PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY

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English
Acumen Publishing
20 August 2008
"Whether it's conkers in the schoolyard, kicking a football in the park, or playing tennis on Wimbledon Centre Court, sport impacts all of our lives. But what is sport and why do we do it? Colin McGinn, renowned philosopher (and kiteboarder), reflects on our love of sport and explores the value it has for us and the part it plays in a life lived well. Written in the form of a memoir, McGinn discusses many of the sports he has engaged in - from pole-vaulting and gymnastics to windsurfing and tennis - and describes the athletic experience from the inside, as a participant, articulating what is uniquely valuable about sport as an activity. Sport, argues McGinn, takes us to our fullest potential as human beings, it's what we fling at mortality to keep it at bay, a holiday from the Unbearable Heaviness of Being. ""Sport"" expresses our nature, it bears upon our self-realization. If a happy life consists in one that expresses fully our natural faculties, then sports must play an essential role in our lifes. Mind-body unity, the nature of practical knowledge and physical skill, success and failure, the ethics of competition, peak experiences, the spectacle of professional sport, aesthetics and death, McGinn discusses these and many other issues while telling of his own sporting mishaps and adventures. To use the vernacular of philosophy, ""Sport"" captures the phenomenology of sport - what it's like to do it - and in doing so shows how sport is a way of expressing and understanding who and what we are, way beyond whether we are a good sportsman, a bad loser or a team-player. For anyone who has ever thought that there must be less humiliating ways to enjoy yourself than being thrashed on the tennis court, ""Sport"" will reassure you that it's time not wasted."

By:  
Imprint:   Acumen Publishing
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 138mm,  Spine: 13mm
Weight:   181g
ISBN:   9781844651481
ISBN 10:   1844651487
Series:   The Art of Living
Pages:   160
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Primary ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
1. From pinball to pole vault 2. Running up escalators 3. Muscles, mountains and Manhattan 4. Into the water 5. Windsurfing 6. Miami sport 7. Athletic investigations

Colin McGinn is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami. He was previously Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy at the University of Oxford. His recent books include The Making of a Philosopher (2002), The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact (2007) and Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays (2006).

Reviews for Sport

"""In consistently engaging and occasionally inspiring prose, McGinn chronicles his dogged mastery of waves, wind and even the 'shivering vortex of malefaction' that used to be his tennis serve, and there emerge some refreshingly weighted philosophical observations."" Times Literary Supplement"


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