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University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 A Xerox Education Company 73-2145

THOMAS, Carolyn Elise, 1943- THE PERFECT MOMENT: AN AESTHETIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE SPORT EXPERIENCE.

The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1972 Education, physical

University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan

© Copyright by j Carolyn Elise Thomas

1972

I

THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. THE PERFECT MOMENT: AN AESTHETIC PERSPECTIVE

OF THE SPORT EXPERIENCE

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial F ulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of T le Ohio State University

By

Carolyn Elise Thomas, B.S., M.S,

*****

The Ohio State University 1972

Approved by

Ad vis :hool of HeaJ^h, Physical Education and Recreation 1

PLEASE NOTE:

Some pages may have

indistinct print.

Filmed as received.

University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company For Dad, Cheryl, Jim and for those who have understood and shared with me the perfect moments of sport and life long before the concept was a germ in my thinking. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the shadow

Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the shadow — T. S. Eliot

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My sincere thanks to Sy Kleinman for his criticism and for the freedom he has allowed me in both this paper and my doctoral work. I am more significantly indebted to him as an adviser for the freedom to be myself in my personal and professional expression. I wish to thank my reading committee: Dee Morris, who saw possibilities in the research design and whose excitement about "Fred" was encouragement in itself; and Margaret Mordy, whose questioning and insist­ ence on scholarship have been an implicit challenge in my work at Ohio State. My thanks to Grace and Cheryl for their

assistance, in typing and duplicating at various stages, to

Dorothy for use of her professional library, and to those of my friends and colleagues who questioned premises and stimu­ lated "Fred's" growth. VITA

March 8, 1943 .... Born - Mt. Clemens, Michigan

1965...... B.S., Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan

1965-1966 ...... Teaching Fellow, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

1967 ...... M.S., University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

1966-1970 Assistant Professor, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho

1971-1972 Assistant Professor, Denison Uni­ versity, Granville, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Physical Education

Studies in Philosophy and Movement Theory. Dr. Seymour Kleinman

Studies in Sport Sociology. Dr. Margaret Mordy

Studies in Research Design. Dr. Delyte Morris

Studies in Teacher Education. Drs. Mary Yost and Charles Mand

Studies in Self-Concept. Dr. Barbara Nelson

Minor Field: Sociology

Studies in Small Groups and Independent Study. Dr. Robert Ross

Studies in Social Psychology. Dr. Clyde Franklin

v Related Studies: Philosophy

Studies in Aesthetics. Dr. Peter Machamer

Studies in Existentialism. Dr. Lee Brown

Studies in Philosophy of Mind. Dr. Andrew Oldenquist TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page PREFACE ...... iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iv

VITA ...... V

Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Proposed Criteria

II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE...... 10

Plato Eugene Veron Leo Tolstoy Benedetto Croce R. G. Collingwood Curt Ducasse John Dewey Ernst Cassirer Susanne Langer

III. THE NATURE OF THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE . . . 41

IV. THE NATURE OF THE SPORT E X P E R I E N C E...... 55

V. AN INITIAL CONSIDERATION OF SPORT AS AN AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE: SOME GENERAL PARALLELS ...... 68

VI. DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIFIC CRITERIA ...... 78

Intent Expertise Whole Man Acting Involvement

vii Chapter Page VII. THE PERFECT MOMENT IN SPORT 100

Part 1

Sartre Maslow and the Peak-Experience Straus and the Pathic Moment Buber and the I-Thou Relationship McLuhan and the Hot-Cool

Part 2

The Perfect Moment

VIII. FEELING, REFLECTION, AND DESCRIPTION IN THE PERFECT MOMENT, A CONCLUDING SUMMARY ...... 124

Feeling in the Aesthetic Experience and Perfect Moment The Nature of Experiential Description Examples of Experiential Descriptions Concluding Summary

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 148

viii CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Traditional aesthetic theories and philosophies of

art1 have been concerned with the art object and usually with the beauty of the object via some mode of sense percep­ tion. The artist has been considered only in relationship 2 to his having produced the object. Some dancers, for example, suggest that dance as an art experience is essen­ tially a creative process. However, often this definition

and aesthetic which examines, or is based upon, the process

still concerns itself with the object— the dance. Ulti­ mately, it concerns itself with the elements of the art object— color, space, shape, flow, time, and continuity— rather than with the dancer's experience of dancing. In

short, the aesthetic experience and its examination has almost always presupposed an object. Although the sport

Particularly those of Jacques Maritain, George Santayana, and Henry Marshall. 2 Selma Jean Cohen, The Modern Dance: Seven State­ ments of Belief (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1965). Also, Alma Hawkins, Creating Through Dance (Engle­ wood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964); Araminta Little, "Concepts Related to the Development of Creativity in the Modern Dance" (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California, 1965). aesthetic necessarily presupposes an object— the body and its movement— it will be the contention in this paper that it does so only insofar as it allows facilitation of the athletes' experience.

To follow traditional aesthetic theories in the development of a sport aesthetic, the focus would be on the beauty of the human body in motion and would consider the grace, efficiency, and effortlessness of movement achieved in skilled performance. Some sports movements such as those in gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming, and diving which have dance overtones have often been termed beautiful and artistic. However, in other sports this expertise and "beauty" conjures a utilitarian, structured, and mechanistic process rather than the expressive reactions which have served as criteria for aesthetic theories. Since it is theoretically apparent that this objectification of the body and its movements cannot be considered artistic, the necessity arises to look away from the art object and toward the artists' experience and the nature of the aes­ thetic experience as a probable alternative in the develop­ ment of a sport aesthetic.

Although a few papers appear in physical education 3 literature dealing with sport aesthetics and sport in

3 For example, see: Benjamin Lowe, "The Aesthetics of Sport: The Statement of a Problem," Quest. May 1971 (NAPECW-NCPEAM); and Eugene Kaelin, "The Well-Played Game: Notes Toward an Aesthetics of Sport," Quest, May 1968 (NAPECW-NCPEAM). 4 art, i.e., sport in sculpture, painting, and literature, little has been done to construct a theoretical basis for dealing with the movement form of sport, per se. as an aesthetic act. A number of aesthetic theories, particularly those of Veron, Tolstoy, Collingwood, Dewey, and Langer, have taken into account the affective, experiential, and symbolic aspects of the artist in the aesthetic encounter.

These theories and others are briefly delineated in Chap­ ter II.

The aesthetic experience has been defined broadly as a feeling attributed to an experience in which the sensuous, qualitative aspects are encountered apart from all mediation by ideas, and independently of any determination as to 5 whether or not anything else exists. Use of this definition from the perspective of the artist points the way to a sub­ jective, highly individualistic, and affective experiential aesthetic. Although any single definition of art is neces­ sarily limiting and inflexible, the following operational definition is the synoptic result of definitions offered by many aesthetic theoreticians. Art is the object of the

4 For example, see: Judy Jensen, "Sport in Poetry," and R. W. Reising, "Where Have All the Heroes Gone?" in Quest. June 1971 (NAPECW-NCPEAM). Also, Betty Jean Putnam, "Concepts of Sport in Minoan Art" (unpublished doctoral dis­ sertation, University of Southern California, 1967). 5 Paul Weiss, Nine Basic Arts (Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961), pp. 3-5. aesthetic experience, i.e., from the audience perspective it

is the object which is the cause of the aesthetic experience

or from the artists' perspective it is the object which

results from, or symbolizes, the aesthetic experience. This

resultant object can be defined further as a concrete repre­

sentation via some media or, as this paper will attempt to

show, as a reflective description of a feeling or emotion resulting from man's involvement with sport.

For the purpose of this paper a distinction is made ! between feeling and emotion. Feeling is considered to be a generalized affective mood, or attitude, toward, or as a result of, an experience which may result in an anticipatedJ I or reflected, attitude about an experience. These feelingsj I e.g., loneliness, awe, frustration, disappointment, desire, and appreciation, are more likely to be manifest verbally than physically. In contrast, emotion may be considered to be an extreme feeling, e.g., joy, anger, sadness, laughing, and crying. These are more spontaneous, of shorter temporal duration, and'usually manifested and visible. However, thiJ does not preclude verbal manifestation.

Within the scope of these definitions, it seems feasible to hypothesize that engagement in sport is a valid and genuine aesthetic experience. The intent of this paper is to develop criteria in which sport, from the performer's perspective of the experience, may be considered as an aesthetic experience and to provide descriptive examples of 5

the experiential sport aesthetic by means of athletes' self-

reports. The discussion will be delimited to the background

examination of the aesthetic theories in Chapter II and will

view the aesthetic experience from the perspective of the

artist-athlete with respect to the affective relationships he is able to define as existing between himself and the

sport. The investigation will not engage in any considera­

tion of the following: (1) the question of whether sport

should or can be considered an art form; (2) the qualitative

and aesthetic problems regarding standards of "good" art;

and (3) the debate of whether product or process may be more properly called art.

Proposed Criteria

Although Schopenhauer® suggested that aesthetic

contemplation begins with a complete effacement of self and

man escapes the vicissitudes of his own life and the pre­

determination of his character, it may be more accurate in 7 8 light of present self-concept theories to follow Delacroix

®Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea. Vol. I, translated by R. B. Haldene and J. Kemp (London: Trubner and Co., 1883), pp. 251-265. 7 Arthur Combs and Donald Snygg, Individual Behavior (New York: Harper and Row, 1959); Prescott Lecky, Self- Consistency: A Theory of Personality (New York: Island Press. 1945): Clarke Moustakas. The Self (New York: Harper, 1956). Q Henri Delacroix, "Varieties of Aesthetic Experi­ ence," in Vivas and Krieger, The Problems of Aesthetics, and translated from Psycholoqie de l'Art by Joan Krieger (New York: Rinehart and Co., 1955), pp. 279-285. and Ingarden^ with regard to what Metheny*^ and Slusher11

.have called the "absurdity" of the sport experience.

Ingarden maintains that the object of the aesthetic experi­

ence "is not identical with any real object . . but that

"its beginnings alone may be a pure sense perception of a

real object as found but soon pass from it to something 12 else." This "something else" is a composite and complex

development of the aesthetic experience that "becomes an

emotional experience distinguished by an emotional inter­

course with the quality experienced, a sort of desire to

possess this quality and a tendency to satiate oneself with 13 the quality." While Delacroix does not discuss the

reality of the aesthetic object, he does argue that "the

contemplator is completely charged with the story of his own 14 life, his capacities and affective habits."

Following the ideas implicit in these statements and

Weiss's definition of aesthetic experience and after a

q Roman Ingarden, "Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Object," in Lawrence and O'Conner, ed., Readings in Existen­ tial Phenomenology (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967), pp. 308-312.

^Eleanor Metheny, Movement and Meaning (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 59-65.

■^Howard Slusher, Man. Sport and Existence (Phila­ delphia: Lea and Febiger, 1967), pp. 107-120.

■^Ingarden, p. 308.

1 3Ibid.. p. 309.

■^Delacroix, p. 279. tradition of expressionist and emotionalist theories, there would appear to be the suggestion that man can bring a sub­ jective self-concept to the, perhaps, unreal situation of sport described by Metheny and Slusher.^ There is also the implication that the aesthetic experience can be a highly subjective, emotional, and involved experience between man and object. The nature of the sport experience (Chapter IV) and the nature of the aesthetic experience (Chapter III) will be examined in an attempt to draw out some existing commonalities and parallels between the two experiences

(Chapter V). On the basis of these implications and paral­ lels and in light of previous aesthetic theories, an investigation of the following specific criteria for a sport aesthetic, which will be called the perfect moment, is undertaken in this paper.

Authenticity of intent.— The first prerequisite for sportr-to be an aesthetic experience is that the movements during performance match the athlete's intent at the outset of the movement or game, i.e., the result was not accidental, and that the expertise exhibited was within the capabilities of the performer* and meets the criteria for the sport.

Development of intent prior to the movement experience may

1JiSee Chapters III and IV, "The Natures of the Sport and Aesthetic Experiences." 8 presuppose cognitive analysis, setting the stage for involve-

ment in and reflection upon the experience.

Expertise.— A second requirement for the perfect

moment is that the performance exhibit qualities of excel­

lence and consistency as established within a given sport.

Involvement and relation.— The third criterion to be

met demands that the athlete establish a totally involved

and committed relationship with the various sport movements

in the sport experience which transcend cognitive considera­

tions of technique. This transcendental esqperience will be deemed necessary to establish the aesthetic, or perfect, moment which will be the object of reflective description.

Whole man acting.— The last requirement for the

aesthetic experience in sport is that the experience involve the total man, i.e., mind and body, and that the body be experienced as a subject rather than as an object.

Reflective description.— When all these prerequisites have been established and met, the following premises will be established to suggest that the totality of the aesthetic experience, i.e., perfect moment, and the athletes' emotions and feelings following such an experience may be verbally described.

1. The athlete enters the sport or movement act with an intent to experience positive affect. This is 9 neither the sole nor primary reason for participation and may include the desire(s) to win, to perform satisfactorily or to achieve something not previously achieved.

2. The sport experience potentially may alter or intensify the initial affective intent.

3. The sport experience, or movement act, which results in an authentic perfect moment, creates a feeling about and/or an emotional reaction toward the experience.

4. Upon reflection, the athlete becomes audience to his own act and can attempt to verbally describe his subjec­ tive and affective experience.

5. The affective reflection, or aftermath of the perfect moment, becomes the representation of the experienced perfect moment. The description of these emotions or feel­ ings are a valid representation of the perfect moment only when it matches the athletes' initial or experientially altered intent and reflects the authentic, totally involved, and expertly performed experience. CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Aesthetic historians^ place the origin of aesthetic

and art theories as far back as the sixth century B.C. which 2 Plato, in his Republic. refers to as "the long-standing

argument between poetry and philosophy." However, it was

not until the eighteenth century when philosopher Alexander

Baumgarten applied the new name "aesthetics" to the old argu­

ment. 3 Richter points out that aesthetics, which originated

as the science of beauty, has branched into many diverse

approaches to the study of art and the aesthetic experience.

He suggests that the primary reason for the differentiation

among aesthetic perspectives lies in the fact that theoreti-

■^Katherine Gilbert and Helmut Kuhn, A History of Esthetics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1954); Frank Tillman and Steven Cahn, Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics (New York: Harper & Row, 1969); Albert Hofstader and Richard Kuhns, Philosophy of Art and Beauty (New York: Modern Library, 1964): and Monroe Beardsley. Aesthetics (New York: Macmillan, 1966). 2 Plato, The Republic, translated by Francis McDonald Cornford (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945) , p. 339. 3 Peyton Richter, Perspectives in Aesthetics: Plato to Camus (New York: Odyssey Press, Inc., 1968), pp. 14-21.

10 11 cians disagree as to what aesthetics Is, or should be, and have often interjected moral or metaphysical dogma. A secondary factor has been the varying degrees of competency among aesthetic theoreticians in dealing with various forms of art. It is also necessary, suggests Richter, to consider the direct or indirect influence of a configuration of economic, political, technological, religious, scientific, educational, and psychological factors on the theoretician 4 during the period in which he was writing. However, despite the differences among aesthetic perspectives, there is the common basis of aesthetic experience and a common aim in the theoretical understanding of that experience.^ "Dif­ ferences arise again, however, when it comes to explaining how 'aesthetic experience' is to be defined and approached, g what methods are to be used in understanding it."

The intent in the following pages is to briefly

■' ■ delineate some of the aesthetic theories relating specif­ ically to the aesthetic experience as perceived by the artist and the audience. Particular attention is given to those experiential aesthetic theories which contain con­ siderations of emotion and feeling or communication of the artists' emotional or feeling state either directly or sym­ bolically via some physical media.

4 Richter, pp. 16-19.

5Ibid., p. 19. 6Ibid. 12

Plato

Plato was one of the first to attempt a definitive statement on art when he, or Socrates, raised the fundamental questions: What is beauty? What is the function of art in the ideal city-state? What is the relationship between the good, the true, and the beautiful? Plato's fullest and most consistent treatment of art is found in the Republic. How­ ever, sections of Phaedo. Phaedrus. Ion. Gorqias. and the

Symposium written at different stages of Plato's philosophic maturity reveal a somewhat ambivalent and often his own puzzled attitude about the place of art.

