Nowadays, philosophy is most widely understood as an approach, according to which philosophical problems arise for a person when he tries to go beyond directly perceived phenomena, fixing data of empirical experience, concerning this or that form of life activity (cognitive, scientific, labor, political, economic, sports, etc.) and tries to understand ultimate (final) foundations, fundamental preconditions that determine its very existence, meaning and significance.

Such problems can and do arise before every person - at least with regard to one or another aspect of his life. However, these problems are extremely complex, so attempts to solve them on the basis of intuition, "common sense," belief, etc., can only lead to mistakes. There is a need for a theoretical understanding of the ultimate (final) foundations, the fundamental preconditions of human activity, a scientifically substantiated approach to solving the relevant problems. Besides, it is important to raise and try to solve them not only in some particular cases, concrete forms of human activity, but also in logically generalized form. This approach is what philosophy strives to realize. Briefly, it can be said that philosophy is a theoretical, scientifically grounded teaching about ultimate (final) foundations, fundamental preconditions of human life activity in all its forms.

Such a subject of philosophy determines a set of problems that it poses and tries to solve, using scientific methods. Let us give a brief description of these problems.

An important role in the life of people is their worldview - a system of views on the world and man's place in it, on the attitude of people to the world and themselves, as well as the beliefs, ideals, principles of knowledge and activities conditioned by these views. Mythology and religion try to solve the worldview questions relying on faith and fantastic ideas about the world. Philosophy, in solving them, uses scientific criteria of justification of the positions put forward. It seeks to justify such a worldview, which is based not only on worldly empirical experience, but also on theoretical knowledge.

The central place among this knowledge is occupied by ideas about man, his place in the world, various forms of attitude to the world. The formation and substantiation of such scientifically grounded knowledge is engaged in philosophical discipline, which is most often called philosophical anthropology - the philosophical teaching about the nature (essence) of man.

The system of generalized views of the world, substantiated in philosophy, is expressed in such philosophical categories as "subject", "process", "change", "development"

"regularity", "space", "time", etc. These categories constitute the conceptual apparatus of ontology - the philosophical science of being, its most general properties and laws.

The theoretical worldview also includes certain ideals, symbols and meanings (ideas of what the world and man should be like, of goodness, beauty, etc.), on which people are guided in their activities. These worldview reference points, which regulate human activity, are expressed in the system of values. The process and results of the activity of a social subject to create, assimilate and consume a complex and diverse world of values constitute the world of culture. It includes a system of social norms, ideals, patterns of behavior, meanings, symbols that regulate, determine the nature and direction of various forms and areas of social practice, social relations, and specific activities. The complex of problems associated with the comprehension of this complex and diverse world of culture is analyzed by culturology.

Culturological issues become particularly important during such crucial periods in the development of society, when the previously established system of values, traditional meanings of life (ideas about man, good and evil, life and death, freedom and necessity, etc.) no longer satisfy the new socio-economic and political conditions, and therefore begin to be questioned, criticized. There is a need to search for new meanings and values of life, designed to orient a person in these new conditions. Philosophy is called to assist in solving this problem by means of theoretical analysis of these worldview problems, rational comprehension of new values, and formation of new guidelines for human life and society as a whole. This is the reason for its important worldview function.

Aesthetic and ethical problems are closely connected with culturological problems. Aesthetic problems are problems concerning the aesthetic relationship of man to the world on the basis of such aesthetic values as beauty, the sublime, heroism, etc., the content and meaning of aesthetic human activity, etc. Ethical problems arise in the analysis of the functioning and development of the sphere of moral consciousness, moral relations and moral behavior.

An important place in philosophy is occupied by the analysis of the problems of ultimate bases of human cognitive activity and especially scientific cognition. This analysis involves getting answers to the questions of whether cognizable objects exist outside and independent of sensations, perceptions, notions, concepts, and other forms of human consciousness, whether he is able to cognize them, and if so, in what way, by what methods, etc. These problems are discussed in such sections of philosophy as gnoseology (the science of cognition in its relation to the world), logic and methodology of scientific cognition (as it concerns logical means of cognition, methods of cognition). The development of these philosophical disciplines allows philosophy to effectively fulfill its methodological function.

