New publication: A Silent Leap: Sport Beyond Ethics
New publication on sport and ethics.
There is a new volume of essays out on Sport and Religion, edited by the talented Constantino Pereira Martins and Luísa Ávila da Costa. I have been fortunate enough to be included in it with an essay on “A Silent Leap: Sport Beyond Ethics,” essentially a rumination on Kierkegaard and ethics in sport. The conjuncture of sport and religion has received scant attention in the mainstream of sports philosophy. In the recent voluminous and authoritative Routledge Handbook of Sports Philosophy (2017), for instance, the conjunct of religion and sport is only briefly mentioned. I write in the abstract that in the works of Søren Kierkegaard we find “the potential to reveal a transcendental reality – a sphere of the infinite – through the secular rituals of sport, and thus to bring the infinite in touch with our finite reality, enabling us to overcome our existential dread, our ‘sickness unto death,’ as Kierkegaard termed it. To Kierkegaard faith could never simply be pronounced as an attribute, it had to be experienced and lived-through, and this event of religion was characterised by his image of the ‘leap of faith,’ the moment when we suspend our ethical constraints and make a decision to, simply, believe.”
The bowling-sequences in The Big Lebowski and football becoming handball, as was the case of with Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” against England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup, show that sport can offer moments of faith – experiences that defy rules and logic, and instead point toward a higher, often unspoken truth. Rather than simply teaching us to be good losers or obedient players, sport can challenge the very structure of our social norms. It opens space for silence, mystery, and transcendence.
The essays finds its place in a volume that disentangles an “intricate interplay between sport and religion.” In their introduction the editors note that this is a collection that “probes the liminal spaces where athletic pursuit transcends mere physicality and approaches the sacred.” The book can be purchased through the Brazil-based publisher at https://editoradialetica.com/. You may also read my essay on this link.
Posted 12 Apr, 2025. Modified 16 Apr, 2025.