Basic to Plato's ethical and social philosophy is that both the individual and the state are governed by reason. Despite the importance of the arts in educating the guardians of the ideal state, Plato felt that self-control and rationality were incongruous with poetic creativity.

For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses and the mind is no longer with him.7 Q Toward the end of the Republic Plato has Socrates establish the view that the artist who imitates objects is inferior to both the craftsman that makes the objects and the man who uses the objects. Presupposed throughout this

7 Plato, Ion, in The Dialogues of Plato. Vol. I, translated by Benjamin Jowett, 3rd edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1892), p. 502. g Republic. Book X, pp. 324-333. 13 discussion in Book X is Plato's metaphysical view that particular sensible things are not true realities but only copies of universal, eternal realities. Since the artist presents in his work a copy of what is itself a copy, he is far removed from truth and reality.

The artist, we say, this maker of images, knows nothing of the reality, but only the appearance. An artist can paint a bit and bridle while the smith and leather-maker can make them. Does the painter understand the proper form which the bit and bridle ought to have? Is it not rather true that even the craftsmen who make them know that, but only the horseman who understands their use. . . . But what of the artist? Has he either knowledge or correct belief? Does he know from direct experience of the subjects he portrays whether his representations are good and right or not?9 Plato concludes that the artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the subjects he represents, dooming the artist to ignorance and art to a non-serious activity of man.

Though there is no direct statement in Plato's writings and though inconsistent with his metaphysical view, there seems to be some feasibility in suggesting that Plato has inadvert­ ently laid initial groundwork for a later idea that the validity of the artistic experience for the artist is more essentially experiential than detached and representative.

Hence, the artist comes closer to truth, at least as close as he can come in his earthly experience, by acquiring the knowledge of the subject that is found in doing or becoming

g Republic. Book X, pp. 331-333. 14 involved rather than merely representing or merely imitating

In the Sophist,^ Plato maintained in a general way that art was a choice of pleasure over reason and, in the

Republic,11 he specifically declared that drama was an appeal to emotion rather than reason.

His creations are poor things by the standard of truth and reality, and his appeal is not to the highest part of the soul, but to one which is equally inferior. . . . ^

He felt that dramatic poetry encouraged the sympathetic indulgence of emotions and in a cathartic fashion allowed men (the audience) to give in to reason and restraint, thus undermining character.

When we listen to some hero in Homer or on the tragic stage moaning over his sorrows in a long tirade, or to a chorus beating their breasts as they chant a lament, you know how the best of us enjoy giving ourselves up to follow the performance with eager sympathy . . . and yet when the sorrow is our own, we pride ourselves on being able to bear it quietly like a man, condemning the behavior we admired in the theatre as womanish. It is Plato's conception of the artist to create an emotion in or communicate an emotion to the audience although it is not necessary for the artist to feel or experience the emotion. The better he does this, the better he is thought of as an artist.

^ S o p h i s t , in Dialogues of Plato.

11Republic. pp. 333-340.

12Ibid.. p. 337. 13Ibid., pp. 337-338. 15

Eugene Veron (1825-1889)

Veron was one of the founders of the French Expres­ sionist theory of art. He took a somewhat anti-metaphysical approach to aesthetics by beginning with observations on the 14 nature of art rather than with a priori definitions. In discarding the Platonic notion of art as imitation, Veron maintained that art was an activity in which the artist expressed his feelings, or emotions, within the scope and limitations of some medium.

. . . art is the manifestation of emotion, obtaining external interpretation, now by expressive arrange­ ments of line, form or colour, now by a series of gestures, sounds, or words governed by particular rhythmical cadence. The merit of a work of art . . . can be finally measured by the power with which it manifests or interprets the emotion that was the determining cause.-1-5

"Art, in truth, addresses all the feelings without exception; hope or fear, joy or grief, love or hatred. It 16 interprets every emotion that agitates the human heart."

Veron, and later Ducasse, regarded the essence of art as the embodiment of emotions the artist has experienced and placed in his creation. The aesthetic experience was highly indi­ vidualistic and art was viewed from the standpoint of the artist in that the audience was not a factor in the emotional experience leading to the creation of the work of art. The

14 Eugene Veron, Aesthetics. translated by W. H. Arm­ strong (London: Chapman and Hall, 1879), pp. 1-2.

15Ibid., pp. 88-89. 16Ibid.. p. 97. 16 work of art was an emotive symbol expressing feeling as opposed to a cognitive symbol expressing knowledges or beliefs. Art, or the aesthetic experience, is the activity of creating these emotionally expressive symbols and the symbol is the work of art; The artist must have a certain feeling, or emotion, and the work of art must express that 17 feeling or emotion.

Art . . . is a spontaneous product, the immediate and necessary outcome of human activity. In reality it is nothing less than the direct expression of man's nature in its most simple and human aspect. Art, we may truly say, came before thought itself. Befoxe he ever attempted to understand or explain the conditions of the world in which he lived, man, open to pleasure through his eyes and ears, sought in combinations of forms, sounds, movements, shadow and light, for certain special enjoyments.1®

Veron's aesthetics had its basis in the materialist theory of sense perception. Pleasure originates, for both the audience and the artist, from the stimulation of sense organs, particularly the ears and eyes since these senses have a wider extension and are more closely allied to 19 aesthetic sentiments or feeling. For Veron, aesthetics is not the science of beauty but "the science whose object is the study and elucidation of the manifestations of artistic 20 genius." It is essentially a predominance of subjectivity over objectivity. He distinguishes between decorative and expressive art and establishes the criterion for decorative

17Veron, pp. 21-33. 18Ibid.. p. 29.

19Ibid.. pp. 51-54. 20Ibid., p. 109. 17 art as the creation of beauty. However, beauty is not the criterion for expressive art, although it may be present.

Expressive art is only to be judged by its merits of expres- 21 siveness and significance.

After a general definition of art, Veron makes application to various arts in a general sense and later devotes individual chapters to each of the various arts.

Although he makes no formal classification of the arts, he does suggest that they fall into two broad categories: arts of the eye and arts of the ear. He placed dance in the latter category, claiming that the common feature of arts of the ear was the development in time through successive 22 movements regulated by the laws of rhythm.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

With altered emphasis the main contentions of Veron 23 reappear in Tolstoy's main work on aesthetics, What is Art?

However, Tolstoy feels communication of feeling is indispen­ sable, while Veron defines art simply as the expression of feeling. Tolstoy also tends to be more anti-hedonistic and attempts to draw a moral interpretation of art while defend­ ing communication theory against the idea that art is

21Veron, pp. 126-127.

22Ibid.. pp. 152-156. 23 Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? translated by Aylmer Maude (New York: Thomas Crowell and Co., 1899). 18 imitation or the creation of beauty. Both Tolstoy and Veron agreed that art is the "language" of emotions.

Tolstoy felt that what Veron stated was necessary but not sufficient and claimed that his definition was inexact "because although a man may express his emotions by means of lines, colours, sounds, or words, he may not act on others by such expression and then the manifestations of his 24 emotions is not art." Tolstoy looked for a social and moral purpose for art other than the pleasure it may produce and developed the theory that art is communication of emo­ tion. Unlike Veron's theory, Tolstoy's art necessitates an audience. Appreciation of art by the audience is to be moved by it through actual participation in the same emotions that are embodied in the art object.

After devoting the opening portions of What is Art? to an investigation of beauty, Tolstoy concludes that all theories of beauty are reducible to pleasure. He further concludes that there is no objective definition of beauty since pleasurable sensation is relative to the beholder.

Therefore, any attempt to understand the meaning of art is 25 to refrain from identifying it with the creation of beauty.

In order to define any human activity, it is neces­ sary to understand its sense and importance. And, in order to do that, it is primarily necessary to examine that activity in itself, in its dependence-

24 Tolstoy, p. 40.

25Ibid.. pp. 32-39. 19

on its causes, and in connection with its efforts, and not merely in relation to the pleasure we get from it. . . . 2°

In defining art as the communication of feelings,

Tolstoy suggests that there are three aspects of artistic communication: (1) the internal, i.e., the evocation of experienced feeling within the artist; (2) the external or the objectification of the feeling through some medium; and

(3) the interpersonal which is the transmission of this feeling through the medium to others who then experience the artist's feeling.

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experi­ enced and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colours, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling— this is the activity of art.2 ^ Three criteria are given to distinguish real art from pseudo art. The first is the individuality of feeling:

"the more individual the feeling transmitted, the more 28 strongly does it act on the receiver." The second is the clarity of feeling: "the clearness of expression assists infection, because the receiver . . . is the better satisfied 29 the more clearly the feeling is transmitted." And the third is the sincerity of feeling: "but most of all is the degree of infectiousness of art increased by the degree of 30 sincerity of the artist," i.e., not to misrepresent his

26Tolstoy, p. 38. 27Ibid., p. 43.

28Ibid.. p. 133. 29Ibid., p. 134. 30Ibid. 20 feelings or imitate feelings he does not actually feel.

Tolstoy felt that an artist's work could not be interpreted. His expression through some medium attests to his inability to express his feelings in words. Thus, for

Tolstoy, any interpretation, appreciation, or creation of art is on a non-cognitive level. The aesthetic experience 31 is "something else."

Benedetto Croce (1866-1952)

Croce was critical of nineteenth century naturalist, hedonist, and moralist theories of art. Inspired by Hegel, his theory is a revival of idealism applied to art which incorporates the voluntaristic ideas of Schopenhauer and the emotionalist theories of Veron and Tolstoy. 32 In the opening chapter of his main work, Aesthetic.

Croce argues that knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive or logical. Intuitive knowledge, which forms the basis for Croce's theory of art, is gained through imagina­ tion and is the knowledge of individuals and individual things. It is independent knowledge which produces images rather than concepts. However, despite the fact that it does not develop concepts or relationships, it is not to be confused with simple sensation nor limited to the perception

31 Ingarden, p. 308. 32 Benedetto Croce, Aesthetic, translated by Douglas Ainsley (London: Noonday Press, 1909). 21 33 of space and time. "What intuition reveals in a work of

art is not space and time, but characteristic individual 34 physiognomy." This highly individualistic and subjective

intuitive characteristic of man is free from any suggestion

of intellectualism or cognitive perception.

One of the main tenets of Croce1s theory is the idea

that intuition and expression are identical and that inten­

tion, or intuition, is elaborated in expressing. "Every true intuition or representation is also expression. That which does not objectify itself in expression is not intui­ tion or representation, but sensation and mere natural 35 fact."

With regard to expression, Croce urges that it not be confused with communication. What man is capable of intuiting and expressing does not have to be, by his own choice, put into a form of a physical object. Embodiment in physical form takes the intuition out of the aesthetic and places it into the practical sphere. Genuine artistic expression is, in light of Croce's idealism, primarily and exclusively an inner, formative spiritual activity which is 36 not dependent on matter for its reality or significance.

33 Croce, Aesthetic. pp. 1-5.

34Ibid., p. 5. 35lbid. . p. 8. 36 Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetics," in The Encyclopedia of Britannica. Volume I, 14th edition (Chicago: Encyclo­ pedia of Britannica, Inc., 1938), pp. 264-265. 22

Art is purely and only mental and there is no such thing as

an external work of art. Art is concerned with meaning and

for the artist there exist only images which are mental 37 realities.

It is clear that the poem is complete as soon as the poet has expressed it in words which he repeats to himself [expression]. When he comes to repeat them aloud for others to hear, or looks for someone to learn them by heart . . . or sets them down in writ­ ing or in printing, he has entered a new stage, not the aesthetic but the practical [communication].38

The practical involves technique and the only tech­ nique Croce considers artistic are those "inner techniques" which are the formation of intuition-expressions. The only work of art is a mental creation or, for the audience, a re-creation and the physical work is the practical instrument of communication, though not itself art, by which the audi­ ence can re-create the artists' "lyrical intuition" which is 39 the real work of art, m their own minds.

Feeling gives unity to the imaginative, or intuitive, vision which becomes objectively expressed. Feeling is more than emotion and includes any subjective mood.

We do not ask the artist for a philosophical system nor for a relation of facts, but for a dream of his own, for nothing but the expression of a world desired or abhorred. If he makes us live again in his dream the rapture of joy or the incubus of terror,

37Croce, "Aesthetics,11 pp. 264-265.

38Ibid., p. 267.

39Ibid. 23

in solemnity or in humility, in tragedy, or in laughter, that suffices.40

In discussing principles of poetry, which also apply

to art in general, Croce maintains that' a genuine poem con­

sists of a complex of images and a feeling which are fused 41 into an indivisible unity, "a lyrical intuition."

What has been said of poetry applies to all other "arts" commonly enumerated; painting, sculpture, architecture, music. Whatever the artistic quality of mind is discussed, the dilemma must be faced, that either it is lyrical intuition or it is some­ thing just as respectable, but not art.4^

Croce proposed a highly individualistic and subjec­

tive aesthetic based on a non-cognitive idealism.

Every individual, that is, every moment of the spiritual life of an individual has its artistic world, and this artistic world cannot be compared with others.4^

R. G. Collinqwood (1889-1943)

Although Collingwood echoes Crocean idealism in maintaining that art is not sensuous pleasure, nor technique, 44 nor representation, his Principles of Art returns to Veron to take up the principle that art is an activity in which

40 Benedetto Croce, The Philosophy of the Practical (London: Macmillan, 1913), p. 268.

41Croce, "Aesthetics," pp. 263-264.

42Ibid., p. 265. 43 Croce, Aesthetic, p. 156.

44R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (London: Oxford University Press, 1969). 24 man expresses or attempts to express the emotion which marked the experience. "The aesthetic experience, or artistic activity, is the experience of expressing one's emotions by means of the total imaginative activity called 45 language, or art." In his discussion on language and symbol, Collingwood includes bodily actions as well as speech as a form of language.46

Expression is not to be confused with description, communication, arousal, or betrayal of emotion for none of these can be considered art proper.

The characteristic mark of expression proper is lucidity or intelligibility; a person who expresses something thereby becomes conscious of what it is he is expressing, and enables others to become con­ scious of it in himself and in them.^'

The artist must be candid and free, i.e., he cannot choose which emotions to express because choice represents an insincerity of feeling. "For until the work is complete 48 one does not know what emotions one feels." Therefore, the artist must follow what he feels, however nameless the feeling, to be sincere and to discover at the end what feeling he is, or was, experiencing.

Unlike Croce, Collingwood felt that feeling must be manifest in some physical form to be art. However, it still

45Collingwood, p. 275.

46Ibid.. pp. 225-240.

47Ibid., p. 123. 48Ibid., p. 115. 25

remains highly individualistic expression and an audience

may or may not be involved. It is possible for the artist

to become audience to his own work and, indeed, is necessary

for him to view the unity of his work which clarifies his

emotions. However, it is possible for the artist to trans­

form the audience into artists. "We know he is expressing

his emotions by the fact that he is enabling us to express 49 ours. ..."

For Collingwood the act of expressing emotions

becomes a mode for the artist's exploration of his emotions5^ 51 and becomes synonymous with becoming conscious of them.

Expression is an activity of which there can be no technique.

"The artistic activity does not 'use1 a 'ready-made' lan- 52 guage, it 'creates' language as it goes along."

Collingwood concludes that the artistic activity is

not generated out of nothing but presupposes a psychical, or 53 sensuous-emotional, experience. Both the sensuous and emotional are combined in the experience of feeling. Feeling is independent of thought but provides a substructure upon 54 which thinking develops. All thought presupposes feeling.

The most primordial esqpression of feeling is not linguistic

49 Collingwood, p. 118.

50Ibid., p. 111. 51Ibid., p. 275.

52Ibid. 53Ibid.. p. 273.

54Ibid.. pp. 157-163. 26 but bodily which occurs without an intellectual recognition 55 of expression.

