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667Athletics, Gymnastics, and Agon in Plato (edited book)Parnassos Press. 2020.In the Panathenaic Games, there was a torch race for teams of ephebes that started from the altars of Eros and Prometheus at Plato’s Academy and finished on the Acropolis at the altar of Athena, goddess of wisdom. It was competitive, yes, but it was also sacred, aimed at a noble goal. To win, you needed to cooperate with your teammates and keep the delicate flame alive as you ran up the hill. Likewise, Plato’s philosophy combines competition and cooperation in pursuit of the goal of wisdom. On o…Read more
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565The Athletic Aesthetic in Rome's Imperial BathsEstetica. Studi E Ricerche 1 (1): 255-274. 2020.The Greek gymnasium was replicated in the architecture, art, and activities of the Imperial Roman thermae. This mimēsis was rooted in sincere admiration of traditional Greek paideia – especially the glory of Athens’ Academy and Lyceum – but it did not manage to replicate the gymnasium’s educational impact. This article reconstructs the aesthetics of a visit to the Roman baths, explaining how they evoked a glorious Hellenic past, offering the opportunity to Romans to imagine being «Greek». But tr…Read more
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515Plato's Gymnastic DialoguesIn and Coleen P. Zoller Mark Ralkowski Heather Reid (ed.), Athletics, Gymnastics, and Agon in Plato. pp. 15-30. 2020.It is not mere coincidence that several of Plato’s dialogues are set in gymnasia and palaistrai (wrestling schools), employ the gymnastic language of stripping, wrestling, tripping, even helping opponents to their feet, and imitate in argumentative form the athletic contests (agōnes) commonly associated with that place. The main explanation for this is, of course, historical. Sophists, orators, and intellectuals of all stripes, including the historical Socrates, really did frequent Athens’ gymna…Read more
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476Olympic Philosophy: The Ideas and Ideals Behind the Ancient and Modern Olympic GamesParnassos Press. 2020.The Olympic Games are a sporting event guided by philosophy. The modern Olympic Charter calls this philosophy “Olympism” and boldly states its goal as nothing less than “the harmonious development of humankind” and the promotion of “a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” The ideas and ideals behind Olympism, however, are ancient—tracing their roots to archaic and classical Greece, just like the Games do. This collection of essays explores the ancient Hellenic roots…Read more
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340Mimesis can refer to imitation, emulation, representation, or reenactment - and it is a concept that links together many aspects of ancient Greek Culture. The Western Greek bell-krater on the cover, for example, is painted with a scene from a phlyax play with performers imitating mythical characters drawn from poetry, which also represent collective cultural beliefs and practices. One figure is shown playing a flute, the music from which might imitate nature, or represent deeper truths of the co…Read more
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322Athlete Agency and the Spirit of Olympic SportJournal of Olympic Studies 1 (1): 22-36. 2020.A debate has arisen over whether “the spirit of sport” is an appropriate criterion for determining whether a substance should be banned. In this paper, I argue that the criterion is crucial for Olympic sport because Olympism celebrates humanity, specifically human agency, so we need to preserve the degree to which athletes are personally and morally responsible for their performances. This emphasis on what I call “athlete agency” is reflected metaphysically in the structure of sport, which chara…Read more
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313Wrestling with the Eleatics in Plato's ParmenidesIn Athletics, Gymnastics, and Agon in Plato, . pp. 185-198. 2020.This paper interprets the Parmenides agonistically as a constructive contest between Plato’s Socrates and the Eleatics of Western Greece. Not only is the dialogue set in the agonistic context of the Panathenaic Games, it features agonistic language, employs an agonistic method, and may even present an agonistic model for participation in the forms. The inspiration for this agonistic motif may be that Parmenides and his student Zeno represent Western Greece, which was a key rival for the mainla…Read more
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80Athletes as heroes and role models: an ancient modelSport, Ethics and Philosophy 11 (1): 40-51. 2017.A common argument for the social value of sport is that athletes serve as heroes who inspire people – especially young people – to strive for excellence. This argument has been questioned by sport philosophers at a variety of levels. Not only do athletes seem unsuited to be heroes or role models in the conventional sense, it is unclear more generally what the social and educational value of athletic excellence could be. In this essay, I construct an argument for the social and educational value …Read more
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62Sport and Moral Education in Plato’s RepublicJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 34 (2): 160-175. 2007.No abstract
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59Athletic Beauty in Classical Greece: A Philosophical ViewJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 39 (2): 281-297. 2012.Classical Greece is famous for its athletic art, particularly the image of the nude male athlete. But how did the Greeks understand athletic beauty? Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, and others discuss athletes’ beauty, while the educational ideal of kalokagathia conceptually connects athletic beauty with the good. More questions need to be answered, however, if we are to understand ancient athletic beauty. We need to ask ourselves what the Greeks appreciated when they looked at athletic bodies. What …Read more
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53The Political Heritage of the Olympic Games: Relevance, Risks, and Possible RewardsSport, Ethics and Philosophy 6 (2): 108-122. 2012.The Olympic movement sometimes claims that sport has nothing to do with politics, yet its goal of promoting peace is explicitly political. The Olympics' association with peace, furthermore, is inherited from the ancient version of the festival which took place in a very distant time and place. This essay examines the ancient political heritage of the Olympic Games and questions its relevance to such modern Olympic challenges as globalisation, cultural hegemony, social discrimination and environm…Read more
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52Olympic Sacrifice: A Modern Look at an Ancient TraditionRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 73 197-210. 2013.The inspiration for this paper came rather unexpectedly. In February 2006, I made the long trip from my home in Sioux City, Iowa, to Torino, Italy in order to witness the Olympic Winter Games. Barely a month later, I found myself in California at the newly-renovated Getty Villa, home to one of the world's great collections of Greco-Roman antiquities. At the Villa I attended a talk about a Roman mosaic depicting a boxing scene from Virgil's Aeneid. The tiny tiles showed not only two boxers, but a…Read more
