience. In recent years it has become a more prominent element of the social scientific study of sport and a core component of the important emergent concept of physical literacy. This book is the first to offer a philosophically-sound investigation of phenomenological perspectives on pedagogy in physical education.

The book argues that phenomenology offers a particularly interesting theoretical approach to physical education because of the closely embodied relationship between the...

Holism and the Cultivation of Excellence in Sports and Performance is a multi-methodological and cross-cultural examination of how we flourish holistically through performative endeavors, e.g., sports, martial and performing arts. Relying primarily on sport philosophy, value theory, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, pragmatism, and East Asian philosophies (Japanese and Chinese), it espouses thick holism. Concerned with an integrative "bodymind" gradually achieved through performance that aims at excellence, the process of self-cultivation proper of thick holism relies on an ecologically...

The issues surrounding ethical controversies in sport are often touched on in the popular media. This book by leading international scholars in philosophy and the philosophy of sport provides systematic treatment of the ethics of sport from a range of perspectives.

Part one includes essays which focus on the basis of sport as an activity that is inherently ethical. Part two concerns the nature of the oft-heard but seldom-clarified notion of fair play. Three essays are included which articulate substantively different interpretations of the concept all of which have different...

Advances in genetics and related biotechnologies are having a profound effect on sport and raising important ethical questions. Drawing on real case studies and grounded in rigorous science and an ethical critique of current practice and developments, this book explores the intersection of genetics, ethics and sport. It introduces key terms such as gene doping, gene therapy and eugenics, and explores issues such as the genetic basis of sport performance and the role of genetic testing in talent development. Distinguishing feasible scientific scenarios from science fiction, this is...

Advances in genetics and related biotechnologies are having a profound effect on sport and raising important ethical questions. Drawing on real case studies and grounded in rigorous science and an ethical critique of current practice and developments, this book explores the intersection of genetics, ethics and sport. It introduces key terms such as gene doping, gene therapy and eugenics, and explores issues such as the genetic basis of sport performance and the role of genetic testing in talent development. Distinguishing feasible scientific scenarios from science fiction, this is...

Drawing on rich empirical material from elite French sport, this book offers a detailed history of how sports doctors across the twentieth century constructed the concept -doping- and used it to insert themselves into elite, international sport. Including the voices of elite athletes, it explains how the use of pharmacology became a normal part of training in elite French sport, and shows that the concept of doping that is framed in simple moral terms by doctors and journalists is far from simple. Instead it results from a decades-long social and political process that is filled with...