There is a distinction made by Collingwood between purely psychical emotions which find expression involun­ tarily, and emotions of consciousness which can be expressed in the language of phrase or a gesture.^ Interpretation of the emotion by an audience can also be done by either an intellectual process which depends on the skill of the observer or through a conveyance of meanings by means of a

"kind of emotional contagion which takes effect without any 57 intellectual activity."

Curt Ducasse

In the preface to his main work, The Philosophy of 58 Art, Ducasse immediately states that art is the language of feelings which includes the entire range of human emotions and that "language is essentially objectification and only 59 secondarily communication." Language is also essentially expression of an inner state.Hence, art, for Ducasse,

55Collingwood, pp. 228-229.

56Ibid., pp. 231-232.

57Ibid., p. 230. 58 Curt J. Ducasse, The Philosophy of Art (New York: Dover, 1966). 59 Ibid., pp. ix-x.

60Ibid., p. 32. 27

"which is the language of feeling, is essentially expres- 61 62 sion." A later work distinguished two kinds of linguis­

tic functioning: the language of emotions and the language

of factual assertions wherein he placed art in the category

of emotional language.

Like Collingwood, Ducasse denies that art is pleasure

or imitative and maintains that expression may occur outside,

in the form of some public medium, as well as inside the 63 artist's mind. He also felt that Croce was correct in his

belief that the copying in some physical medium of something

already existing as an image in the mind is not art. "His

error . . . is not in recognizing that art may arid often

does create as directly in perceptual-stuff [public media] 64 as in image-stuff." Ducasse was critical of Croce in his

use of the term "expression" in an unusual way, his incorrect

view of the nature of the physical work, and the obscurity

of the theoretical relationship between expression and intui­

tion.^ He further claims ambiguity in both Veron*s and

Tolstoy's use of expression and suggests that although

Veron's definition is too broad, it is more correct than

Tolstoy's transmission concept. However, he says that they

61 Ducasse, Philosophy of Art. p. 36. 62 Curt J. Ducasse, Art. the Critics and You (New York: Oscar Piest, 1944), pp. 52-55. 6 3 Ducasse, Philosophy of Art. pp. 52-54, 72-83.

64Ibid.. p. 107. 65Ibid., pp. 42-55. 28 66 both rightly feel that art is the language of feeling.

The end or purpose, i.e., the telic character, which

art seeks is objectification of the artist's self, i.e., of 67 his feelings, meanings, and volitions. Objectification of

expression may be in public physical works or remain private to the artist but "art . . . is activity which is consciously so controlled as to produce a result satisfying some speci- 68 fied condition." In art the object copies nothing because 69 it is known only when the creative process is completed.

Objectification of expression means that the act of expres­ sion is creative of something, at least capable of being contemplated by the artist such that "in contemplation

[reflection] that thing yields back to him the feeling, meaning, or volition of which it was the attempted expres­ sion. 1,78

Although Ducasse admits that new and original acts of self-expression are blind, he maintains that art is not merely self-expression or objective self-expression but consciously objective self-expression. "One must be able to acknowledge the product as an adequate statement of one- 71 self." However, this determination of objectivity, by the

66 Ducasse, Philosophy of Art. pp. 39-41.

67Ibid.. p. 111. 68Ibid., pp. 110-111.

69Ibid.. pp. 99-109. 70Ibid.. p. 113.

71Ibid., p. 115. 29 artist. is not demanded or controlled either prior to or during the expressive act. It does mean that a critical 72 judgment is an intrinsic and essential constituent of art.

That activity is telically constructed and criti­ cized after it has occurred. And the work of art is not the product of that activity simply, but of that activity constructed and criticized, and if need be repeated until correction of-the product results, i.e., until objectivity of expression is obtained.73

So for Ducasse the poet begins with a feeling and writes a poem after which he reflects on his work. Either he will be able to say: "No, that is not what I felt" and discard the work, or "Yes, that says what I felt." Thus, upon reflec­ tion, the artist becomes his own audience and his own critic.

Though others may view the work, this differs from the artist's objectification of feeling in that it is the artist who determines if it is art, i.e., if the physical manifesta­ tion is truly what was felt.

John Dewey (1859-1952) 74 Dewey's main work on art, Art as Experience. establishes the thesis that art is experience which is the biological interplay of man and man, and man and environment.

The function of art is to organize experience more coherently

72Ducasse, Philosophy of Art. p. 115.

73Ibid., p. 116. 74 John Dewey, Art as Experience , (New York: Capri­ corn Books, 1958). 30 and more vividly than ordinary life permits. Although art is experience in its most articulate and adequate form, there is a oneness of life and art.. The experience is not domi­ nated by one mental faculty such as imagination or emotion but includes all psychological states. Experience is most satisfactory when means and ends inter-penetrate because separation destroys the organic relatedness of an experience which may become art. 75

There is a continuity of aesthetic experience with ordinary experience in that aesthetic experience is not considered esoteric or divorced from events, doings, and 76 sufferings of everyday experience. However, everyday experience differs from an experience. Experience is char­ acterized by the fact that "things are experienced but not in such a way that they are compressed into an experience.

There is distraction and dispersion . . . because of 77 extraneous interruptions and inner lethargy." An experi­ ence runs its course to fulfillment. Then it becomes integrated within and marked off from the general stream of experience. "A piece of work is finished in a way that it is satisfactory; a problem receives a solution; a game is

7^Dewey, pp. 197-199.

76Ibid., p. 3.

77Ibid., p. 35. 31 78 played through. * . Such an experience has unity, and 79 is whole, individual, and self-sufficient.

Art is achieved through a complex interaction of artist with object in which experience is clarified, intensi­ fied, and transformed. To do this, energies and materials must be organized, meanings "funded"; relations integrated, qualities of intellect and emotion fused, and life-experience 80 given form.

An object is particularly and dominantly esthetic . . . when the factors that determine anything to be called an experience are lifted high above the threshold of perception and made manifest for their own sake.®1

Although not the same in the literal sense, the audience must create its own experience which includes relations "compar- 82 able to those the original producer underwent." Despite the individuality implied, the act of re-creation is neces­ sary for the object to be considered as a work of art.

The act of expression involves a continuous modifica­ tion and transformation of "outer" or physical and "inner" or mental materials which are organically related. The mind and the medium are separate but related in the experience of 83 the expressive act. Experience is the result of inter­ action of the organism and the environment and is a

^8Dewey, p. 35. ^8Ibid.

80Ibid., pp. 54-56. 81Ibid.. p. 57.

82Ibid.. p. 54. 83Ibid., pp. 74-75. 32 transformation of interaction into participation and communi­

cation.

Since sense-organs with their connected motor apparatus are the means of this' participation, any and every derogation of them, whether practical or theoretical, is at once effect and cause of a narrowed and dulled life-experience.

"Emotional discharge is a necessary but not suffi- 85 cient condition of expression." The viewer may be in error to interpret emotional discharge as expression. The mere giving way to an impulsion, native or habitual, does not constitute expression since it lacks a medium to give it material embodiment and formal significance. Expression stems from an inner urge but must be clarified by taking 86 into account values of prior experience. "And, these values are not called into play save through objects of the environment that offer resistance to the direct discharge of 87 emotion and impulse." However, inhibition of raw emotion should not be equated with suppression. Impulse is modified by collateral tendencies; a modification which gives it added 88 meaning.

The individual must grasp the meaning of the act for

84Dewey, p. 22. 85Ibid.. p. 61.

86Ibid., pp. 61-63. 87Ibid., p. 61. OQ Ibid., p. 97. With regard to collateral tend­ encies, Dewey discusses motor expressiveness in detail, pp. 97-105. 33 89 it to be expressive. An emotion which is evoked by mate­ rial that is employed as media consists of a natural emotion 90 that has been transformed into an expressive work of art.

An aesthetic emotion is distinct but not separate from a natural emotional experience.

The fact that the esthetic emotion is native emo­ tion transformed through the objective material to which it has committed its development and consum­ mation, is evident.

"Dance and sport are activities in which acts once performed spontaneously in separation are assembled and converted from 92 raw, crude material into works of expressive art."

Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) 93 Although in his major works Cassirer agreed with

Croce that symbol and thought, expression and intuition are inseparable, he does take issue with Croce's suggestion that expression can be identified with intuition, or emotion, without consideration of the process by which intuition or 94 emotion is externalized in sensuous form. He further maintained that "to be swayed by emotion alone is senti-

89 Dewey, p . 63.

90Ibid., pp. 63, 77.

91Ibid., p. 79. 92Ibid., p. 63. 9 3 Ernst Cassirer, Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962); The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, translated by Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962). 94 Cassirer, Essay on Man. pp. 141-144. 34 95 mentality, not art." For Cassirer, art is neither imita­

tion of nature nor expression of human emotions. It is the

ideal reconstruction of reality and expression of the inner

dynamic process of human life.9**

This fixation of the "highest moments of phenomena" is neither an imitation of physical things nor a mere overflow of powerful feelings. It is an interpretation of reality— not by concepts by intuitions; not through the medium of thought but through that of sensuous forms.97

Cassirer distinguishes two kinds of experience and

suggests that the expression of things is understood before

the knowledge of things. There is a kind of experience of

reality outside scientific explanation and interpretation

which is present when a being confronts not merely things or 98 reality but the presence of living subjects. He equates

this encounter with expression and also with the "thou" mood 99 which Buber established.

The perception of life is not exhausted by the mere perception of things, that the experience of "thou" can never be dissolved into an experience of the mere "it" . . . ,100

Tracing perception back historically, he notes that the

95 Cassirer, Essay on Man. p. 141.

96Ibid., pp. 137-144. 97Ibid.. p. 146. 98 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Volume III: The Phenomenology of Knowledge, translated by Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), p. 62. 99 Martin Buber, I and Thou. translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York, Scribners, 1970).

100Cassirer, Symbolic Forms, pp. 62-63. 35

"thou" form indicates a greater preeminence than the "it" form and "the more plainly the purely expressive character 101 takes precedence over the matter or thing-character."

In a lengthy discussion on the difference between man and animals, Cassirer argues that although animals possess a practical imagination and intelligence to use signals which are part of the physical world of being, man alone has developed a symbolic imagination and intelligence 102 which is part of the world of meaning. Like animals, man interprets and receives stimuli and effects change in his environment. However, he also creates a symbolic universe in which to interpret and organize his experience. He moves in a physical environment but also in a symbolic environment of language, religion, science, history and art.

These symbols, or symbolic forms, are not modeled on reality but model reality. They are expressions of the creativity of spirit, or mind. Thus, to study or engage in symbolic forms, e.g., art, is not to discover reality but 103 one's own human power. Reality is only what it is as made by symbolic forms so that in art, as in other forms, discovery and creation merge into one. Man cannot deal with

■^^Cassirer, Symbolic Forms. p. 63. 102 Cassirer, Essay on Man, pp. 27-41.

103Ibid.. pp. 23-26. 36 reality, per se. because it has become too involved in the artificiality of symbols.

No longer can man confront reality immediately; he cannot see it, as it were, face to face. Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as man's symbolic activity advances.104

Aesthetic freedom is not the absence of emotions, not stoic apathy, but just the contrary. It means that our emotional life acquires its greatest strength, and that in this very strength it changes its form.105

The feeling in art is the dynamic process of life, not a simple or single emotional quality. There is an oscillation between extremes of emotions and aesthetic form is given to passion by transforming them into a free and active state.

The audience does not remain passive in this process:

We cannot understand a work of art without, to a certain degree, repeating and reconstructing the creative process by which it has come into being.106

So, like Dewey, Cassirer suggests the aesthetic esqperience for the audience is participation in the re-creation process. 107 "Art may be defined as a symbolic language."

Despite the fact that art is a form of language, the symbols of art differ from the symbols of speech in both character and purpose, in both means and ends. Although neither art nor language is imitative of things or actions, both are representation. "But a representation in the medium of

104 Cassirer, Essay on Man, p. 25.

10SIbid.. p. 148. 106Ibid., p. 149.

IQ7Ibid.. p. 168. 37 sensuous forms differs widely from a verbal or conceptual 108 representation." Reality has a conceptual depth and a purely visual depth. Science discovers the first and aids in an understanding of things. The second is revealed in 109 art by providing an aid in seeing its forms.

Susanne Langer

Langer's theory of art has been a systematic develop­ ment of the idea that art is the symbolic projection of human feeling which provides a knowledge not obtained in any other mode of living.11^ The development was initiated in

Philosophy in a New Key111 and carried through Feeling and 112 113 Form. Problems of Art, and Mind: An Essay on Human 114 Feeling. She used feeling in a broader sense than its usual denotation and maintained that feeling was anything

108 Cassirer, Essay on Man. p. 168. 109 Ibid.. p. 169.

^^Susanne Langer, "The Expression of Feeling in Dance." Impulse, 1968 (San Francisco: Impulse Publications, 1968), p. 21.

^'11Susanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (New York: New American Library Mentor Books, 1942). 112 Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Scribner's and Sons, 1953). 113 Susanne Langer, Problems of Art (New York: Scribner's and Sons, 1957). 114 Susanne Langer, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967). 38 115 that could be affectively felt and art is an objectifica- 116 tion of this feeling. Art, for Langer, is essentially a

detachment from reality and although it is not always or

necessarily abstract, it is an illusion created by some form 117 of symbolization.

Every work of art is a symbol— an objective presenta- 118 tion of subjective reality. "A work of art is a single

indivisible symbol" which is not analyzable into more elemen­

tary parts. It is a prime symbol unlike the system of 119 symbols which comprise language. "A work of art is an

expressive form created for our perception through sense and 120 imagination, and what it expresses is human feeling." The

art symbol is not imitative of feeling but an abstracted form 121 which Langer calls "transformation." ". . .it consists

in the rendering of a desired appearance without any actual 122 representation of it."

The whole spectrum of emotions is the organizing idea

in the arts. A work of art sets forth a course of feeling,

■^^Langer, "Feeling in Dance," p. 16.

116Ibid., p. 21. 117 Langer, Feeling and Form, p. 46. 118 Langer, Problems of Art. p. 9. 119 Langer, Feeling and Form, p. 369. 120 Langer, Problems of Art, p. 15.

121Ibid., p. 98. 122Ibid. 39 emotion, or sentience which is the capacity for feeling.

The artist need not have experienced all the emotions he can express. "For although a work of art reveals the character of subjectivity, it is itself objective; its purpose is to 123 objectify the life of feeling." The artist's work is the making of the emotive symbol which necessitates technique, or varying degrees of craftsmanship. Langer maintains that this is not, as Collingwood suggested, routine or mechanical but develops individually. "... every artist must master his craft in his own way, for his own purposes of symbolizing 124 ideas of subjective reality. . . ."

Art is the articulation rather than the stimulation 125 or catharsis of feeling. The abstract symbol is a cogni­ tive representation of a feeling, or sentience, and this ipc 127 includes its meaning. "Symbols articulate ideas." It moves from a specific feeling to a whole in form. "The artistic form is a perceptual unity of something seen, heard, 128 or imagined . . . the Gestalt of an experience." In con­ trast, the audience views the whole and then must break it down again to understand its import, idea, or the feeling

123 Langer, Feeling and Form, p. 374. 124-,. . Ibid., p. 387. 125 Langer, Problems of Art. p. 107.

126Ibid.. p. 106. 127Ibid., p. 132.

128Ibid.. p. 165. 129 involved. "It begins with the perception of a total

Gestalt and proceeds to distinctions of ideal elements 130 within it." This analysis for the viewer is difficult since the symbol is not readily broken down as it is a prime rather than one in a system of symbols. For this reason, the audience must be knowledgeable in the art which they are viewing to develop a sympathetic kind of understanding of the symbol's import and intent.

In discussing dance, Langer maintains that a work of art such as dance cannot be interpreted. The audience may be able to interpret it in performance in that it can find an 131 idea but not necessarily the idea.