As noted above, the system of generalized views of the world, theoretically substantiated in philosophy during the development of worldview, implies such philosophical categories of ontology (philosophical science of being, its most general properties and laws) as "subject", "process", "change", "development", "regularity", "connection", "system", "structure", "reason", "chance", "possibility", "reality", "necessity", "quality", "quantity", etc. 

The analysis of the limiting bases of cognitive activity also implies taking into account those properties, parameters, characteristics, which the studied objects have, and fixing them in logically generalized form in these philosophical categories. They set not only worldview reference points (what are the most general characteristics of the objects of the world, in which a person lives and acts), but also cognitive and methodological reference points (what and how should be cognized, researched). On the basis of the mentioned categories and related cognitive actions in philosophy the analysis of methods of scientific cognition is carried out - for example, qualitative methods of research, logical and historical methods, system-structural methods, etc. In dialectics, which is not only ontology, but also logic and methodology of scientific cognition, these methods act as elements of the dialectical method. This method is of great importance in the study of objects, which are a complex changing and developing system.

This is a brief description of philosophy, philosophical problems and the importance of the problems developed in it.

The object and subject matter of the philosophy of sport

For philosophy of sport, as for sociology of sport, we can distinguish its narrow (direct) and broad objects of study. Directly it studies sport, and the broad object of its study is the whole set of phenomena related to sport - physical education, physical recreation, the Olympic movement, etc.

This is manifested in the different names of this scientific discipline and its sections. Along with the name "philosophy of sport" the authors of publications use other names: "philosophy of athletics", "philosophy of physical education", "philosophy of physical exercise (motor activity)", "philosophy of physical culture", "philosophy of recreation (leisure)", "philosophy (axiology, ontology, epistemology) of body/body", "philosophy of Olympism", "philosophy of achievements".

In the study of sport and all related phenomena, the philosophy of sport distinguishes its own special subject of study. Its main goal is to provide a theoretical, scientifically substantiated analysis of the ultimate foundations, the fundamental prerequisites of various forms of human activity (cognitive, practical, axiological, etc.) in the sphere of sport.

This specific approach of philosophy of sport to the study of the phenomena of this sphere distinguishes it from other scientific disciplines (philosophy, psychology, etc.) and sciences of sport (psychology of sport, economics of sport, pedagogy of sport, etc.).

Comprehension of the ultimate foundations, the fundamental prerequisites of various forms of human activity in the sphere of sport provides for the development in relation to this sphere of a set of philosophical problems.

First of all, this is a wide range of philosophical and ideological, axiological and socio-philosophical problems.

Concretization of these problems in the sphere of sport are questions about the ideals, goals, the meaning of the activities of the subjects of sport - athletes, coaches, sports functionaries, etc.

Let's take, for example, the activity of a coach in the sport of the highest achievements. With regard to this activity there is a set of different questions: which of the athletes to select for the preparation of high-class athletes, what are the rights and obligations of the coach, how he should build a training process to achieve the goal, what should be his salary, what conditions should be created for his activities, etc. These questions are not philosophical, but pedagogical, economic, legal, etc. Philosophical problems as applied to the activity of a trainer arise when one tries to find out the social meaning and significance of his activity. The relevance of the statement of this problem is associated with numerous negative phenomena in sports of the highest achievements.

But also with regard to the activities of high-class athletes themselves questions arise about its social meaning and significance. Spectators, gathered at the stadium or on the sports field, sometimes have the opportunity to observe how an athlete jumps higher (farther) or runs faster, or lifts more than anyone has done before. And the media - newspapers, radio, and television - immediately carry the news around the world, bringing it to those who couldn't watch. Thousands of people are excited and happy about the sports record. Many of them don't even ask themselves why they need it. Many people wonder not only about that, but also about the broader question of whether "big" sports are worth devoting so much effort and energy to. As sport becomes more and more intensive, and as the effort and energy required to set sporting records increases, these questions are also becoming pertinent. There are an increasing number of people who are highly skeptical, if not sharply negative, about records.

