The Complexity of Value, Fact and Performance in Science and Sport (original) (raw)

Abstract The influence of sport science on sport and society is a complex phenomenon: the discipline of sport science itself covers fairly diverse ways of scientific thinking. It may seem that the theoretical, practical, natural and social scientific methods comprising sport science are difficult to harmonize and are incoherent. However, behind this incoherence, there stands, or rather, moves the common subject of all these sciences: the integrated natural-social human in their personal, value producing activities. Different sport sciences do not only have a common topic, they also have a common goal: enhancing the value of sport with their own means. Despite this commonality, sport sciences diverge from one another and the explanation of this divergence is not to be found in sport alone, but rather in the cracks created by the theoretical approaches of science, which concern our entire culture. On the one hand, the majority of sciences can still be characterized by the so-called Cartesian dualism, which splits the spiritual and physical existence of the human being, and since sport is by its nature a physical-spiritual-intellectual activity, the gap between the different sciences is even more prevalent; the theoretical handling and resolution of this issue is of fundamental interest for sport sciences. The other gap, which does not only concern sport sciences, but other sciences of our age as well, is the communicational disorder between fact-based and value-based sciences. The actual topic of this presentation is this second problem: can the judgement of scientific facts and performances be independent of our value-judgement? As sport is undoubtedly an activity which produces values, and sport can only be called sport until it can create human and social values, it is of vital importance for sport sciences to clarify the relationship between sport-related facts and the values making sport to be sport. The objective of the paper is to explore the interplay of values and facts in science and sport science with the instruments of philosophy and sport philosophy, and to sketch the value-based scientific aspect of sport science. Key words: sport sciences, fact-based sciences, value-based sciences