We have, however, a means of expressing not only that somebody has an emotion, but what we know about feeling, and not only emotive feeling, but what we know from direct experience, our body feeling, our so-called "self feeling," which is the level of awareness. I think the only symbolism for that is in the arts, all the arts. What you do when you make a work of art is to create, not a straight symbol, because a symbol can be translated, but an expressive form.132

129 Langer, Problems of Art. pp. 165-167. 130 Ibid.. p. 166. 131 Langer, "Feeling in Dance," p. 18.

1 3 2 , Ibid. CHAPTER III

THE NATURE OF THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

Most experience falls into one of two antithetical

types. Even Dewey, who discounted such dualisms as mind- body, subject-object, and means-ends with regard to experi­ ence, maintained a distinction between ordinary experience and an experience.^ Aside from Dewey, the more typical classifications follow Neitzsche's concepts of Dionysianism 2 and Apollianism. Brinton has summarized this polarity:

The Dionysian is A Good Thing: It is God's and Nature's primal strength, the unending turbulent lust and longing in men which drives them to con­ quest, to drunkenness, to mystic ecstacy, to love- deaths.3 The Dionysian is spontaneous, irrational, affectively 4 motivated and oriented. Delacroix has characterized the audience in Neitzschean terminology by suggesting that the

"participant" viewer, like the artist in the creative act,

See Dewey, Chapter II, p. 30. 2 Frederich Neitzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans­ lated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1967), pp. 33-48.

Crane Brinton, Neitzsche (Cambridge: Harvard Uni­ versity Press, 1941), p. 39. 4 Delacroix, p. 281.

41 42

"is primarily active, affective, at times a bit confused— a

Dionysian.

Whereas the "participant" is subjective and gives us, in the creative act, the art of expression, the "spectator" is objective and gives us the art of form. He lives in a dream world and is, above all, sensuous but rational. He is

Apollian.^

The Apollian is A Bad Thing— though not unattractive in its proper place: it is man's attempt to stop this unending struggle, to find peace, harmony, balance, to restrain the brute in himself. But the Brute is life and cannot be long restrained.?

Adams, Lechner, and Rugg have made similar yet dif- Q ferent distinctions between types of experience. Rugg develops the thesis that whereas in the first type of experience feeling is uppermost and that meaning is felt and expressed without words by the total gesture of the body, the second type of experience is that in which thought is central and there is verbal expression. Both types of experience result in some form of symbolism and symbolic 9 expression. Lechner uses the term "aesthetic experience"

5 Delacroix, p. 281

6Ibid. 7 Brinton, p. 39. Q Harold Rugg, Imagination (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p. 269. 9 / Robert Lechner, The Aesthetic Experience (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1953), pp. viii, 8. 43

in a sense which is broad enough to include both the creator and the appreciator and examines the aesthetic experience from the standpoint of knowledge.

The first kind of knowledge is intellectual which is analytic, develops concepts and absolutes, and becomes autonomous of the world. On the other hand, sense knowledge is bound to the world of space and time and is physically oriented. It is an activity of the subject as a whole who remains in the world and an activity which is situational rather than absolute.1^ Lechner maintains that sense knowl­ edge forms the basis for aesthetic knowledge, or the aesthetic experience. As sense knowledge has the character­ istics of spatiality, temporality, concreteness, contingency, and affectivity, there is an assimilation and union of sub­ ject and object unlike in intellectual knowledge. Sense knowledge, as well as the aesthetic experience, is lived knowledge.11 "The form of the object is lived by the sub- 12 ject."

In her discussion of immediate and reflective 13 knowledge and experience, Adams characterizes the aesthetic experience as immediate, detached from ulterior ends, non-

10Lechner, pp. 8-19.

11Ibid. . p. 11. 12Ibid. 13 Elizabeth K. Adams, The Aesthetic Experience; Its Meaning in a Functional Psychology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1907), p. 23. 44

utilitarian, spontaneous, and with strong affective coloring.

Reflective experience is attentive and analytical while

immediate experience is an awareness of the act as a whole

which is unaccompanied by feelings of compulsion or effort.

There is a feeling of activity— a highly pleasurable sense

of energy expenditure that allows boredom to be overcome 14 even in routine performance. With regard to means and

ends, Adams is in agreement with Dewey:

There is no defining of the end or searching for means to an end, and consequently no opposition of means to ends. Neither do we set the self over against the object. Consciousness is not self- consciousness. There is no antagonism between the subjective self and a recalcitrant objective world.

Although discussions of the aesthetic experience swing from the experiences of the artist to the experiences of the audience often in attempts to include both in one definition, there is considerable feeling among theoreticians that although the audience may have an aesthetic experience, the highest experience belongs to the artist in the act of creation; to the first-hand rather than second-hand experi- 16 ence. Bosanquet is representative of this thinking when he states that the attitude of the spectator is alien to that of the artist and is, therefore, not the true aesthetic

1^Adams, pp. 12-13.

15Ibid., p. 12.

■^Bernard Bosanquet, Three Lectures on Aesthetic (London: Macmillan Ltd., 1923), pp. 31-35. 45

experience. "And the spectator's attitude (ejqperience) I

take to be a faint analogue of the creative rapture of the 17 18 artist." Howell concurs in maintaining that there is no

qualitative relationship between judgments of taste and the 19 power of craftsmanship. Lechner maintains that the

artist's testimony is biased and that the aesthetic experi­

ence is not a completely isolated one as it is potentially

available to everyone. However, he is forced to admit the

experience of the artist is a privileged moment which is the

interior of the larger experience publicly available.

Dewey described an experience and the aesthetic

experience as being unified and holistic. This holistic

characteristic of the aesthetic experience presupposes a

fusion of subject and object regardless of whether the

consideration is of artist and act or of audience and form.

"The more art perfects itself, the more it transcends the categories of objective and subjective, the more it becomes impossible to separate the subjective and objective elements 20 21 integrated in it." Delacroix insists that the aesthetic

17 Bosanquet, p. 35. 18 Arthur Howell, The Meaning and Purpose of Art (Sussex, Eng.: Ditchling Press, Ltd. , 1957), P* 43.

■^Lechner, p. 5.

20Ibid. 21 Delacroix, p. 282. 46 state is one in which the experience is framed in the feeling of the self although man "forgets" himself in the experience and is therefore freed from feelings of self. It is the state in which the subject and the object, or for the audi­ ence, the subject and the object of contemplation, seem to 22 disappear. In a slightly different vein, Lipman suggests that categories of subjective and objective are relative and that no experience is inherently subjective or objective but is classified by comparison with other experiences. 23 Adams suggests that man, as either artxst or audience, develops a feeling of intimacy with the object or medium. "We enter into it and possess it; it enters into 24 and possesses us." She suggests that this state of mind 25 is emotional and, like Ingarden, suggests that in the beginning the object creates an excitement that compels man to enter a process of "searching disquietude" characterized by a desire to become satiated in the qualities of the object and the experience. "Most truly, perhaps we and the object 9 g are fused, blended in a single pulse of experience." It has also been noted that this compulsion to be involved in

22 Matthew Lipman, What Happens in Art (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1967), p. 12.

2^Adams, p. 20.

24Ibid.

25Ingarden, pp. 308-319.

2^Adams, p. 20. 47

an aesthetic experience does not diminish with involvement.

"The aesthetic want is noi: a perishable want, which ceases 27 in proportion as it is gratified."

The fusion of subject and object in the involvement of the aesthetic experience allows man to know a thing in a special way. It provides a particular "knowledge which is authentic and profound, reaching to the depths of the thing.

It seems to establish some special bond between the knower 28 and the thing." Emphasis is on the fact that it is the thing as well as our own subjective states that is experi­ enced and that this relationship results in an affective state which announces to us, on later reflection, the nature of the object. The experience, not the object, is, however, the foundation of this knowledge. "As a result of the aesthetic experience we are moved emotionally and affec- 29 tively." "Feeling is the very foundation of response. It sets the meaning of the act. It is the matrix in which all coming to know takes place. It is primarily the non-verbal 30 31 part of the act." Vivas makes a distinction between

27Howell, p. 4.

28Lechner, p. 20.

29Ibid., p. 13.

30Rugg, p. 269. 31 Eliseo Vivas, "A Definition of the Esthetic Experi­ ence," in Vivas and Krieger, The Problems of Aesthetics (New York: Rinehart and Co., 1955), p. 411. 48 feeling and emotion in that he says feeling is present during the experience but emotion is an after-effect. "When the self disappears in the intense experience of attention, the 32 emotion is hardly present."

In his discussion on the value of art, Kaelin echoes

Adams in his conclusion that "the ultimate value of art lies in its revelation of truth— in a clearer picture of humanity 33 in the making." Both Adams and Kaelin maintain that the aesthetic experience is not the ultimate or absolute. "The 34 creator is still being created," says Kaelin and suggests that the act of creation is always a state of Becoming which may culminate in brief moments of Being, or Tao. In his insistence that "the physical act of creation usually pre­ cedes the artist's understanding of his art-work's signifi- 35 cance ..." and that ". . .he may discover the 36 significance of his action only after the fact," Kaelin echoes the earlier thinking of Croce, Collingwood, and 37 Ducasse.

32Vivas, p. 411. 33 Eugene Kaelin, Art and Existence (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1970), p. 93.

34Ibid.

35Ibid., p. 54.

36Ibid.. p. 60. 37 See Chapter II for fuller statements of these views. Despite almost unanimous agreement that the aesthetic experience as an experience, per se. is indivisible and an integration of subject and object, there are many suggestions that any knowledge, significance, or meaning derived from the experience follows the experience. "We are affected by an object, and we react to it. We perceive something, and we do something; we then perceive something again— the out- 38 39 come of what we did." Adams argues that although the experience proper is an immediate kind of experience, reflective analysis on the experience forms the basis for new experience. "Our fullest aesthetic realization at any one time of the unity of our world is for us at that time

'the Absolute1 and that this conception broadens and deepens 40 with the growth and enrichment of our experience" through reflection. Vivas 41 argues that analysis, or, at least, cognitive consideration, is necessary prior to as well as following the experience. So although the in-progress experience cannot be analyzed, "there is no question that the esthetic experience involves a preparation which can be 42 achieved only through analytic effort." He feels that the

38 Laurence Buermeyer, The Aesthetic Experience (Merion, Pa.: The Barnes Foundation, 1924), p. 13. 39 Adams, p. 111.

40Ibid. 41Vivas, p. 409.

42Ibid. cognitive development of technique and expertise allows a 43 transcendence of cognition during the experience.

Despite the general agreement that both the experi­ ence and the reflection on experience lead the artist to a surer and more adequate comprehension of "all that man wants and is,"^ there is some disagreement as to the nature of the reflective process. Most agree that the nature of experience is affective rather than cognitive, holistic rather than divisible, concrete rather than abstract, active rather than passive, and that it is necessary to view the nowness, the unity, and the affectivity of the experience.

As previously noted, Vivas and Adams insist on an analysis of the experience, a cognitive reorganization of feelings in an attempt to understand the "why," to "bracket out" those facets of experience which are significant and which will serve as a point of departure for other experiences. It is, as Adams and Husserlian phenomenology would insist, an isolation of absolutes. Adams calls this reflective analysis the "aesthetic moment" which is opposite from the aesthetic experience in that it involves a judgment and is more cogni­ tive, i.e., reorganizes the immediate, or aesthetic, experi­ ence into stages which the experience, per se. did not

^3Vivas, p. 409.

^Buermeyer, p. 172. 51 45 have. "The aesthetic moment has two uses. It indicates completed reconstruction, and it serves as the 'emotional deposit' that is carried over and forms the basis of new experience. "4^

Although it must be remembered that both analysis 47 and description are cognitive processes, Lechner argues m opposition that analysis is not possible because knowledge gained from the aesthetic experience stems from the union of subject and object and this unity cannot be broken down. For him, aesthetic perception after the experience is the appre­ hension of a presence. This knowledge does not take the form of images or ideas but takes the form of "an affective activity which is 'felt' and intellectually indefinite and 48 49 undefined." Similarly, Delacroix, in discussing the contemplation of a work of art, suggests that it cannot be more than an. affective remembrance which is very indefinite and imprecise. "Certain of ourselves which we are and have been are more transparent. It is at times like a rebirth of juvenile sensibility, although there are rarely precise remembrances."50

48Adams, pp. 27-30.

46Ibid., p. 109. 47 Lechner, p. 16.

48Ibid.

48Delacroix, p. 285. 50Ibid. 52

With the previous suggestions that there is a subject-object integration in the aesthetic experience and 51 feeling is a way of knowing, Buytendijk points out that we find ourselves as subjects in a situation only by standing apart from it and that to describe what one feels is to describe the situation in which he exists. "Feelings and emotions are the affirmations of our attitudes toward situa­ tions. . . . The pure description of a feeling is the description of an existing human being in his well-defined 52 attitude toward a situation." He goes on to say that

"every feeling is a feeling of something, and the human attitude in which a feeling is ejqperienced is a positional not reflective [analytic] consciousness which results in a 53 fuller understanding." Feelings are modes to detect the 54 signification of situations.

Aside from the unity, subject-object integration, and affective reflection and insight of the aesthetic experience, it is further distinguished from common experi­ ence by its autonomous, unique, and non-utilitarian nature.

For the artist, the aesthetic experience carries its own meaning and is highly individualistic because of the .

51 F. J. J. Buytendijk, "The Phenomenological Approach to the Problems of Feelings and Emotions," in Ruitenbeek, ed., Psychoanalysis and Existential Philosophy (New York: E . P. Dutton, 1962), pp. 159-160.

52Ibid. 53Ibid. . p. 158. 54Ibid. 53 individuality of the person engaged and the fact that he brings to and carries from the experience feelings and back­ ground which are unique to him. "What we create depends on our mental heritage, our experience and ourselves as we are

C C at the moment of experiencing." It is not a routine experience which is often repeated but rather one which is set apart by its peak and is difficult to repeat. "The object of our experience [physical medium] is unique for 56 us." It does not fit a category. The individual is touched by the integrity of the object in its existential 57 operations.

"In moments of aesthetic enjoyment, we all have a sense of exemption and release from the pressure and pre- 58 cariousness of life." Both Dewey and Lechner have pointed out the non-utilitarian nature of art and the aesthetic experience and have set it apart from daily, practical, and the world of need experiences. The aesthetic experience presents itself to us within a framework of revery and detachment accompanied by an awareness of liberation from 59 the world we usually experience. "There is an escape from

55Howell, pp. 50-51.

^Lechner, p. 15.

57Ibid.

^®Adams, p. 19. 59 Lechner, pp. 22-23. 54

the world of need, from the burdens of practical living.

Aesthetic knowledge is disinterested. It is for its own

sake. It is considered a luxury when compared to practical

life."66 Following this non-utilitarian conception of art,

Spencer formulated an aesthetic within the framework of

play.61 "The activities we call play are united with the

aesthetic activities, by the trait that neither subserve, in go any direct way, the processes conducive to life." However,

his play theory also maintained that play was an instrument

for the release of surplus energy. The aesthetic experience

as it has been characterized in this chapter does not carry

instrumental connotations but the implication that the doing process is its own justification.

66Lechner, p. 23. 61 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology. Volume II (London: Williams and Northgate, 1872).

62Ibid., p. 627. CHAPTER IV

THE NATURE OF THE SPORT EXPERIENCE

The first apparent task in any discussion of sport

is that of definition, and a number of attempts to define

sport appear in the sport and physical education literature.^"

However, the more salient problem in this paper is that of

describing, rather than analyzing or defining, the sport

experience. As with the discussion of the aesthetic experi­

ence, it is necessary to examine the setting and the nature

of experience as well as the ways in which sport differs

from ordinary experience.. It is further possible that the

sport experience, like the aesthetic experience, is too

individualistic and immediate, thus making, as Kleinman 2 has

1 Howard Slusher, Man. Sport and Existence (Phila­ delphia: Lea and Febiger. 1967): Paul Weiss. Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univer- sity Press, 1969);R. Scott Kretchmar, "A Philosophic Description of Sport," unpublished paper presented at A.A.H.P.E.R. National Convention, Seattle, April 1970; Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955); John Loy, "The Nature of Sport: A Definitional Attempt," Quest Monograph X . May 1968; Eleanor Metheny, "This Thing Called Sport," J.O.H.P.E.R. . Vol'. 40, March 1969. 2 Seymour Kleinman, "Toward a Non-Theory of Sport," Quest Monograph X . May 1968, pp. 29-30.