The question about the social meaning and significance of human activity in sport arises also because any sport involves competition. But why do we need competition, what meaning does it have? Since rivalry can have negative consequences, maybe it, and therefore sport, should be abandoned? These questions are especially relevant in relation to high-performance sports, Olympic and children's sports.

The activities and results of the social subject to create, assimilate and consume a complex and diverse world of values constitute the world of culture. When analyzing the social meaning and significance of human activity in the sphere of sports, a set of important problems related to the comprehension of the place of the phenomena of sports in the system of cultural values, connections with other elements of this system, etc., i.e. cultural problems arise.

For a long time, these problems were out of sight of scientists. This situation was typical, for example, for the analysis of those forms of motor activity and corporeality, which were most often referred to by the term "physical culture". Scientists considered them in various aspects: pedagogical, psychological, physiological, etc., but not in the culturological one, although the term "physical culture" was used and an appropriate concept was introduced. With their help certain forms of human motor activity and corporeality, which occupy an important place in the world of culture, were singled out - but only as an object of research. The specific subject, which is characteristic of culturological research, was not singled out.

As for philosophers, sociologists and other scientists, who were specially engaged in conducting culturological research and developing a general theory of culture, for a long time they also bypassed human motor activity and human corporeality. The reason for this was the idea that the human body, especially its morphophysiology and motor skills, unlike mental, moral, aesthetic and other phenomena of the human spiritual world, which have a pronounced social character, are supposedly in the sphere of "pure" biology.

The human body, considered in and of itself and insofar as it is biologically determined, given to it by nature, certainly does not belong to the world of social phenomena. When a person is isolated from society, as the cases of "wild children" show, it remains a "pure organism," a biological phenomenon. This is not the case when a person is included in the system of social relations, in social activities. His body begins to fulfill important social functions in people's lives. At the same time, under the influence of social environment, both spontaneous and conscious, purposeful (in accordance with certain models, norms, traditions, ideals, on the basis of using specially developed means for this purpose), it is modified and altered in a certain way. As a result, it acquires cultural status (character), and becomes an element of the cultural world.

Studying of human corporeality as a cultural phenomenon provides for setting and solving a set of culturological problems: on the ratio of social and biological in the physical and psychophysical development of the individual, on the ratio of spontaneous and conscious social influences on his physical and psychophysical state; on the relationship of various means of such influence (pedagogical, hygienic, surgical, based on "gene engineering" etc.) and their role in the purposeful formation of physical, psychophysical and other forms of human body.

Important cultural issues arise in the analysis of sport: whether it refers to the world of cultural phenomena, what specific cultural values are formed in the field of sport, in what relation they are with other cultural values, whether the cultural value of high-performance sport, international and Olympic sport, what opportunities are in sport for the impact on the spiritual (moral, aesthetic, intellectual) culture of man, to what extent these opportunities are realized at different stages of social development, etc.

These culturological problems, which also have important practical value, are attracting more and more attention from specialists who develop the problems of the philosophy of sport.

Because of the complexity of these problems, they expressed different and even opposite opinions: the cultural significance of sport is estimated either very high or insignificant, and sometimes denied altogether. Cultural problems of sport are the subject of many scientific congresses, conferences, symposiums, etc. Some of them, including international ones - for example, seminars in Warsaw (1978, 1981), an international seminar of sociologists of sport in Gothenba (Japan, 1988), an international conference in Glasgow (2004), etc." were specially devoted to this problem.

Aesthetic and ethical problems of sports activity are closely related to culturological problems.

An aesthetic analysis of sporting activities involves posing and solving a set of aesthetic problems, to what extent various aesthetic values - the beautiful, the sublime, the heroic inherent in this activity; which objectively existing features, sides, aspects of sport in certain conditions acquire aesthetic significance for humans, cause him aesthetic pleasure; what are the criteria for their aesthetic evaluation; what aesthetic feelings and needs give rise to exercise of physical culture and sports; what impact on

In recent years, issues concerning the relationship between sports and art have taken on particular importance, not only theoretical but also practical (what are the similarities and differences, how are they related, is it legitimate to consider sports as art, etc.), as well as the possibility, need for concrete ways and the importance of their integration.

