Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Modernism of Sport

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17511321.2012.761887

1751-1321

Andrew Edgar,

Animal and Plant Science Education

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes It may be noted that Kant's discussion of aesthetic judgement occurs in anticipation of an analysis of the role of teleological judgement in biology. Kant suggests that, where natural mechanisms are so complex that the paradigmatic causal explanations of physics are unviable, as a stopgap, biology turns to teleology. The purpose of the mechanism is treated as its cause (see Kant 1952a Kant, I. 1952a [1790]. “Critique of aesthetic judgement”. In Critique of judgement, Edited by: Meredith, J. C. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar], 61–2 [§10]; Kant 1952b Kant, I. 1952b [1790]. “Critique of teleological judgement”. In Critique of judgement, Edited by: Meredith, J. C. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar], 24 [§65]). In ‘Sportworld', I argued that while there may be experiences which can only be had by participating in a particular sport, as MacIntyre suggests (1981, 176), such experiences are better cashed out in terms of the meaning of participation, rather than the good of participation. I therefore hold that talk of the intrinsic meaning of sport is preferable to talk of sport's intrinsic purpose – or any synonym, such as intrinsic good or value. This is to clarify Best's argument. Kupfer (1995, 395) is critical of Best for conflating the purposes that can be achieved within a sport to the purpose of the sport as a whole. The purposes within a sport are constituted by its rules, but this does not entail that there is any extrinsic purpose of sport. There is, at best, only Suits's lusory-goal. Kupfer is correct. Best's discussion proceeds as if there is but one purpose to be achieved in a given sport – e.g. scoring goals in soccer. He thus uneasily conflates the multiple purposes available within a sport with its lusory-goal, thereby treating this conflation as the extrinsic purpose of the sport. There would seem to be no equivalent to the rule book, or even the athletic coaching manual, for the artist. There may be manuals that provide instruction on the crafts that the artist might use (e.g. drawing or painting techniques, instructions in counterpoint), but the Kantian argument is that the art work as art work necessarily transcends this craft base, and contemporaries of Kant, such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, would have agreed (see Edgar 2011 Edgar, A. 2011. Professional values, aesthetic values, and the ends of trade. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 14(2): 195–201. [Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]). Although it may be conceded here that the rules and scoring systems of gymnastics have actually been rewritten since Comăneci's time, the point remains that, judged by the rules of 1976, the best contemporary gymnast will have performed better. It may be argued that golf does allow for a choice of means, as one must choose the appropriate club for each particular shot. This is, I would suggest, merely a modification on the test of skill. The only means allowed are 14 golf clubs. The test that is golf includes choosing the most appropriate club, and deploying it effectively. The painting is in the Tate collection. See http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/stubbs-newmarket-heath-with-a-rubbing-down-house-t02388 (accessed 29 August 2012). Before proceeding it may be noted that Best's appeal to scoring with grace suggests that the only alternative criteria for playing well, beyond winning, are aesthetic. This distracts from the recognition that there may be relevant criteria of other kinds – and more precisely, other than those proscribed by the classical aesthetic of beauty and elegance. The argument here will be that there are indeed criteria other than winning and high scoring, and further criteria other than beauty or grace. If sport is a practice, and not a mere craft, then what matters is not simply the effective deployment of the available means to achieve the goals of the sport, but rather the way in which those means are deployed. The very achievement of a sporting goal can and must always be understood and assessed in terms of the adverbial rules that give it meaning. The argument seems to be that an emphasis on scoring is intimately tied up with the goals of professional sport, although the exact nature of this entwining is not fully explored. Commercially viable sports seemingly require clear results (and a number of American sports have rules that remove the possibility of a drawn game). Instrumentally minded players and coaches may need, for their own careers or the commercial success of their teams, ugly wins (or, if rules allow, dull draws) more than good play. League tables, knock-out competitions and at root the paying fan who is partisan to a particular team encourage the desire for victory of a given team over an interest in the quality of play. While professionalisation might encourage this, it is not clear that it is a fault solely of the professionalisation. Amateur leagues and knock-out competitions pre-existed