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49Athletic virtue: Between east and westSport, Ethics and Philosophy 4 (1). 2010.Despite the rich philosophical heritage of the East, the connection between athletics and education for character or virtue is more commonly associated with the West. Classical Eastern philosophy does focus on virtue, but it seems to exclude sport as a means of cultivation since the Confucian is uninterested in victory and the Daoist seeks passivity and avoids contention. A closer look reveals, however, that Eastern conceptions of virtue have much in common with those of Ancient Greece so often …Read more
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48Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest for KnowledgeJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 36 (1): 40-49. 2009.No abstract
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31The Socratic AgonProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 2 173-183. 2008.It often surprises modern readers to find the cerebral philosopher Socrates hanging out in gymnasia and wrestling schools. We tend to downplay Socrates’ association with athletes and contest as mere literary window-dressing. I would like to suggest, to the contrary, that Plato’s depiction of Socrates as an athlete goes beyond dramatic setting and linguistic metaphor. Plato actually presents Socrates as an athlete of the soul, engaged in intellectual contest, occasionally defeating his opponents,…Read more
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28Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek IdealsSport, Ethics and Philosophy 4 (3): 359-361. 2010.
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28Aristotle's pentathleteSport, Ethics and Philosophy 4 (2): 183-94. 2010.Beauty varies with each age. In a young man, it consists in possessing a body capable of enduring all efforts, either of the racecourse or of bodily strength, while he himself is pleasant to look u...
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28Plato on women in sportJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 47 (3): 344-361. 2020.In a way, there is nothing surprising about Plato’s promotion of sport for women in Republic and Laws; it is logically implied by his philosophical theories. In another way, Plato’s vision of femal...
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27Olympic Sport and Its Lessons for PeaceJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 33 (2): 205-214. 2006.No abstract
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27Olympic EpistemologyProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 47 19-28. 2008.The ancient world witnessed a meaningful transition in the conception of human thought and belief. What some have called the “discovery” of the mind can also be understood as a release from dependence on oracular wisdom and mythological explanation, made possible by the invention of more reliable and democratic methods for discovering and explaining truths. During roughly the same epoch, Hellenic sport distinguished itself by developing objective mechanisms for selecting single winners from vari…Read more
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27The Philosophical AthleteCarolina Academic Press. 2019.All athletes experience victory and defeat, but how many truly learn from the experience of sport? For ancient Greek philosophers, sport was an integral part of education. Today, athletics programs remain in schools, but we face a growing gap between the modern sports experience and enduring educational values. This book seeks to bridge that gap by advocating a philosophical approach to the sports experience. Combining issues and ideas from traditional philosophy with contemporary analyses of sp…Read more
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24Why Olympia matters for modern sportJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 44 (2): 159-173. 2017.From the modern scientific perspective, Olympia is a ruin at the far end of a fading sense of history that represents little more than the origins from which sport has continuously evolved. Quantitative measurements show continued increases in human performance, equipment efficiency and funding. But some question this athletic evolution. We worry about qualitative issues, such as virtue, meaning and beauty. The source of this contrast is a difference in values: Olympic vs. Efficiency values. Suc…Read more
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21Introduction to the Philosophy of SportRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2012.Introduction to the Philosophy of Sport begins with the history of sport, delves into both the metaphysics and ethics of sport, and also addresses dimensions of the social and political elements of sport. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of sport with a straightforward layout that professors can plan and build their courses around
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20Sages, Heroes, and The Battle for Cycling’s SoulJournal of Chinese Philosophy 43 (1-2): 51-66. 2016.Using my experience at a stage of the 2014 Giro d'Italia, I argue that de is the soul of cycling and that ancient Chinese philosophy's insight into the conditions that promote de may help the sport. I compare the relationship between sages and virtuous practitioners, to the ancient Greek relationship between heroes and athletes, both of which depend on the performance of de. I also criticize modern cycling for its focus on technology, stark commercialism, and emphasis on the individual, prescrib…Read more
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20The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of SportSport, Ethics and Philosophy 9 (1): 83-86. 2015.
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19The beginnings of professional sport - roubineau milon de crotone ou l'invention du sport. Pp. 355, ills, maps. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2016. Paper, €22. Isbn: 978-2-13-065369-1 (review)The Classical Review 67 (2): 457-459. 2017.
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19Defining Sport: Conceptions and Borderlines (edited book)Lexington Books. 2016.This book examines influential conceptions of sport and then analyses the interplay of challenging borderline cases with the standard definitions of sport. It is meant to inspire more thought and debate on just what sport is, how it relates to other activities and human endeavors, and what we can learn about ourselves by studying sport.
Heather Reid
Morningside College
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Morningside CollegeRetired faculty
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Exedra Mediterranean Center, Siracusa, SicilyScholar In Residence
Areas of Specialization
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Applied Ethics |
Classics |