With aesthetic problems of the sphere of sport are closely related ethical problems of functioning and development in this sphere of moral consciousness, moral relations and moral behavior. The most important in this regard are the questions of what opportunities are contained in the sporting activities for the involvement of a person to moral values and on what factors their implementation depends. The problem of moral value of modern sports and the Olympic movement is particularly acute and debatable: whether they contribute to the formation and development of moral consciousness, moral beliefs and attitudes, moral behavior. moral culture in general. This problem is constantly raised at scientific conferences, symposiums, congresses, as well as in scientific publications. A special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Sport in 1995 is devoted to ethical problems of sport.

Recently, the aesthetic and moral problems of sport have become increasingly important due to its contradictory development, attempts to find ways to humanize sport, to strengthen its connection with the arts, etc.

An important place in the problems of philosophy of sport is occupied by the problems of the ultimate foundations of human cognitive activity, i.e. gnoseological and logical-methodological problems of scientific cognition of the phenomena of sport. It refers to the problems concerning the structure, genesis and methods of studying the phenomena of this sphere: what are the main levels, stages and the most effective methods of their study; how to operate with concepts, hypotheses and other cognitive procedures in the study of these phenomena.

These problems are relevant for a number of reasons.

First, during the scientific study of sports and other related phenomena, scientists deal with specific and highly complex objects that have diverse and contradictory properties - both social and biological.

Second, the sciences that study these objects are relatively young and intensively developing. Much work is being done to clarify their subject and methods of cognition, and their place in the system of other sciences. Considerable attention is paid to the development of conceptual apparatus necessary for the scientific analysis of sports. Attempts are made to build theories based on the transition from the empirical to the theoretical level of its scientific knowledge, as well as through the introduction of new concepts, terms, etc. For all this work to be effective, a high methodological level of scientific research, based on the statement and solution of logical-methodological problems, is required.

Publications on these problems can be divided into two groups m. The first group includes works in which these problems are analyzed as they arise in the framework of individual sciences of sport (in pedagogy, psychology, sociology of sport, etc.), in the study of certain phenomena of the sphere of sport, or characterize the private methods of their study (e.g. cybernetic, mathematical, etc.). The second group includes publications devoted to the analysis of methodological problems of sport research in a logically-generalized form. Some publications deal with a single methodological problem or one method, in others - with a set of these problems and methods.

Thus, the major philosophical problems of sport include:

philosophical and attitudinal,

socio-philosophical,

cultural (axiological),

aesthetic,

ethical,

gnoseological,

logical and methodological

ontological problems.

The Formation and Development of the Philosophy of Sport

The philosophy of sport was not immediately formed within the framework of the sciences that study the field of sport. For a long time in the scientific analysis of the phenomena of this sphere biological, physiological, anatomical and pedagogical problems were in the foreground. To some extent, this was justified by the logic of the real development of the sphere of physical education and sports, as well as the logic of their cognition. As long as sport had a local sphere of action and its spontaneous development took place within the boundaries in which it could be managed without special knowledge, the impression was created that we could do without scientific analysis of the philosophical problems associated with it or at best limit ourselves to isolated arguments about these problems.

The situation began to change as the development of physical education and sport and scientific research in this field became increasingly widespread. The transformation of sport at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century into a global social phenomenon, the growth of its authority and influence in the world and the various crisis situations associated with it increasingly demanded theoretical self-consciousness of this complex social phenomenon and its profound philosophical analysis.

The development of the sports and Olympic movements, their universality, their increasing role in the modern world, their close connection with the many problems of our era created the need for a transition in the field of philosophical problems of sport from purely practical knowledge and disparate illustrations to a systematic analysis based on proven research methods and recognized scientific theories. New patterns of behavior and gradations of values that emerged under the influence of high-performance and Olympic sport began to demand ever broader, more complete, more accurate and differentiated information.

The need also arose to study the influence of economics, politics, culture, and the mass media on sport, on the one hand, and, on the other, the inverse impact of the sports and Olympic movement on various spheres of social life and on the way people live. Cultural and logical-methodological problems of sport were also becoming increasingly important.

