engleski

The Structure of Mountaineering as a Nature Sport

If we follow Kevin Krein’s view on nature sports elaborated in his book Philosophy and Nature Sports and contend that mountaineering is a member of that group of sports, then some further analysis and explanations have to be done because of the complexity of mountaineering as a social activity. I argue that if mountaineering is a nature sport, we can extrapolate some basic sportive elements which build a genuine sporting structure, as Krein believes. However, I continue to argue that contrary to other nature sports, mountaineering shows a far more complex nature and needs further clarification. First, I shortly present Krein’s account of nature sports and list several nature sports with their basic structural elements following Krein’s analysis. Second, I compare those structural elements demonstrating that unlike in other nature sports where all those elements are quite clear and obvious, most of them are unclear or even completely blurry in mountaineering. Third, I provide an account of basic structural elements for mountaineering as a nature sport, stressing that it is a sport with the most fluid definitions and categorizations of activities, interaction and even the participants’ agreement about common practices and traditions. I conclude that we should keep the idea of mountaineering as a nature sport, but necessarily have in mind that the role of specific mountaineering ethos is not just an additional (or contextual) structural element, but the fundamental element of mountaineering as a social activity with completely elusive strict definition. This elusiveness, I maintain, as much as maybe annoying for an analytically oriented philosophy of sport, shows the real nature of mountaineering specifically, and even the nature sports generally, where, I think, we can try to find a part of the reason why they are so compelling.

mountaineering, nature sports, Kevin Krein, philosophical analysis, philosophy of mountaineering, philosophy of sport

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