Running as an Authentic Possibility of Being
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Reflecting on Modern Sport in Ancient Olympia |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Sport and leisure time activities |
| Keywords | running; retention; protention; historicity; evarydayness; within-time-ness |
| Description | Running presents one of the simplest and most natural intentional human movement activities, today and in ancient times. From the perspective of philosophy of sport the phenomenon of running can also be understood as offering an acceptable possibility for retaining some signs of humaneness (via the phenomena of authenticity, integrity and temporality). Besides its essential demands on physical effort, running can be also understood as a mental activity. Husserl´s description of the processes of retention-protention provides a model perspective for a temporal understanding of running. Within Heidegger´s concept of temporality we can consider a runner according to the modes of historicity, everydayness and within-time-ness. This shift from fundamental ontology can be implemented as a simplified model that is structured according to Heidegger’s original ideas rather than those concerning his concept of temporality. The reasons for this approach are explained below. Despite the complexities underlying this model, we can examine running in three modes: 1) as an object of “historicity” (a constituent of history), 2) “everydayness” (a process of training, or setting some enduring values), and 3) “within-time-ness” (reduction to ordinary time). Seeking to escape from instrumentality and from our human tendency to “fall” into “within-time-ness” presents a possibility for searching more authentic modes of being. This chapter tries to illustrate such possibilities with concrete examples in the setting of running. |