The absence of scientifically grounded information on all these issues, which could be used as a basis for sport activities, reduced the efficiency of these activities, hindered the development of the sports movement, did not allow to see its prospects, reduced its prestige within the phenomena of modern culture, and also hindered the more effective organization of scientific research into sport.

At the same time, it was increasingly realized that the analysis of philosophical and ideological, socio-philosophical, cultural, aesthetic, ethical, gnoseological and logical-methodological problems of sport within scientific disciplines with other subjects of study is an ineffective way. The conviction of the need for a special philosophical analysis of sport has been formed and strengthened, because it makes it possible in this analysis to use the experience of solving similar problems, accumulated throughout the history of human knowledge in various sciences.

All of the above factors contributed to the formation of the philosophy of sport, beginning in the 1920s, as a relatively independent scientific discipline. Scientific publications appear that attempt a special philosophical analysis of sport and other closely related phenomena. And such works are becoming more and more numerous. This is evidenced at least by the bibliography of foreign works on this subject.

Among the earliest publications on the philosophical problems of sport are two works: one of them was published in 1920. (L. N. Gulick), the second in 1932. (P. McBride). Among the most famous authors of later published monographic works on the philosophy of sport are: Е. Berry, I. M. Bykhovskaya, J. Segpe, E. S. Davis, A. G. Egorov, E. Kosiewicz, W. A. Kosiak, Z. Krawczyk, R.S. Kretchmar, N. Lenk, J. Lipiec, M. Mylik, R. Osterhoudt, M.J. Saraf, V.I. Stolyarov, S.E. Thomas, H.J. Vanderzwaag, K.A.E. Volkwein-Caplan, P. Weiss, E.F. Zeigler and others.

The International Philosophical Society for the Study of Sport, founded in 1972, which today bears the name The International Association for the Philosophy of Sport, has played a significant role in the development of the philosophy of sport.

Since 1974, the Society has published an international journal on the philosophy of sport (Journal of the Philosophy of Sport) and regularly organizes international seminars and conferences on the sociology of sport.

As noted above, the philosophy of sport, focusing on the comprehension of the ultimate foundations, fundamental prerequisites provides for the development in relation to the isolated relatively independent object of study (sports, physical culture, physical education, etc.) a set of philosophical problems: philosophical and worldview, socio-philosophical, cultural (axiological), aesthetic, ethical, gnoseological, logical-methodological and ontological.

On the basis of scientific understanding of these problems, the philosophy of sport performs a set of important functions: ideological, epistemological, methodological, etc. It helps each person involved in the sphere of sport to develop his own philosophical position, which has a significant impact on his entire behavior in this sphere.

The philosophical problems of sport are closely related to each other, often even overlapping. That is why their analysis on the basis of a comprehensive approach is combined in a single philosophical theory.

At the same time, due to the difference of these problems as the philosophy of sport develops, a number of scientific disciplines are separated from it as relatively independent.

These include, for example, the science that aims to comprehend the world of aesthetic phenomena of sport - the aesthetics of sport. Briefly, it can be described as a science that studies: the aesthetic content and aesthetic values of sports, the essence and laws of consciousness, reflecting it from an aesthetic perspective, and forms of aesthetic human activity associated with sports activities. This specific subject distinguishes the aesthetics of sport from private aesthetic disciplines (such as the theory of aesthetic education, industrial and technical aesthetics, aesthetics of everyday life and behavior, aesthetics of nature, new directions of the art sciences, etc.) and from other sciences of sport.

The process of separating a number of other philosophical sciences into relatively independent ones is also nearing completion, such as:

Ethics of sport (the science that studies the functioning and development of moral consciousness, moral attitudes, and moral behavior in the field of sport),

culturology of sport (the science designed to comprehend the complex of philosophical problems concerning sport as a cultural phenomenon),

logic and methodology of scientific knowledge of sport (science, which puts and solves the logical and methodological problems of sport research taking into account those general principles and provisions that have been developed in modern logic and methodology of science). The philosophy of sport is closely connected with other sciences - first, with such fundamental disciplines as philosophy, sociology, cultural science, political science, psychology, pedagogy, etc., and, second, with other sciences that study sport.

Particularly close in this regard is its connection with the sociology and cultural studies of sport