Episode 74, ‘Football’ with Stephen Mumford (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Euthanasia, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Existentialism, Marxism, Kant, Ethics, Davidpapineau, Dennett, Marx, Evilgodchallenge, Cosmological, Mind, Consciousness, Courses, Nagasawa, Education, Johnstuartmill, Jeremybentham, Aristotle, Ocr, Camus, Josephfletcher, Conscience, Society & Culture, Kantianethics, Philosophy

4.8 • 604 Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Football is the most popular sport on the planet. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s experienced the excitement of matchday. It’s hard to remain indifferent when thousands of tightly packed fans, each patriotically sporting the colours of their team, sing, cheer and heckle in unison. The thrill of a crunching challenge, a derby victory, or a last-minute winner will undoubtedly elicit excitement.

For the sceptic, there is nothing beyond this superficial appeal. Fool-ball is simply a game of chance, in which the sport’s novelty appeal is only sustained through blind patriotism. Football is push-pin, and it is not to be confused with poetry.

Durham University’s Stephen Mumford defends football in the face of this attack. For Mumford, football has an intellectual depth that rewards more detailed consideration. When we watch football through a philosophical lens, we are called to deliberate a great wealth of ideas; from categories of aesthetic virtue, and the role of chance, control and victory, to the nature of a team, and the persistence of a ‘club’ throughout time.

Contents

Part I. The Philosophy Behind the Game.

Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Pan
0:02.0	Psygast
0:05.0	The second half, further analyses and discussion.
0:24.6	At face value then, football's quite simple, isn't it?
0:27.4	Stephen? Clubs by good players, hire good managers, they train the players, encourage them to win,
0:32.1	and the best team will always win if they play their best on the day.
0:36.5	Unless, I think there's a Darren Bent Bent scores a 1-0 winner against Liverpool.
0:41.6	Was it for Sunderland when a beach ball lands on the pitch?
0:44.1	So apart from extreme out there examples like this, the best team will win the day.
0:48.9	Do you think that's a fair characterisation of the sport?
0:51.3	No.
0:53.0	No.
0:53.4	No, I think one of the great appeals of football is that the best team
0:58.3	doesn't always win. Now, that might seem a strange thing to say. So I mentioned Scott Kretschmar's
1:06.0	idea of a game flaw. So he thinks it's a game floor if the best team or competitor doesn't win.
1:14.1	Right. But I actually think that misconceives what sport is all about. Sport isn't like a scientific
1:22.2	experiment to determine who is the best. Okay. We only have an interest in sport, and we only want to play sport, as long as everybody has a
1:32.2	chance.
1:33.3	Let me pick some teams at random.
1:35.4	Let's say Dagenham and Redbridge draw Liverpool in the FA Cup.
1:39.1	Yeah.
1:39.8	If you think that Dagenham and Redbridge literally have no chance, then that's a, it's
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.