55 56

suggested, development of a complete statement which will

encompass all possibilities impossible. “If the sport

experience was the same each time, we can only assume that 3 eventually it would become boring rather than interesting."

There are, in sport, elements of challenge and the primary

element of the individual which keep it a "new" experience

each time and prohibit establishment of a set of necessary

and sufficient properties which define sport.4

However, in light of Metheny's^ insistence that definition is necessary to avoid sweeping generalizations, and in that "aesthetic" in the aesthetic experience has been previously delimited and defined, the following definition of sport is included at the outset of this discussion of the sport experience. It is pointed out, however, that this or any definition may "thingify" sport and exclude human involvement, values, and significance^ which are being established here as some of the bases for both the aesthetic and sport experiences. For the purpose of this discussion, sport will be considered to be an artificially specific situation in which the individual, alone or with others, physically moves over time and space to perform a series of

3 Jan Felshin, "Sport and Modes of Meaning," J.O.H.P.E.R.. 40:44, May 1969. 4 Kleinman, p. 30. 5 Metheny, "This Thing Called Sport," p. 60.

6Ibid. 57 actions that will achieve some arbitrary standard or fulfill a predetermined intent. The individual may move with and/or against others, objects, or the environment to attempt to achieve the standard or to fulfill the intent. The implicit inclusion of gross bodily movement in some spatial-temporal sequence is an attempt to eliminate board and card games which often have been and are considered in other definitions of sport. The inclusion of fulfillment of intent in lieu of achievement of standard as the sole criterion in outcome is an attempt to consider and include activities that do not have standards or scores, e.g., skydiving, skiing, mountain climbing. It also should be noted that sport is defined as the attempt to achieve or fulfill, allowing for unsuccessful achievement or fulfillment. 7 Slusher has pointed out that in the sport experience reason and emotion are interdependent. There are decisions in the sport situation which demand a rational and objective attitude but the action of the athlete finally reflects his emotional sensations, i.e., how he "feels" about the situa­ tion. In a more general application, Rugg theorized

". . . that a man's attitude— the total gesture of the organism— determines how he behaves. . . . The act of knowing is indeed the total gesture of hands, limbs, face, torso,

7 Slusher, Man, Sport and Existence, p. 51. 58 Q autonomic and central nervous systems." In her discussion 9 of the aesthetic experience, Adams pointed out that there are times when mental activity flows over into outward acts with no awareness of the two kinds of activity. "Our consciousness of these acts is nothing more than a diffused feeling of satisfaction in performance."^

Lipman has called this union of mind and action, subject and object, a process. "It is the fact that the artist and the object are formed by and equally reflect the same creative process. The artist is not the father of the 11 process; he and the object are twin children of it." 12 Alluding to the dance experience, Sheets has also noted that in any lived experience it is the process which is experienced and not the "thing." This total gesture, or process, negates dualisms of subject-object and mind-action to establish the unity of dualisms which, according to Dewey and other aestheticians, is necessary for an experience or an aesthetic experience. Q Harold Rugg, Imagination (New York: Harper and Row, 1963) , p. 277. g Elizabeth K. Adams, The Aesthetic Experience: Its Meaning in a Functional Psychology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1907), p. 10.

^Matthew Lipman, What Happens in Art (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967), p. 93. 12 Maxine Sheets, The Phenomenology of Dance (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), pp. 23-28. 59

Dewey1^ maintained that £n experience has a unity

that gives it its name: that meal, that storm, and possibly,

1 A that game, that jump, etc. In discussing dance, Hawkins

suggested that aesthetic and dance experiences are usually

perceived as Gestalts. The separate elements impinge on one

another and the reaction is to the total event or experience.

“It (movement) does not lend itself to analysis because its unity dictates a viewing and sensing of the work as a 15 whole." The Gestalt notion that "what happens at one point in the organism is never independent or without its influences upon what is taking place at any other point of 16 the organism" permeates Dewey's thinking to the extent that he acknowledges mind-body unity in response and a gestalt-kind of unity of form and substance in the aesthetic experience. Using the examples of the golfer and the pugilist, he points out that distinctions can be made between what and how either before or after the experience to better secure a given effect or to correct errors in technique.

"Yet the act itself is exactly what it is because of how it

13 Dewey, Art as Experience. p. 37. 14 Alma Hawkins, Creating Through Dance (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964V, p. 34. 15 Nancy Smith, "Spotlight on Dance," J.O.H.P.E.R.. 35:65, Nov.-Dec. 1964. 16 K. Koffka, Gestalt Psychology (London: Bell Limited, 1930), p. 82. 60 is done. In the act there is no distinction, but perfect 17 integration of manner and content, form and substance."

This suggestion of immediacy and unity of subject and object which has been noted to characterize the aesthetic experience has also been noted with regard to the sport 18 experience. Slusher writes that the movement experience is now and immediate, not past or future. In discussing bullfighting, Wenkert also writes: "Here the training, mobility, and versatility all converge to achieve a degree of attention that eliminates all extraneous perception and 19 20 pinpoints one decisive moment." Metheny maintains that man is given over to and becomes involved as a totality with sport because "... the rules of sport prohibit him from thinking about those meanings while he is involved in the sport experience . . . while he is performing . . . the task, he must focus all his attention and energies upon it." 21 Beets further suggests that "the sportsman may be looking

17Dewey, p. 109. 18 Slusher, Man. Sport and Existence, p. 65. 19 Simon Wenkert, "The Meaning of Sports for Con­ temporary Man," Journal of Existential Psychiatry. Vol. 3 (Spring 1963), 397. 20 Eleanor Metheny, Movement and Meaning (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), p. 68. 21 N. Beets, "The Experience of the Body in Sport," in Simon and Jokl, eds., International Research in Sport and Physical Education (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1964), p. 75. 61

for experiences in which he can forget his body, especially

the parts of his body, to find something of a very different

nature: a sense of wholeness, a sense of unity of some kind."

This search of the artist and the athlete has been

the topic of discussion in both the existential and Zen 22 philosophies. Herrigel describes his experience learning

the "art of archery" within the context of the Zen philoso­ phy. The ultimate goal is oneness of the performer and that which is performed. "The archer ceases to be conscious of ^ 2 3 himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bullseye." 24 VanDenBerg, in writing on the significance of human move­ ment, elaborates on Sartre's three dimensions of the body.

He suggests that intent and technique are passed over as

landscape in a dimension where the mountain climber "forgets"

the body, thus freeing it as well as his attention to attend 25 to the laborious task of climbing the mountain. The experience becomes a subjective relationship for the climber with the mountain but objective for the viewer whose atten­ tion is focused on all the "things" including the body which

22 Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery, trans­ lated by R. F. C. Hull (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953).

23Ibid.. p. 10. 24 J. H. VanDenBerg, "The Human Body and the Signifi­ cance of Human Movement," in Ruitenbeek, Psychoanalysis and Existential Philosophy (New York: E. P . Dutton, 1962), pp. 107-115.

25Ibid., p. 107. 62 the climber has forgotten to achieve his "oneness" with the 26 mountain and the climb.

The attempt to analyze the what and why of this

subjective union poses a problem which is illustrated in

Bannister's remarks:

Like life, the problems of sport and a sporting career only make sense in retrospect.2 '

[However], this attempt at explanation is of course inadequate, just like any analysis of the thing we enjoy— like the description of a rose to someone who has never seen one.28

It has also been pointed out that man plays before he asks 29 the question "why?" "He plays while continually ignoring the question. He plays in spite of known detrimental effects. Play and man seem bound together with reason or 30 without it." Furthermore, reflective analysis is not possible because "the lived reality of this union between man and play defies all attempts to reduce it to a rationally 31 explicable understanding."

26 VanDenBerg, pp. 108-110. 27 Roger Bannister, "The Meaning of Athletic Per­ formance," in Simon and Jokl, eds., International Research in Sport and Physical Education (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1964), p. 65. 28 Roger Bannister, First Four Minutes (London: Corgi Special, 1957), pp. 11-12. 29 R. Scott Kretchmar and William Harper, "Why Does Man Play?" J.O.H.P.E.R.. 40:58, March 1969. 30 31 Ibid. Ibid. 63

The difficulty in reflective analysis also steins from the fact that man is basically alone in the "lived" sport experience just as the artist is alone in the creative process. In surfing, "if a man makes an error, he is 'wiped out.' But it is his error. It is this experience that counts. Tradition and history can do little to assist him.

He must determine his own destiny. He is solely respon- 32 sible." "Whether he is hurling a javelin, soaring off a ski jump . . . or screaming toward earth in a free fall sky 33 dive, man is alone." In the Olympic experience aside from nationalism or because of it, Bannister says that the athlete

"for once in his life he is utterly alone. This situation 34 is all important, immediate and irrevocable."

There is the potential that this aloneness can pro­ vide the individual with information knowable only to himself as well as provide certain realizations about self.

"It is I alone who feels the bat as I alone can sense it. 35 It is I alone who 'knows.'" Van Kaam, in talking about bodily experience as a way of knowing says:

My moving hands reveal to me a basketball as spheri-

32 Howard Slusher, "To Test the Waves is To Test Life," J.O.H.P.E.R.. 40:33, May 1969. 33 William A. Harper, "Man Alone," Quest Monograph XII. May 1969, p. 60.

3^Bannister, "Meaning of Athletic Performance," p. 70. 35 Slusher, Man. Sport and Existence, p. 59. 64

cal, solid and leathery; my throwing hands unveil to me its bouncing quality; my pressing hands discover its elasticity. Bodily behavior as ges­ ture, movement, and language is my being-in-the- world, ray immediate presence to people and things. Bodily behavior is not a meditization or symboliza­ tion of myself or my desires* it is I, it is my desire, it is the loving me.36

With regard to the significance that the individual finds in

the sport experience and in view of the subjective aloneness

of the sport situation, Metheny says "that each man's con­

notations are his own and that no two performers are obliged 37 to find each other's meanings in any (sport) form."

This kind of aloneness, whether experienced in a

solo effort or in the company of others, is a necessary but

not sufficient condition for self-realization. Sport also

has the characteristics of being non-utilitarian and "absurd"

in the sense that "it is the recognition of the unnecessary 38 . . . in that one's well-being is not at stake." And,

except for professional players, it is "a free activity,

quite consciously outside 'ordinary' life as being 'not

serious' but absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It

is an activity connected with no material gain, and no profit

36 Adrian Van Kaam, "Sex and Existence," in Lawrence and 0'Conner, eds., Readings in Existential Phenomenology (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 229. 37 Metheny, Movement and Meaning, p. 69\r 38 Kretchmar, "A Philosophic Description of Sport,1' p • 4 • 65 39 can be gained by it." "Not serious" is here interpreted

to mean without effect on daily living demands but it is

"taken seriously" within the context of the sport situation. 40 After Caillois, Loy suggests that a game, per s e. is non­

utilitarian. "The game is carried out in a prescribed 41 setting and conducted according to specific rules." 42 Felshin maintains that these rules and officials free the

player from many kinds of responsibilities, thus allowing 43 him to act. In this same mode of thought, Metheny compares 44 sport to the futility and absurdity of Sisyphus in that

"all sport forms are governed by an elaborate code of rules

in which every task of Sisyphus is described, defined, and 45 denoted in explicit terms."

Because man is alone, totally and subjectively

involved with a sport experience which is non-utilitarian

and absurd, there appears to be a potential situation in which man is free to explore and express feelings and actions

39 Huizinga, p. 13. 40 Loy, p. 3.

41Ibid.

4^Felshin, p. 44. 43 Metheny, Movement and Meaning, p. 60. 44 See Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, translated by Justin O'Brien (New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1955). 45 Metheny, Movement and Meaning, p. 60. not unlike the artist in the creative process. The insights he gains may be, as Slusher says, affective rather than cognitive. "He is alone with the surf. In his detachment from the world, he is free for personal development that he cannot ever begin to explain— he can just feel it. Through involvement with the surf each person comes to experience the development of his own self in relation to the world 46 around him." Sport provides a world in which the freedom to act is a guarantee. The rules eliminate demands of necessity by defining an unnecessary and futile task which 47 produces nothing of material value. "The only question left unanswered is: How well can the performer do what is 48 prescribed by these rules?" In this solitary state of 49 oneness man can meet himself. In the experience and

Within this performance, he cannot delude himself about his own capabilities. . . . Neither can he escape his own feelings about the image as it is revealed to him within the performance . . . and whatever he may feel, he has no time to sort out those feelings and debate about their rationale. He must experience them for what they are, and he must act in terms of those feelings even while he is experiencing them.^O Regardless of what the athlete comes to "know" or feel

46 Slusher, "To Test the Waves," p. 33.

A *7 Metheny, Movement and Meaning, p. 63.

48Ibid. . p. 61. 49 Harper, Man Alone. p. 60. 50 Metheny, Movement and Meaning, p. 65. 67 because of the sport situation, the fact is increasingly apparent that the sport experience is a dimension of experience unlike any other in life yet providing the subjective insight and opportunity for intense involvement of what has been called an "aesthetic experience." CHAPTER V

AN INITIAL CONSIDERATION OP SPORT AS AN

AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE; SOME

GENERAL PARALLELS

Before establishing specific criteria for considering

sport as an aesthetic experience, it seems appropriate after

independent discussion of the aesthetic and sport experiences

to cite some of the commonalities already expressed in the

two previous chapters. There is no intent here to be all-

inclusive in noting similarities nor to suggest that because

of these similarities there is sufficient reason for regard­

ing the sport and aesthetic experiences as synonymous. For whatever purpose the existence of art and sport is considered

to have, the fact remains that art is done by artists and

viewed by audiences for different reasons than sport is done by athletes and viewed by audiences. Also, it must be noted that reasons for doing and viewing in both art and sport differ. However, the contention in this and the following chapter is that the experience of the performer in doing art or sport is similar and that the nature of these two experi­ ences can be considered aesthetic.

What Huizinga defines in the following passage is the

68 69

natur^ of play but the definition as Hein1 points out could

just as well be of the aesthetic experience.

. a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that it is different from "ordinary" life.^ Huizinga has cited a number of features common to both the

play and aesthetic experience: spatial-temporal character­

istics , arbitrary rules, non-utilitarian qualities, affec-

tivity, and the fact that it is marked off, as Dewey has

outlined, from everyday and ordinary experience.

Competition, whether direct or indirect, against

self, others, or some arbitrary standard, is a dominant

characteristic of sport. There is present an intent and

desire to win if winning is the nature of the specific

activity, achieve what has not been achieved, or attain some

standard of excellence whether this standard is internally

or externally imposed. "It is a relative matter, the victory

being over self and previous performance or over fellow

competitors of comparable standard rather than against an

arbitrary standard or a record." Similarly, the artist has

an inJent, and desire to reach goals of achievement and excel­

lence. Despite the absence of score, there is an internal

Hilde Hein, "Play as an Aesthetic Concept," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 27 (1968-69), 70.

'Huizinga, p. 28. 70

competitiveness to do well or to express what was intended.

Within this context of self-imposed competition, little dis­

tinction can be made between the artist and the athlete.

The product of these efforts, be it a score or an art object,

is similarly "measured" and evaluated, albeit with different

tools and scales, by outside observers and critics.

Huizinga and Hein both note the voluntary nature of play and the aesthetic experience. Although there are philosophic and definitional distinctions between sport and play, both share the common element of voluntary participa­

tion by the performer. Voluntary involvement means freedom from external force and choice by the performer to partici­ pate. However, it may be feasible that the performer will participate due to an internal compulsion, or drive, which may, in that sense, render participation an involuntary function. In the case of sport or art being an individual's occupation, there is, for example, evidence in the baseball history of Boston's Jimmy Pearsall or Detroit's Willie

Horton and in the opera history of Italy's Maria Callas to suggest that the option to not perform or leave in the midst of a performance is available to the performer. The "scratch" and the "understudy" are integral parts of the sport and art worlds.