professional ones. In addition, it may be argued that the rules of commercial games are frequently changed in order to make games more entertaining and possibly, as Boxhill claims (1985, 41), more aesthetically pleasing, for the spectator (albeit that the concept of aesthetic pleasure here is thin). Even very simple works, such as the minimalist installations of Donald Judd (see http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/judd-untitled-t03087) or Carl Andre (see http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/andre-venus-forge-t07149, both accessed 29 August 2012) do not yield incontestable analyses. While they may be described, and while this description may offer a series of rules according to which you could make your own Judd or Andre, these rules say nothing about the meaning of the works. In effect, such works force the spectator to reflect upon their very lack of complexity and subtlety. Consider in particular Six Characters in Search of an Author, or Henry IV (Pirandello 1995 Pirandello, L. 1995. Six characters in search of an author and other plays, London: Penguin. [Google Scholar]). See, for example, Girlie Show (Fryd 200), or A Woman in the Sun (http://whitney.org/Collection/EdwardHopper/8431, accessed 29 August 2012). What counts as technical competence in modern art, in particular, is problematic. It would, for example, be inappropriate to criticise Matisse for the childlike quality of his paintings. It might still be appropriate to criticise Matisse for failing to balance the composition, or even more basically of using poor quality paint that became dull and obscure after a short time. (Malevich's Black Square [http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/04/b2003/hm4_1_30.html, accessed 29 August 2012] is at interesting problem case, as it has decayed from its pristine simplicity of a canvas painted uniformly black, to a richly textured quasi-sculpture, as the paint has cracked and the supports of the canvas frame have begun to show through the surface of the painting. The work as it exists now almost serves to articulate the impossibility of Malevich's original artistic ambition. The pure nothingness of a black square is unsustainable.) What counts as relevant technical competence is shaped by the interpretation of the art work. Quite conceivably the comments on Hopper above are not a genuine criticism, but a misinterpretation. But equally, the case being made here is that the competences that are relevant to sport are constituted by the rules of the sport. One can legitimately have criticised Ivan Lendl, as a tennis player, for an unforced error, but not, sadly, for the design of the shirts he wore. Webb Ellis seems to pose a problem here. In picking up the ball and running with it, he plays soccer with such spectacular incompetence that he initiates the playing of a new sport. While this is a wildly Romantic account of the work of the sportswright, not least in ignoring the social processes required in recognising the legitimacy of a new game, it still suggests that there are degrees of incompetence that can invalidate a contest. It may be accepted that some minimal degree of mastery of the competences of the sport is required to even begin playing it, so that a toddler's first abortive kick at a ball is not yet football, and it might be suggested that Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards's competence was so slight that at times he was not yet ski jumping. It may also be noted that a degree of respect for the rules is also needed. All that Webb Ellis did, at the moment of picking up the ball, was commit a foul according to the rules of soccer. He may have regarded himself as a revolutionary, but as far as that particular soccer game was concerned, given a coherent set of rules and penalty sanctions, all that would have presumably happened was the awarding of a free kick to the opposition at the point of the handball, and the game continuing. It may be argued that the modern game recognises more adequately the moral differences between the consequences of injury and of unfair play, but to do so is to suggest that soccer has incorporated, appropriately, elements of a general, non-sporting, sense of justice into the sport. If sport creates its own fairness, then there is no requirement for it to be fair according to any extra-sporting standards. Bobsam Elejiko died in 2011 while playing for the Belgian soccer team K. Merksem SC. The game was abandoned. It is relatively rare for death to be pronounced on the pitch. Even in cases of ‘sudden death syndrome’, death is not typically confirmed until the player is taken to hospital. As such, the game continues as if there had been a routine, if severe, injury. When Fabio Casartelli died in the 15th stage of the 1995 Tour de France, the competition was not officially suspended. The day's racing was completed, and it was the cyclists themselves who effectively suspended the following day's competition. They completed the designated course non-competitively, with Casartelli's Motorola team crossing the finishing line first, by consent. This effectively illustrates how non-sporting customs may trump the official rules. The rules treat death merely as an extreme form of injury and cause of elimination from the race.