Heidegger and the possibilities of ‘Authenticity’ in Sports participation

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to analyze the possibility of ‘authenticity’, in other words, ‘authentic being’ in sports, based on the ideas in Heidegger’s Being and Time (Sein und Zeit). In order to do that, I firstly explain Dasein and its existentialia (which are significant for this paper: being-in-the-world, thrownness, understanding, attunement, and possibilities), the concept of ‘care’, and Heideggerian understanding of authenticity. Then, I examine the possibilities of authenticity in sports participation, and I look at some related studies analyzing the Heideggerian take on authenticity in sports. Finally, considering human existence (i.e. Dasein) within the sportsworld, I describe some possibilities for an authentic being to reveal itself, even for a short moment, such as ‘the realization of our finitude’ (by confronting death, especially in extreme sports); ‘coping with failure or loss (by facing with the call of conscience)’; ‘anxiety of losing the familiarity to the world’ (non-skillful coping in sports) and anxiety accompanying the realization of being-in-the-sportsworld’ (They-self vs. One-Self as an athlete) etc.KEYWORDS: Heideggersportsauthenticityauthentic being AcknowledgmentsI really appreciate Assoc. Prof. Dr. Irena Parry Martínková and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. This article was partially submitted as a presentation at the 11th Czech Philosophy of Sport Conference.2. Heidegger uses the term ‘Dasein’ to address the being of human beings (or i.e. human existence). It is the central concept used in B&T which is wisely-chosen by Heidegger to denote that only human beings have the the possibility of an existential understanding of ‘what it means to exist’ by way of self-relation and its relation to other beings. Moreover, Dasein is the entity which makes its very Being an issue (and the meaning of Being) and so, cares.3. ‘existentialia’ i.e. the existential structures of Dasein. HEIDEGGER (Citation2001, §9, 71) states that “Existentialia andcategories are the two basic possibilities for characters of Being. The entities which correspond to them require different kinds of primary interrogation respectively: any entity is either a ‘who’ (existence) or a ‘what’ (presence-at-hand in the broadest sense)”. Therefore, we need existentialia to interpret the Being of Dasein, its existence.4. Here, it is significant to distinguish what ontological (i.e. ontologico-existential) and ontical (ontico-existentiell) inquiries mean. In the footnote of their translation of B&T, Macquarrie & Robinson define the terms as follows: the ontical one is “concerned with the entities and the facts about them and the ontological one is ‘concerned primarily with Being’5. As the translators of B&T, Macquarrie and Robinson, clarified in a footnote that the German Stimmung is ‘the usual word for one’s mood or humour’ and they prefer to translate it as ‘mood’. Likewise, they translate Gestimmtsein as ‘Being-attuned’ and Befindlichkeit as ‘state-of-mind’. However, they warn us about that ‘“of-mind” belongs to English idiom, has no literal counterpart in the structure of the German word’. Some writers use Stimmung, some Befindlichkeit when talking about the existentialia of ‘attunement’ and that is why I have given both German words in brackets.6. In Latin, it means ‘oneself alone’ or ‘self alone’.7. For further discussions on rules, one can look at The Grasshopper of Suits, Ch. 6: Ivan and Abdul.8. On the other hand, EDGAR (Citation2013) claims that sport has the potential for humanity and its world to strip itself of instrumental distractions when the athlete’s and spectator’s full attention is on the movements and materials creating the performance.9. 1. Goals are clear. 2. Feedback is immediate. 3. Skills match challenge. 4. Concentration is deep. 5. Problems are forgotten. 6. Control is possible. 7. Self-consciousness disappears 8. The sense of time is altered. 9. The experience becomes autotelic.10. ‘Dreyfus in his skill model has tried to show how the highest skill levels show increasingly unconscious and automatic form of behavior. Experts just act. They do not need to think reflectively and thematically. The body knows best. Parallel networks in the brain do the job’ (Breivik Citation2007 p.132).11. In fact, Breivik makes such analysis with some other risk sports in his further article, Dangerous Play with the Elements: Towards a Phenomenology of Risk Sports as well.12. GORICHANAZ (Citation2019) explains that there is not just one kind of DNF as deciding not to continue and stop running at some point, but also suffering an acute condition, undergoing mental failure, and being too slow. And in some cases, the officials make such a decision to end the race for a particular ultramarathoner as well.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey under TUBITAK-2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program for Turkish Citizens.