Both the aesthetic and sport experiences are charac­ terized by the structures of time and place. Where sport has its courts, fields, and stadia; art has its stages,

canvasses, and concert halls. And, although it may be

argued that the proscenium arch is being eliminated in the

staging of the dramatic production, it may be similarly

noted that in such activities as lacrosse, skiing, and

frisbee formal boundaries have been eliminated. Most sports

are marked off in periods, quarters, or halves, or at least, in the cases of mountain climbing and skydiving, by a defi­ nite beginning and ending. Parenthetically, at this point, it might be noted that Sartre's concept of adventure and the

"perfect moment" which was rooted in art was marked off by 3 definite beginnings and endings and was not drawn out. Most art media in which the aesthetic experience occurs are also characterized by temporal separation into acts, measures, beats, or in the cases of painting and sculpture, by a begin­ ning and ending.

Sport and aesthetic experiences share the commonality of being "outside" of daily experiences. In comparing artist 4 and athlete, Weiss sums up what Dewey, Lechner, Adams, and

Sartre have previously stated about the aesthetic experience

3 Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea. translated by Lloyd Alexander (New York: New Directions Paperbacks, 1964), pp. 37-38. 4 / Paul Weiss, Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry (Carbon- dale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969). 72 and what Loy, Metheny, and Huizinga have said about the sport experience:

The athlete•s world is set over against the everyday world. Economic demands and the satisfaction of appetites are for the moment put aside. . . . Art­ ists and historians similarly bracket off their distinctive, dynamic spatiotemporal worlds. What he (artist or athlete) is and what he does is for the moment thereby severed from the rest of the world.5 g Hein's main thesis in her comparison of play and the aesthetic was not only that the two are non-utilitarian and autotelic in nature but that they both have the quality of being detached from reality, i.e., artificial restrictions are imposed upon real situations by social convention or by the arbitrariness of a group or an individual. These restrictions can take the form of previously mentioned spatial and temporal dimensions or of rules which are specific to the form and understood by the performer prior to performance. Rejection of these rules or failure to comply fully can result in a variety of individual penalties, expulsion, inhibition of others' performances, or ineffective execution of a work. Even jazz improvisation requires that everyone play in the same key.

The artificiality of the sport and aesthetic experi­ ences as noted in Chapters III and IV has also been noted as providing grounds for self-realization and as a special way

5Weiss, pp. 243, 245.

®Hein, p. 70. 73 7 of knowing self and the object. With regard to the artist,

Lipman reiterates a viewpoint that Metheny and Slusher hold

for the athlete:

The art form (media) represents a searching, a casting about for oneself, and when, out of this, an organized poem or painting emerges, the sense of personal achievement permeates the entire situa­ tion as the immediate qualitative experience of self. Creation implies self-creation. . . .8

This way of knowing is seen to be based on the experiential

process rather than the result or product of the experience.

It is a process which is immediate, present rather than past

or future, concrete and affective as opposed to abstract and

cognitive, lived rather than reflected.

Both the artist and the athlete can be classified as

Dionysian in the spontaneity, affectivity, and subjectivity

of the experience in which they participate. The essence of

the Dionysian kind of experience is the development of feel­

ings without regard to the necessity of conceptualization or

analysis of these feelings. This does not, however, preclude

actual or attempted conceptual analysis prior to or following

the experience. With respect to the physical media of art, 9 Lipman suggests that the artist's response to the "thing" is

7 — See Metheny in Chapter IV and Lechner in Chap­ ter III. Q Matthew Lipman, What Happens in Art (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967), p. 94. 9 Matthew Lipman, "The Physical Thing in the Aesthetic Experience," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol. 15 (September 1956), 46. 74

a brute and "unintelligible" response. "And similarly in

creation, the 'instinct of workmanship1 is not more primary

than the 'instinctual' attitude toward the material.Both

the artist and the athlete can be placed in Sartre's first

dimension where "things" have been transcended by the per­

former and he enters into "oneness" with his endeavor. In

contrast, the audience, viewing the product and the cognitive,

analytic thingness of the performer's experience, remains

objective and apart from the experience— Apollian.

The experiential process is as Dewey and Slusher, in particular, have noted: a deep and holistic involvement of

the subject and object. Says Herrigel of archery: "In the

case of the archer, the hitter and the hit are no longer two opposing objects but are one reality."*3. Again, in comparing

artist and athlete, Weiss notes: "He does not make and is not interested in making something that is beautiful, or in grasping the very being of space, time, or energy; instead he holds himself away from everything else and gives himself wholly to the game [process] . " * 2

Aestheticians and sport theorists agree that the ability to focus away from technique, eliminate extraneous elements, and become involved in a transcendental process

10 Lipman, "Physical Thing in Aesthetic Experience," p. 46.

**Herrigel, p. 10.

12Weiss, p. 245. 75

presupposes the mastery of technique. In discussing the 13 creative process, Hodnett maintains that the individual

must have a broad working knowledge of the norm before he 14 15 can control the deviations. Anderson and Stein point

out that reports of creative individuals consistently imply

that the process which produces innovation and novel products

is based on wide and deep experience and knowledge. With

regard to sport, Herrigel1^ indicates that to be a master of

archery, technical skill must be sufficient enough so that 17 one can transcend technique. Slusher has remarked that it

is impossible to know the "feeling" of taking a wave if the board wobbles under you. Even from the standpoint of the

audience, Kaelin says that "like the virtuosity of a musical performer . . . sport technique is the best when it is noticed the least.

All sources seem to imply that the sport and aes­

thetic experiences are highly unique and subjective. It is

13 Edward Hodnett, The Art of Problem Solving (New York: Harper Bros., 1955), p. 173. 14 . . C. Anderson, "Creativity and Education," Educa­ tional Horizons. Vol. 40 (Winter 1961), 128. 15 Morris Stem, "Creativity and Co-operation," Educational Horizons. Vol. 41 (Summer 1963), 118.

■^Herrigel, p. 10.

17Howard Slusher, seminar notes: "Problems in Physical Education," University of Washington, Summer 1967. 18 Eugene Kaelin, "The Well-Played Game: Notes Toward an Aesthetics of Sport," Quest. Monograph X . May 1968, p. 28. 76 further implied that despite the presence of others the performer is essentially alone in the experiential process.

Being in rather than outside the experience creates a highly subjective evaluation and reporting. The idea that each performer brings to the experience a background, technique, self-concept, and perception which is different is con­ sistently advanced by sport and aesthetic theoreticians. It is argued further that inherent in this uniqueness and individual aloneness, is the impossibility of drawing con­ clusions, generalizations, or universal truths about either the aesthetic or sport experience. It is even more difficult to empathize without some kind of personal involvement in one or both of these experiences.

Finally, it has been briefly shown in the two pre­ vious chapters that the affective orientation of both the sport and aesthetic experiences as well as their subjec­ tivity, unity, and involvement prohibit a reductive analysis either during the experience or following it. It has been argued that although analysis of technique prior to or fol­ lowing the experience is possible and even desirable, an analysis of the "why" of the experience, per se. is not feasible. It has been suggested that the insights into the significance of the experience, or the feelings of the per­ former, are almost always limited to the perception of the performer and then they may not be clear or concrete enough to conceptualize or verbalize. It is further suggested that 77 such experiences may be described by the performer, when possible, in an attempt to share these significant feelings and insights with others who have been "close" to a similar situation. The "why" of the aesthetic sport experience seems destined to remain a mystery to any objective observer and knowable only to him who is assimilated into the experi­ ential process. CHAPTER VI

DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIFIC CRITERIA

The intent of this chapter is to delineate specific

criteria for considering sport as an aesthetic experience.

These criteria are: authenticity of intent, i.e., achieve­

ment of what was intended at the outset of the sport

experience; expertise; the concept of the whole man acting;

and the individual's involvement with and relation to the

sport experience. Fulfillment of these criteria accompanied

by a definite affective reaction will be criteria for what will be termed the "perfect moment." Perfect moment is a i borrowing of terms from Sartre and is also synonymous with what has been called the "aesthetic experience" in previous

chapters. Although the perfect moment concept as it is developed here includes Sartre1s concept of adventure and

the perfect moment, both of which had their foundations in 2 art, "perfect moment" will be used as a blanket term to

include similar concepts of Buber's I-Thou, McLuhan's

1 Sartre, Nausea.

^See full discussion in Chapter VII, pp. 101-104.

78 79 hot-cool, Straus's gnostic-pathic, and Maslow's peak- experience.^

Intent

In establishing authenticity of intent and achieve­ ment as a prerequisite for the perfect moment, the concern is not with why man participates in sport from either a sociological or psychological perspective but with what he plans to accomplish and whether these plans are fulfilled.

This modified "game plan" includes the setting of some goal, the assessment and realization of one's abilities, and the establishment of intent within these limitations. It further includes critical assessment of intent and performance after the performance. This does not preclude some alteration of intent by actual participation but does suggest that accom­ plishment beyond one's abilities invalidates and inauthenti- cates the perfect moment when this accomplishment was accidental or inconsistent. The perfect moment is based on an affective and cognitive self-realization that any achievement or effort in the sport eiqperience was true to plan and capabilities, rather than a haphazard or pragmatic occurrence.

The term "authentic" is a translation of the German eiqentlich which contains the root "own" as in "my own." The

3 See Chapter VII for full discussion of these con­ cepts and development of the perfect moment in sport. term has become popularized in existential philosophy and humanistic psychology during the past two decades, sometimes with a clouding of the original meaning. Its origin in a philosophic context was in Martin Heidegger's Being and

Time.^ Heidegger's authenticity of existence, which was his concern, i.e., an examination of Being, is, essentially,

"the excellence of being what one is, the fulfillment of one's own particular functions; true self-realization in the sense of self-disclosure and self-fulfillment."5 In short, it implies the lucidity of a Neitzschean "superman." So that when one seeks after "authentic selfhood," one is seek­ ing after the disclosure which reveals the unique "mineness" of a self. Heidegger's concept of authenticity, seemingly, is not intended to have a connotation of ethical rightness or wrongness. Authenticity is stated as nothing more than g one of the possible ways of being-in-the-world.

An extrapolation of Heideggerian authenticity in the development of an authentic intent and achievement of intent prior to and during the sport experience is merely to know what one is and capable of doing and becoming. One does not become lost in the anonymity or demands of others but remains

^Martin Heidegger, Being and Time. translated by John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson {London: SCM Press, 1962). C Edward Lee, Phenomenology and Existentialism (Balti­ more: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), p. 261.

g Heidegger, pp. 43, 129. 81

free from unessential involvements, free to assess capabil­

ities and realize what is accidental and inauthentic. The

authentic intent, like the authentic existence, is a positive

realization of what I truly am and the positive movement of

what I am toward what I am capable of being, a movement

toward a unique self and a unique experience in a sport

situation. 7 8 Buber and Moustakas argue that the highest rela­

tionship of man to man or man to experience is direct and

spontaneous and that a prior plan, or aim, negates this

spontaneity. It is not suggested here that one plans to

have a perfect moment for it may never occur in a lifetime

of sport experiences. However, the necessity at the outset

for the selection of an appropriate frame of reference in

which the sport experience may occur has been delineated in

Chapter V. The desire or intent to win does not negate the

spontaneity nor the ability to become involved in the

experience. Nor does the recognition of one's abilities

inhibit full and direct participation. However, winning is

an authentic intent and an authentic achievement only when

there is a legitimate and even chance to win. The upset is

authentic only when the underdog truly has the capabilities

7 Martin Buber, I and Thou. translated by Ronald Smith (New York: Scribners and Sons, 1958), p. 11. Q Clarke Moustakas, Creativity and Conformity (Prince­ ton: Van Nostrand, 1967), p. 136. 82 and when the win would occur again under the same circum­ stances. Although one may intend to win given that the capabilities are present, winning is not relevant. The perfect moment occurs in the struggle, in the effort, in the process. Tritely stated, fulfillment and validation of intent is in "how you play the game." The perfect moment is possible for winners and losers, for heroes but not for goats since "goat" implies error or blunder while loser implies

"not good enough today" although "not good enough" may be just short of greatness. It is feasible to believe a perfect moment may occur in a losing effort since the perfect moment does not necessarily include the entire game. For example, a touchdown pass or run, even when the team eventually loses, may for the individual have all the qualities of a perfect moment. Hence, the authenticity of intent and achievement may be influenced by many factors which make it difficult to assess. Even the individual performer, who is in the best position to assess intent, may be subjectively inaccurate owing to a complexity of factors. In this respect, honesty becomes important and essential since intentional or sub­ conscious self-deception will bring the individual into the realm of inauthentic existence.

Intent does not imply a play-by-play game plan but is the determination of the most feasible approach within the individual's limitation. The fineness or grossness of this determination is again dependent on the individual1s

ability and willingness to assess himself. Complex intents

may be found in such experiences as skydiving, sailing,

mountain climbing where environmental as well as personal

considerations must be made. The novice will select an

easier route or more ideal conditions. For if he achieves,

by accident, in a situation beyond his abilities or utilizes, pragmatically or inconsistently, techniques and strategies previously foreign to him, the experience shall be considered

aesthetically invalid and inauthentic. Other sports may be relatively simple in intent. Recreational skiing, for example, requires little more than choice of slope and determination of speed given the snow conditions. Paren- g thetically, and with primary regard to the spectator, Kaelin sees the close matching of teams and individuals as well as the desire to win as being aesthetically relevant. He builds a case for the well-played game and the "drama" of the closely matched contest.

In a proposed answer to the question "What is art?" 10 Ducasse discusses the product of art in terms of the activity of the artist. Although he does not discuss the aesthetic experience, per se. he does establish intent and

g Eugene Kaelin, "The Well-Played Game: Notes Toward an Aesthetics of Sport," Quest X . May 1968, p. 23.

^ C u r t Ducasse, The Philosophy of Art (New York: Dover, 1966), pp. 111-133. 84 reflection on intent as intrinsic and essential constituents in the "activity of art." He calls this necessity "objective self-expression" which, in most instances, remains private to the artist. He defines objective self-expression as:

. . . the act of expression is creative of some­ thing (1 ) capable of being contemplated by the artist at least, and (2 ) such that in contempla­ tion that thing yields back to him the feeling, volition, or meaning of which it was the attempted expression.

He cites the example of the poet reading the words he wrote, in which case if he obtains back the meaning he attempted to express, his activity of writing has been a successful objectification and could be considered aesthetic. The determination remains with the artist.

He further notes that:

. . . unsuccessful attempts at objective self- expression cannot be distinguished from successful by the way they feel at the time, but only by contemplating their products and noting whether or not the latter mirror back to us accurately what we attempted to express. One must be able to acknowledge the product as an accurate statement of oneself.

This line of thought implies that any determination of authenticity of intent or achievement presupposes a reflec­ tion on both the intent and the performance after the experience. There is also the implication of a critical judgment by the performer in his determination of authen­

^Ducasse, p. 113.

12Ibid., pp. 113, 115. 85 ticity but does not necessarily suggest an analytic reflec­ tion except as one determines whether the intent matched the achievement.

Expertise

Inherent in the concept of intent is the individual1s assessment of ability or technique. Except in the Idealism of Croce or Hegelian aesthetics, technique assumes a central importance in the aesthetic experience. Regardless of the media, the individual in the aesthetic experience must have a relatively high degree of technique at his command. As previously noted in Chapter V, creativity in use of media and the ability to make fine adjustments during performance are based on a broad working knowledge of the media.

