Stephen Mumford

SummaryThere are two rival ways in which events in the world can be explained: the covering law way and the dispositionalist way. The covering law model, which takes the law of nature as its fundamental explanatory unit, faces a number of renown difficulties. Rather than attempt to patch up this approach, the alternative dispositionalist strategy is recommended. On this view, general facts are dependent upon particular facts about what things do, rather than vice versa. This way of viewing the world is not only more intuitive but also handles some of the notorious problems faced by laws; such as those of probabilistic and unrealized facts. The dispositionalist strategy faces its own difficulties of explaining generality and contingency of behaviour. It is shown, however, that at least these difficulties should not dissuade the dispositionalist. The prospects for a convincing dispositionalist ontology to replace one based on laws of nature are thus healthy

Sport is a producer of both emotional and aesthetic experiences. But how do these relate? Does a spectator’s emotional engagement in sport enhance or hinder it as an aesthetic experience? And does the aesthetic perception of sport enhance or hinder the emotional experiences? These questions will be addressed with particular reference to the distinction that can be drawn between partisan and purist watchers of sport, and making use of thinking in contemporary aesthetics and philosophy of emotion. There are some reasons to think that emotion and aesthetics pull in opposite directions, in both sport and wider life. Does a purist miss out on the essence of sport if they adopt a detached aesthetic attitude? If that were the case, it would suggest that the sports spectator might have to choose between the two: experiencing one or the other but not both at the same time. Emotions and aesthetics would be a trade-off but I argue for some significant exceptions to this conclusion.

The voluntary suspension of play is a putative fair play norm that has emerged in the last 20 years in association football, though there is no reason in principle why it is limited to that sport. It occurs in football when an injury appears to have been sustained and another player deliberately puts the ball out of play so that the injury can receive rapid attention. It is widely understood as a positive development within the sport and philosophers have added their support on the basis that VSP is a way of players exercising autonomous moral responsibility. It is represented as a case of athletes putting care for their competitors before care for the contest. In this paper, however, it is argued that moral praise for VSP is misplaced. Attempts to induce a VSP almost always occur when a team is seeking to hold a position within a game. As a delaying tactic, it encourages the faking of injuries, which is all the more reprehensible because it exploits someone else's concern for that apparent injury. Conditions for the possibility of VSP within a sport are analysed as well as conditions for the abuse of VSP. VSP occurs because of a loophole, and ways in which this can be closed are presented. In an appendix, some initial empirical evidence is presented that backs the evaluative claims of the paper

In Watching Sport, Stephen Mumford distinguishes two ways in which sport can be seen. A purist sees it aesthetically while a partisan sees it competitively. But this overlooks the obvious point that most sports fans are neither entirely purist nor entirely partisan. The norm will be some moderate position in between with the purist and partisan as ideal limits. What is then the point of considering these pure aesthetic and pure competitive ways of seeing? In this discussion note, I consider possible accounts of the way in which the moderate spectator watches. After rejecting what I call a pure perception theory and a mixed view, I defend an oscillation theory. This means that the moderate sports fan is one who switches, sometimes rapidly, between the aesthetic and competitive perceptions of sport. A pay-off of this account is that we do not need a further, third way of perceiving sport in order to account for the moderate. It has been explained in terms of our original two forms of perception. This fills a lacuna in Mumford's account

This paper contains a consideration of the notion of genius and its significance to the discussion of the aesthetics of sport. We argue that genius can make a positive aes- thetic contribution in both art and sport, just as some have argued that the moral content of a work of art can affect its aesthetic value. A genius is an exceptional inno- vator of successful strategies, where such originality adds aesthetic value. We argue that an original painting can have greater aesthetic value than an exact replica, merely because it is the original. By parity of reasoning, a successful innovation in sport has additional aesthetic value just because it is a new creation. The genius is one who can provide this extra aesthetic pleasure and on that basis is rightly valued. The genius need not be conscious of how they achieve such innovations and thus find their own genius to be something they cannot explain but only demonstrate. In sport, innova- tions that offer new ways of playing or solving problems can produce competitive success which demands instant recognition and rewards

Metaphysics and Science brings together important new work within an emerging philosophical discipline: the metaphysics of science. In the opening chapter, a definition of the metaphysics of science is offered, one which explains why the topics of laws, causation, natural kinds, and emergence are at the discipline's heart. The book is then divided into four sections, which group together papers from leading academics on each of those four topics. Among the questions discussed are: How are laws and measurement methods related? Can a satisfactory reductive account of laws be given? How can Lorentz transformation laws be explained? How are dispositions triggered? What role should dispositional properties play in our understanding of causation? Are natural kinds and natural properties distinct? How is the Kripke-Putnam semantics for natural kind terms related to the natural kind essentialist thesis? What would have to be the case for natural kind terms to have determinate reference? What bearing, if any, does nonlinearity in science have on the issue of metaphysical emergence?

This paper has three aims. First, I aim to stress the importance of the issue of the dispositional/categorical distinction in the light of the evident failure of the traditional formulation, which is in terms of conditional entailment. Second, I consider one radical new alternative on offer from Ullin Place: intentionality as the mark of the dispositional. I explain the appeal of physical intentionality, but show it ultimately to be unacceptable. Finally, I suggest what would be a better theory. If we take disposition ascriptions to be functional characterizations of properties, then we can explain all that was appealing about the new alternative without the unacceptable consequences

There are many ways that we can watch sport but not all of them are philosophically interesting. One can watch it enthusiastically, casually, fanatically or drunkenly. One might watch only because one has bet on the outcome. Some watch a friend or relative compete and have a narrow focus on one individual's performance. A coach or scout on the lookout for new talent may have completely different interests to a supporter of a team. But what of the ways of watching sport that are of philosophical interest?

A theory of laws is developed that takes from E. J. Lowe the claim of natural laws being consistent with certain classes of exceptions. Neither abnormal cases, such as albino ravens, nor miracles falsify covering laws. This suggests that law statements cannot have the form of a universally quantified conditional. Lowe takes it that this is best explained by natural laws having normative force in the same way as moral laws and laws of the land. I argue that there is a non-normative, descriptivist account that also explains the exception cases and which is preferable, given our reservations about normative laws of nature. I also suggest an improved account of miracles within the descriptivist account

I develop a metaphysical position that is both lawless and anti-Humean. The position is called realist lawlessness and contrasts with both Humean lawlessness and nomological realism – the claim that there are laws in nature. While the Humean view also allows no laws, realist lawlessness is not Humean because it accepts some necessary connections in nature between distinct properties. Realism about laws, on the other hand, faces a central dilemma. Either laws govern the behaviour of properties from the outside or from the inside. If the former, an unacceptable quidditist view of properties follows. But no plausible account of laws within properties can be developed that permits a governing role specifically for laws. I conclude in favour of eliminativism about laws. At the conceptual core, the notion of a law in nature is misleading. It is suggestive of an otherwise static world in need of animation.