Philosophy of Sport from the Institutional, Content Related and Methodological Viewpoint

In this article Author presents the dispute on the philosophy of sport. He points out four standpoints concerning the existence of the philosophy of sport: a) a commonsense one, b) a content related/methodological one, c) a reductionist one, d) a nihilistic one. The first points out that the discussed branch of science exists, that its final stabilization took place in the years 1967-1979. That opinion is proclaimed by Wojciech Lipoński (an English philologist), who is supported by Zbigniew Krawczyk (a sociologist of culture, an outstanding sociologist of sport, he dealt also with philosophical aspects of sport, 1995, 1997a, 1997b), Stanis aw Kowalczyk (an outstanding catholic philosopher, he expressed his opinions also on the philosophy and theology of sport 2002, 2007). That viewpoint, according to my exploratory talks, is shared by a majority of members of the British Philosophy of Sport Association, the European Association for the Philosophy of Sport and the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport, mainly because of lack of proper preparation - that is, philosophical education. The discussed standpoint has a commonsense character, since it does not tale into account the real level of contents of the philosophy of sport and relations taking place between it and general philosophy. It emphasizes only the first of the abovementioned requirements (the structural-functional one). Nobody of the abovementioned proponents of the first standpoint is aware of the need of meeting the two others of the abovementioned requirements - the content related one and the methodological one. An exception in that respect is Rev. Stanis aw Kowalczyk, who admittedly raises issues connected with those two others requirements, but the contexts of justification he has formulated have - especially in the content related respect - a commonsense character. Nota bene, statements of a similar character on fundamental issues happened even to the greatest philosophers, among others to Hegel. Moreover Kowalczyk considers also (although in a disputable way) methodological issues concerning methodological foundations of the philosophy of sport. Because of the fact that I do not agree with both content related and methodological argumentation of the great Catholic philosophers, I devote more space to a polemic against him - that is, justification of my standpoint - in the subsequent part of the text. The second standpoint is expressed by Jerzy Kosiewicz. It is shared by, among others, Ivo Jirasek, Scott R. Kretchmar, Jim S. Perry, Arno Muller (it refers to arguments comprised in that text in part III and presented also in presence of the abovementioned persons during the conference of the IAPS in Olomouc in 2005). It assumes that the philosophy of sport exists, but solely in the institutional-organisational (structural-functional) sense. However, because of content related and methodological reasons, it is still in an early phase of development and hence we more ha