Koestler's discussion of motor skills follows this notion:

When these elementary, yet very complex, techniques [of the soccer player] have been mastered, each of them will become a self-contained sub-skill in his repertory, and he will be able to decide, in a split second, which of them to employ according to the layout of the field.13

Expertise is a prerequisite for the perfect moment but this does not mean absolute perfection. The surfer, for example, can constantly improve his technique by taking on bigger waves until he reaches the "perfect" wave or the impossible wave. This demands greater sophistication of technique but prior to this reach for perfection comes a point in the

13 Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (New York: Macmillan, 1964), p. 549. 86

surfer's ability when he has a consistent command of the board. He is able to transcend thoughts of body and board position and is able to direct his attention away from him­ self and technique and toward the "feeling" of the experi­ ence.

In contrast is George Plimpton who, in the Paper 14 Lion. almost always mishandled the snap from center. He played with the pros but it is apparent that he is not a pro and rather than knowing and having the experience of a pro, he, despite his participation and articulation, remained outside the real pro football experience. Although expertise is not perfection, it must be considered within the realm of excellence and attainable by the few rather than the many.

There is an athletic aristocracy for the same reason there is one of intelligence and one of fashion, because men have different endowments, and only a few can do each thing as well as it is capable of being done. Equality in these respects would mean total absence of excellence.15

With regard to intent and the perfect moment, excellence in technique precludes an accidental achievement and suggests the consistency of performance necessary to maintain authen­ ticity.

Although Ducasse argued that art was more than skilled work (ectotelic) and more than skilled play (auto-

14 George Plimpton, The Paper Lion (New York: Harper and Row, 1965). 15 George Santayana, "Philosophy on the Bleachers," Harvard Monthly. 28:184, July 1894. 87

telic), he did maintain that skill was a prerequisite for

successful artistic activity and for objective self- 1 g expression. Similarly, Dewey maintains that competence is part of both the artist's and athlete-artist1s necessary 17 background. Dewey maintains that expertise and the existence of "motor dispositions" formed prior to the act are essential in changing what would otherwise be a simple emotional response into an act of expression. Without command of certain motor sets of the body, complex skilled 18 acts are not possible and random responses occur. However,

"the motor coordinations that are ready because of prior experience at once render his perception of the situation more acute and intense and incorporate into its meanings 19 that give it depth."

Weiss states that "the well-trained athlete acts 20 superbly, using his body effectively." Although Weiss does not specifically state, this implies a dualism such that expertise, or training, makes an instrument of the body which man then uses to accomplish his athletic feats.

16 Ducasse, pp. 111-133. 17 John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Capri­ corn Books, 1958), pp. 5, 97.

1 8 Ibid.. p. 97. 19 Ibid. 20 Paul Weiss, Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry (Carbon- dale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969), p. 55. 88

Expertise does not imply an attitude of mechanization of the body nor a reduction of the body to an object removed from the self. Implicit in technique is its ability to free the athlete from having to think about his body and allowing him unity with it by fully participating in the experience.

Expertise allows man to transcend the what and how-to-do stages. Similarly, he must acquaint himself with and master the use of various pieces of equipment.

In some sports, shoes, gloves, racquets, or clubs must be used if men are to perform; if they are to perform well, those items must be used effectively. Other sports, such as mountain climbing, require the use of much more equipment, the mastery of which demands considerable experience and knowledge. But no matter what the sport, the equipment it requires offers a challenge to a man, demanding that he not only accept his body but unite himself with the items beyond it.^l

Returning again to VanDenBerg's discussion of

Sartre's three dimensions of the body, 22 it can be noted that involvement in the activity, i.e., participation in the first dimension, presupposes a "forgetting" of intentions, equipment, and the body. "Forgetting" is made possible only through mastery of technique, a well-trained body, and 2 3 familiarity with equipment. VanDenBerg makes a second

^Weiss, p. 74. 22 See earlier discussion in Chapter IV, p. 61. Also, J. H. VanDenBerg, "The Human Body and the Significance of Human Movement," in Ruitenbeek, ed., Psychoanalysis and Existential Philosophy (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1962). 23 VanDenBerg, p. 107. 89 point which directly touches on technique and expertise. He argues that although training and prior preparation are certainly necessary, full efficiency is demonstrated ^n the act when the body has been transcended.

The quality of the body: its measurements, its ability, its efficiency and vulnerability can only become apparent when the body itself is forgotten, eliminated, passed over in silence for the occupa­ tion or for the landscape for whose sake the passing over is necessary. . . . However long I study my hand, I shall never discover its effi­ ciency in this way. The essential quality is revealed when I, forgetting my hand, become absorbed in the work the hand does.24 The implication here would seem to be one of treating the body as a unity, a body-subject, rather than as a separate entity from the self, a body-object. 25

The perfect moment demands an openness of man to the experience; as Friedenberg suggests, "hang loose but 96 tough." "It is only possible to be a first-rate athlete if you can allow yourself to feel sport in your blood and 27 open up to what it means." Openness is dependent on spontaneity and a sense of security. This security assumes a self-assurance that one can do what one intends to do.

24VanDenBerg, p. 108. 25 This point will be developed on pages 93-96 of this chapter. 26 Edgar Z. Friedenberg, "Foreward," in Howard Slusher, Man. Sport and Existence (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1967), p. xiii. 90

Pear of failure, lack of confidence in one's own skills, or

lack of sufficient expertise, negate or severely hamper

spontaneity, openness, and the ability to become completely

absorbed in the experience. Any negation of this kind

attenuates the possibility of the perfect moment. To

reiterate, one does not plan the perfect moment— it happens— but the conditions, of which expertise is one, must be set

so that it might occur.

Whole Man Acting

Seemingly, it would be untenable to apply strict concepts of Idealism to the sport experience. The sport experience suggests a physical manifestation of what may be initiated in the mind and, in this respect, is consonant with post-Crocean aestheticians. The mind and the body are utilized simultaneously in sport which should dictate a holistic, total man concept. However, historically and presently there are varying views on mind, body, and total man, whether it is in sport, philosophy, the psychology of perception or from the viewpoint of coaches, participants, and spectators. The perfect moment necessitates involvement of the whole man free from any implied or imposed dualism.

A number of psychological and philosophical positions have developed discounting the behavioristic and dualistic nature of man and suggesting the integration of thought and action.

The most recent group of philosophers to consider the 91 body problem were the existentialists and phenomenologists. 28 Marcel suggests that one or the other of the monist theories can be accepted only if we accept an ontological value superior to that of the body. He also pointed out that if one is to think of the body as an instrument,

. . . I thereby attribute to the soul . . . the potentialities which are actualized by means of this instrument. . . . I furthermore convert the soul into a body.29

I am my body. . . . X am not the master or pro­ prietor of the content of my body, etc. It follows that as soon as I treat my body as a thing, I exile myself in infinite degree: the negative justifica­ tion of materialism; we end up with the following formula: "my body is (an object), I am n o t h i n g . "30

Merleau-Ponty has offered a phenomenological theory in an attempt to discount dualism and resolve the mind-body problem. He distinguishes between the personal and pre­ personal levels of existence in which the pre-personal level is the body in relationship with the world, i.e., the body 31 as subject and as being man's access to the world. It is evident, for Merleau-Ponty, that the lived world of experi­ ence cannot be discarded intellectually but that there is a

28 Gabriel Marcel, "Metaphysical Journal and a Meta­ physical Diary," in Stuart F. Spicker, The Philosophy of the Body (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), pp. 189-190, 196- 197, 201-203.

2 9 Ibid., p. 196.

30 Ibid., p. 2 0 2 . 31 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Per­ ception. translated by Colin Smith (New York: Humanities Press, 1962). 92 32 unity of bodily being and subjectivity. The lebenswelt must be given full attention and although he urges a "return to things themselves," he moves away from Husserlian intel­ lectual analysis and toward the idea of bodily experience and embodiment of mind rather than body as a purely physical 33 thing. His theory of perception and experience closely 34 parallels that of Gestalt psychology and discounts mecha­ nistic physiology and behaviorism which would treat the body as an object. 35

Like the Gestalt psychologists, one of his main theses is the perception, experience, and description of the thing rather than the description of the thing experienced.

In other words, it is a determination of the nature of the experience and not of the thing which is eaqperienced. These perceptions and experiences are private and non-verifiable since they are dependent on the individualistic whole organ- 36 ism. It is further noted that I jun my body and I have a body. Wenkart, VanKaam, and VanDenBerg allude to Merleau-

3 ^Merleau-Ponty, pp. 230-232, 463-473. 33 Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement; Volume II (The Hague: Martinus Nijoff, 1960), pp. 546-547.

34Merleau-Ponty, pp. 2-52, 90-97.

3 5Ibid.. pp. 67-97. 36 Ibid. See also: Floyd H. Allport, Theories of Perception and the Concept of Structure (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1955), pp. 20-46. 93

Ponty's idea of the possibility of man's body-subjectivity

and his body-objectivity.

When the body is in action, as in sports, we can look at it as a human existence open toward the world. Man's personal relation to his body can be explained in terms of his positional consciousness. Man can become deeply involved in an external situation but he always keeps a certain distance from it. That is why we can say that man not only is his body, but also has his b o d y . 3^ . . . my body is already a meaning-giving existence, even if I am not yet conscious of this meaning- giving activity. My body invests my world with meaning even before I think about this meaning. . . . My body makes the world and the other avail­ able to me. . . .My behaving body— which I am— is the locus for the appropriation of sense and meaning.38

Man in the first dimension passes over, transcends the body,

and experiences the task subjectively through it. However,

in the second dimension under the gaze of others the body 39 becomes an object.

This dissectable thing-body is a derivative of the second dimension of the body. . . .Also the moun­ taineer himself can constitute the body in the second dimension. This happens, for instance, when he tends the wound in his leg. The wounded place is examined and touched in order to cure it or: in order to be able to continue on his way .40

To maintain that human existence, or man in his experiential world, is dualistic in nature is to disparage

37 Simon Wenkart, "The Meaning of Sports for Con­ temporary Man," Journal of Existential Psychiatry. Vol. 3 (Spring 1963), 401.

3®VanKaam, p. 229. o

39VanDenBerg, p. 113. 40lbid. 94

the body or to treat it as an object incapable of experienc­

ing the world in a subjective, personal, or affective manner.

To ascribe to one or the other of the monist theories is to

mechanize or to deny the body completely. From the empiri­

cist view, it may be suggested that however imperfect the

senses, the body still receives perceptual stimuli. These

are objective but, nonetheless, come with qualitative and

symbolic overtones in the Gestalt sense. The body cannot be

considered merely a means because its own experiential predicates presupposes a subjectivity. Though oversimpli­

fied, it may be possible to say that pre-consciously and

through pure physical behavior the body, which includes the

embodiment of mind, alone can come to know, i.e. , understand, 41 the experiential world.

The concept of the body-subject leads to the idea that man can become completely involved in doing. Although body-subjectivity is a relatively recent development in western philosophy, the concept of an integrated mind, body

and spirit, or at least the desire for this integration 42 reaches as far back as ancient Greece. The Delphic spirit, which embraces the Apollian and Dionysian of existence and

41 Seymour Kleinman, "Phenomenology, The Body and Physical Education," paper presented Philosophy Section, American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Chicago, March 1966. 42 James Genasci and Vasillis Klissouras, "The Delphic Spirit in Sports," J.O.H.P.E.R.. 37:2:43-45, February 1966. 95

represents the striving and struggling to reach perfection, 43 conceives of man as a unity.

Sikelianas expressed the Delphic spirit of unity as he spoke to the Greek people, saying, "In your midst I place the great statue of Effort, and by it I revive your bodies and your minds." It is through this revival of spirit, mind and body that the total person is created.4 4

Involvement

Involvement of man in the aesthetic and sport

experiences has been alluded to in the discussions of

Chapters III and IV, as well as in the discussions of the

expertise and whole man criteria. Just as the perfect moment necessitates the unity of mind and body, the unity or integration of man and sport is a necessary criterion for the perfect moment to occur. This involvement precludes the interference of extraneous factors in the sport situation such as crowd noise, wind, cold, etc. Involvement keeps man in the "first dimension" oblivious to the gaze of others, alone, and, for the most part, unaware of other performers except as they are necessary to his performance. Using dance as the ideal movement experience, Kleinman says:

Although all participants in a dance may be per­ forming exactly the same movements, the individual, if he is truly engaged in the act, knows nothing

43 Genasci and Klissouras, p. 43.

4 4 Ibid. 96

of the others. He is completely absorbed in the landscape. He is acting only as he can act.45

Upon reflection, the athlete can sense the unity of being completely involved in the thing he is doing. Ban­

nister describes a running experience: "I was running now,

and a fresh rhythm entered my body. No longer conscious of my movement I discovered a new unity with nature. I found a 46 new source of power and beauty. ..." Beets comments on

Bannister's reaction to running and his comments are a more 47 specific reiteration of earlier discussion, particularly that of Dewey and Ingarden, of the fusion of subject and object in the aesthetic experience and the artist's feeling about this fusion.

You will observe that he describes his hesitating movements under the wings of fundamental discovery: he experienced a new unity with nature in which he is not conscious any longer of parts of his body and movements thereof. . . . he forgets his body . . . to find a sense of unity and a source of power and beauty, as he calls it.4° This sense of unity, or any feelings developed by

45 Seymour Kleinman, "The Significance of Human Move­ ment: A Phenomenological Approach," N.A.P.E.C.W. Workshop Report: Aesthetics and Human Movement (Washington. D.C.: National Association of Physical Education for College Women, 1964), p. 127. 46 Roger Bannister, The Four Minute Mile (New York: Dodd, Mead Co., 1963), p. 12. 47 See Chapter III, pp. 47-51. 48 N. Beets, "The Experience of the Body in Sports," International Research in Sport and Physical Education, edited by Simon and Jokl (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1964), p. 75. 97

the performer, is essentially private as noted in the dis­

cussion of the nature of sport and again in the whole man

concept. Man is alone with his perceptions and alone in

what lie is experiencing. "... even though performing with

others, you may lose the sense of physical companionship,

for the ultimate effort of striving for excellence is accom- 49 plished individually." The "truly engaged" knows nothing

of the others if his totality of being is committed to and

consumed by that in which he is engaged. "In true esqperi-

ence, perception is unique and undifferentiated; there is a

sense of wholeness, unity and centeredness. In such moments, 50 man is immersed in the world. ..."

The dissolution of subject and object is not the

purpose of sport or any movement media but the genuine

involvement of the individual with sport can make this unity

inevitable. Man does not use his body or movement to have

an experience but the involvement of his total being allows

the experience to happen. "Presentic experience actualizes

itself in movement; it does not produce itself by means of 51 52 the movement." Buber argues that there is nothing in man

(the I) nor in the world (the Thou) except in the relation

49 Genasci and Klissouras, p. 43.

^Moustakas, p. 1.

51Erwin Straus, Phenomenological Psychology (New York: Basic Books, 1966), p. 31.

52Buber, p. 62. between man and the world and it is this relation which makes the experience significant and complete and gives it its existence. Sport is nothing until man acts upon it.

Sport gains its existence through man's participation in it and man can know and "feel" sport only through his actual and active involvement.

When I live a dance, I feel as one: the dance, the dancer, and myself. I am necessarily the object of my perception because it requires my attention and interest for its existence. If I blot out the dance, I am not in it, it does not exist for me. On the other hand, if I live the dance vicariously, I am in it, its existence is complete.55

Dewey refers primarily to the spectator as he dis­ cusses involvement.

When we say that tennis-playing, singing, acting, and a multitude of other activities as arts, we engage in an elliptical way of saying that there is art .in the conduct of these activities.5**

He does, however, like Ducasse, suggest that the experience rather than the product is the essential feature of the artistic or aesthetic experience and that this activity of art is contingent on the artist's involvement. Kaelin's concern is also with the spectator and he maintains that the process of consciously directed human movement is "capable of a high degree of aesthetic perfection in which the

53 Sondra Fraleigh, "Dance Creates Man," Quest XIV. June 1970, pp. 68-69. 5 4 --- Dewey, Art as Experience, p. 214. 99 55 performers and the performance cannot be differentiated."

In theatres where actors are surrounded by and often as

close as three feet from their audiences, skillful actors

are what they are doing because of an involvement and con­

centration which must necessarily exclude their audience and

any reaction to it. Assuming expertise and a continuity of performance, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that

at certain points during a performance, the athlete can and must exhibit this same concentration and involvement.

In the creative human relationship there is a feeling that soars beyond the limits of self- awareness, a feeling of oneness, a feeling of communion. There is a freedom that enables each person to be spontaneous and responsive. Freedom means opening oneself to a relationship, experi­ encing it as positive and unique. It means allow­ ing whatever will happen to happen, not forcing the direction or results. It means expressing one's talents and skills spontaneously, and in accord with the unique requirements of each human situation.56

Perhaps the man-sport relationship can be considered analo­ gous with Moustakas' creative human relationship. Perhaps by bringing an authentic intent, expertise in the form of excellence in technique, and involving a "first dimension" totality of being as completely as possible in the sport experience, man will find something akin to the Moustakas relationship, the aesthetic experience, or to a "perfect moment" in sport.

^Kaelin, p. 26.

^Moustakas, p. 138. CHAPTER VII

THE PERFECT MOMENT IN SPORT

Part 1

The perfect moment concept will be developed, in part, from concepts which have been previously explored in various psychological, sociological, and philosophical literature and which, despite some similarities in content, have been used for different purposes. Thus, the perfect moment is a somewhat eclectic concept belonging to the study of sport but which finds its basis in the similarities of some established ideas.

The preliminary criteria have been delineated in

Chapters V and VI and these establish the framework in which the perfect moment may occur. It is feasible to suggest, however, that given the fulfillment of all criteria, ideal conditions, and the readiness of the individual, the perfect moment may not occur. Its occurrence may hinge on something which is not concrete enough to discuss and, like the experience of the perfect moment itself, its definition and description may be incomplete and meaningless for those who have not "been there." This does not, however, invalidate

100 101

its occurrence nor preclude the attempt to describe what the

perfect moment entails.

Sartre

The term "perfect moment" originates in Sartre's

novel, Nausea.^ and although the concern of the paper is not

with the philosophic purpose in which Sartre created the

concept, it seems feasible to include his interpretation of

the perfect moment since the concept, per se. is consonant

with previous criteria in this paper. Sartre has filled his

character, Roquentin, with visions of absurdity and reduced

him to a state of despair and emptiness. He is in chaos but

this chaotic state seems to be preparing him for an escape,

a hope of salvation. Sartre proposes the solution, salva­

tion, or "out" by turning to nonexistent forms or other

realms of being. This "other" realm of being is, in Roquen-

tin's case, adventure; and in Anny's, it is in perfect

moments. Sartre uses the two terms synonymously and they

can be very nearly equated with Maslow's concept of peak-

experiences in terms of intensity and affective involvement.

Although both Roquentin and Anny mark out various

kinds of adventures, or perfect moments, both seem to lean

toward art experiences: Roquentin in the "song" and the

novel and Anny in the drama. It is literary convention to

1Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea, translated by Lloyd Alexander (New York: New Directions, 1964). 102 mark out a beginning and an end and the perfect moment, in

Sartre's sense, has this characteristic. The song begins and ends. The play not only begins and ends but is further structured into acts, and sport can be seen to have this same design.

The beginnings would have to be real beginnings. Alas! Now I see clearly what I really wanted. Real beginnings are like the fanfare of trumpets, like the first notes of a jazz tune. . . . Some­ thing is beginning in order to end; adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead.^

One knows when the perfect moment is over and it can be defined apart from the rest of routine existence. "I believed the word adventure could be defined: an event out 3 of the ordinary without being necessarily extraordinary."

An adventure is harmonious; there is inherent in it an interrelationship of parts. "Each instant appears only 4 as part of a sequence." A melody is more than a succession of notes; it presupposes an over-all form and harmonic framework. Although it has a pattern and direction, this does not eliminate all surprise. Roquentin's primary adven­ ture was in the song, "Some of These Days," and his concept of adventure was similar to that of a melody. The song, per se, was trivial but he saw it as a clear antithesis to existence. Life is unmelodic; it has no pattern or order of

2 Sartre, p. 37.

3Ibid.. p. 35. 4Ibid., p. 37. 103

events like the inevitability and contingency in the struc­

ture of a song. Adventure becomes a point on the spectrum,

a "pregnant moment," in which the retelling of the "happen­

ing" becomes the creation of a miniature drama. In

comparison, "In sport a set of interrelated relevant acts 5 are produced. It is not a series of pointless responses."

Sport, in its execution and its pattern, has harmony. Move­ ments with a sequence and intent can amount to a melody of motion marked out by a real beginning and an end. And sport, like the song or the novel, is a creation of men.

Nowhere in the novel does Sartre suggest that there is any meaning derived from these adventures. Despite their design and harmony which set them aside from routine exist­ ence, perfect moments are really as absurd as life. This is g not unlike Metheny's suggestion that sport, after the fashion of Sisyphus, is an absurd mode of being. Bergson has implied that melody is an interpretation and that the adventure is really in man and not in the thing he is experiencing. Buber would argue that the perfect moment comes in the relation between man and the thing he is experi­ encing. This paper is concerned with the experience of the perfect moment and would echo Buber's sentiment as noted in

5 Paul Weiss, Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry (Carbon- dale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969), p. 61. g Eleanor Metheny, Movement and Meaning (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 58-82. 104

the criteria of involvement in Chapter VI. Although not

concerned with the meaning of sport, there does exist the

possibility that the meaning of sport, like the sadness of

the song, is really in man.

Maslow and the Peak-Experience

Abraham Maslow was the leading exponent of what has

been called third force, humanistic, or existential psy- 7 chology. The opening pages of Toward a Psychology of Being

indicate the direction Maslow felt existential psychology

was taking. He viewed it as a turning away from logical

positivism, behaviorism, and Cartesianism and toward the

study of the "healthy" human being. "It lays great stress

on starting from experiential knowledge rather than from Q systems of concepts or abstract categories or a prioris."

It uses as a foundation personal, subjective experience upon which abstract knowledge may be built. There is a concern with the authentic, unique, and alone individual and the

need to develop concepts of decision, responsibility, self­

creation, autonomy, and identity within this concern.

Maslow's concept of the "peak-experience" is set within this psychological context. The peak-experience is

treated from the psychological perspective in that it can be

7 Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (Princeton: Van Nostrand"] 1962) , pp. 9-17.

8Ibid.. p. 9. 105 a seen to have certain therapeutic effects. Maslow has also

made the peak-experience synonymous with the "self-actualiz­

ing" man:

. . . any person in any peak-experience takes on temporarily many of the characteristics which I have found in self-actualizing individuals. That is, for the time they become self-actualizers.1®

He also points out that for psychological reasons or for

"unhealthy" persons, the peak-experience is not available to

everyone."^ The non-peaker is "not the person who is unable

to have peak-experiences but rather the person who is afraid 12 of them, who suppresses them, or 'forgets' them." The

main concern in exploring Maslow's peak-experience lies not

in the psychological implications of the experience but with

the nature of the experience, per se.

Maslow does not delineate how the peak-experience is

achieved and in fact says:

We don't know how the peak-experience is achieved; it has not simple one-to-one relation with any deliberated procedure; we know only that it is somehow earned. It is like the promise of a rain­ bow. It comes and it goes and it cannot be for­ gotten.1^

9 Maslow, p. 101.

1 0 Ibid., p. 97.

11Abraham Maslow, Religions. Values, and Peak- Experiences (New York: Viking Press, 1970;, p. 22.

1 2 Ibid. 13 Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: Viking Press, 1971), p. xvi. 106

A peak-experience is a realization that what "ought to be"

is. In the Heideggerian sense, it is a coming into authen­

ticity. The peak-experience is a unique and almost mystic

phenomenon, a coming into Tao or Nirvana, a state of Being

rather than Becoming. Maslow sees the peak-experience as an 14 end rather than as a means to something else. The aes­

thetic experience has been discussed as a means but this

does not imply that the peak-experience and the aesthetic

experience are antithetical. The aesthetic experience is

essentially a process but there are moments in the process

which are significantly higher than other moments, a moment

which is perfect, which is a peak. Similarly, the peak-

experience is a process. However, the peak-experience and

the aesthetically perfect moment are ends in themselves in

that they are not used to accomplish other ends.

Although occurring in a spatial-temporal setting,

the peak-experience is characterized by a disorientation in

time and space. "In the creative furor, the poet or artist

becomes oblivious of his surroundings and of the passage of 15 time." The same can be said for the athlete. The experi­

ence is intrinsically valid, perfect, and complete. It is

sufficient to itself and needs nothing else. It is felt as being intrinsically necessary and inevitable, as good as it

14 „ _ Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, p. 76.

15Ibid., p. 80. 107 16 should be. "We cannot command the peak-experience. It 17 happens to us." There is an intensity and emotional reac­ tion to the peak-experience that "has a special flavor of 18 wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender."

In peak-experiences that are classified as love experiences or aesthetic experiences, "one small part of the world is 19 perceived as if it were for the moment all of the world."

The individual in the peak-experience can be viewed ahistorically in that he is free from the past and the 20 future. There is also a sense of uniqueness: "If people are different from each other in principle, they are more 21 purely different in the peak-experience." The person m the peak-experience feels more integrated, more a total 22 being, with a feeling that he is at the peak of his powers.

He is more able to fuse with the world: "the creator becomes one with the work being created . . . the appreciator becomes 23 the music or the painting or the dance. ..." Maslow has listed common characteristics of the peak-experience as reported by subjects having various kinds of peak-experiences.

These include: wholeness, tendency to oneness; perfection, just-rightness; completion, fulfillment; spontaneity;

16 Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, p. 81.

1 7 Ibid.. p. 87. 1 8 Ibid. 1 9 Ibid.. p. 8 8 .

2 0 Ibid.. p. 108. 2 1 Ibid.

22Ibid., pp. 104-105. 23Ibid.. p. 105. 108 uniqueness, non-comparability; effortlessness, lack of 24 strain; autonomous, alone, environment-transcending. The peak-experience is an intense and affective ultimate for the individual.

Straus and the Pathic Moment

Erwin Straus is another psychologist whose recently compiled and translated papers, Phenomenological Psvchol- 25 oqy. reveal a concern with the experiential processes of man as well as his bodily presence in and awareness of his world. Despite a broad scientific background in his writ­ ings, Straus turns to philosophy and discounts science as 26 "the way" to understand man the doer. Although he does not follow Husserl in his exploration of the lebenswelt,

Straus suggests that: "... the attempt to explore human experience, revealing its depth and wealth, instead of reducing it, complies well with Husserl's appeal: 'Back to 27 the things themselves.1"

Straus developed the gnostic-pathic moment concept in his essay, The Forms of Spatialitv. which deals primarily with man's perception of space. The gnostic moment may be defined as the object of experience, "the sensation," while

24 Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, p. 83. 25 Erwin Straus, Phenomenological Psychology (New York: Basic Books, 1966). 26 27 Ibid., pp. vi-vii. Ibid., p. xi. 109

the pathic moment may be expressed as the experience, "the

sensing." Like Maslow, Straus used these concepts to

explain psychological phenomena and again the explanation of

these concepts is included in light of the concepts, per se.

and not for their utilitarian function. The concern here is with the pathic moment and explication of its essential

characteristics. In dealing with these perceptual concepts,

Straus uses the terms gnostic and pathic to avoid misunder­ standing of the terms "sensing" and "sensation."

The distinction between sensation and sensing remains completely within the sphere of experience content. The gnostic moment merely develops the what of the given in its object character, the pathic the how of its being as given.28

The pathic moment is immediately present, sensually vivid but difficult to understand conceptually because it is a 29 characteristic feature of primordial experience.

Although both the gnostic and pathic moments are present in the experience, there is a relative dominance of one over the other. Straus gives the following example:

"In touching the pathic is dominant; in looking, the gnostic dominates. 'Looking at' brings every object into the domain 30 of the objective and the general." Touch is the most primordial, direct and pathic of the senses because it allows more feedback and also permits more involvement. Man

2 ®Straus, p. 12. 29 30 Ibid. Ibid., p. 14. 110 is a participant in rather than a spectator to what is occurring. It borders on being the subjective, Dionysian and uninhibited doer which, as will be noted later, McLuhan calls "cool." The pathic moment is actual inside out lived experience. On the other hand, the gnostic moment is the object of reflection, dissection, and reduction in which man is the Apollian spectator.

The pathic moment is not locatable. Unlike the piano in which you hear it, the string quartet surrounds you to the point where you are almost in the sound. Similarly, the neon sign is the object of attention, specific and locatable, whereas twilight is the more pathic representa­ tion of light as it cannot be taken in at one glance.

Buber and the I-Thou Relationship 31 Martin Buber's most familiar work, I and Thou. is steeped in Judaism and Buber's lifelong Zionism, considered to be cultural rather than political, was prompted by his concern for the creation of a new way of life and a new type of community. Although the work has religious overtones, it deals centrally with man's relationships to other men.

Examination of the I-Thou and I-It concepts with regard to the perfect moment is again undertaken as a delineation of

31 Martin Buber, I and Thou. translated by Walter Kauffman (New York: Scribner's and Sons, 1970). Ill

the essential characteristics of the concept removed from

the utilitarian function that they could serve.

Buber views the world as a relational event, i.e.,

there is nothing inherent in the I alone or the world alone

to make them significant or meaningful. "All actual life is 32 encounter." His philosophy stresses the two-fold nature

of relations as part of every activity or event in man's

life. Every relationship, whether it is between man and man, man and nature\ or man and object, is either I-It or I-Thou. God is met only as Thou. The kind of relationship which

occurs depends on the attitude with which the I enters the

relationship.

The I-It relationship is typically a subject-object

relationship. The I uses these "things" for some specific

reason— to compare, to manipulate, to attain some goal. 33 They are means to an end. Sport may be viewed in the It

context when it is used for instrumental purposes— to vent

aggression, to develop leadership, sportsmanship or charac­

ter, or to entertain. In the realm of It, men can see the

characteristics of the It. This may be viewed as a detached

view of self in which, for example, the body becomes an

32 Buber, I and Thou, p. 62. 33 Martin Buber, Between Man and M a n . translated by Ronald Smith and Maurice Friedmann (New York: Macmillan Co., 1965), pp. xiii-xvi. 112 object. Man stands aside very much in the Apollian mode to analyze, calculate, and compare.

On the other hand, Buber's second attitude of I-Thou has no bounds. The Thou cannot be bound up and limited by comparing or measuring and Thou cannot be placed in the ordered world of It. Inherent in the nature of the I-Thou relationship is the realization that the encounter cannot be 34 explained or verbalized. Both I and Thou are involved in the relation in a oneness of directedness, mutuality, and presence. Without genuine involvement, the meeting does not take place. The presentness, or nowness, of the I-Thou relation is, as Buber says, "the actual and fulfilled 35 present." In the realm of It, man lives in the past and the future, analyzing what has happened and what can be experienced. With I and Thou there is no past and no future; it "exists only insofar as actual presentness, encounter, 36 and relation exists." The encounter of the I-Thou is not 37 set in a context of space and time. The present has no time, it just is.

Although Cassirer does not discuss the I-Thou relationship from a metaphysical or epistemological stand­ point, he does concern himself with the phenomenology of perception and the perception of experience.

34 Buber, I and Thou, p. 61.

35Ibid.. p. 63. 36Ibid. 37Ibid.. p. 148. 113

. . . there is a kind of experience of reality which is situated wholly outside this form of scientific explanation and interpretation. . . . In any event, immersion in the phenomenon of perception shows us one thing— that the perception of life is not exhausted by the mere perception of things, that the experience of the "Thou" can never be dissolved into an experience of the mere "It" or reduced to 3 8 it by even the most complex conceptual mediations.

He goes on to suggest that even from a genetic standpoint, there is no doubt as to which mode of perception has prior­ ity.

The farther back we trace perception, the greater becomes the preeminence of the "thou" form over the "it" form and the more plainly the purely expressive character takes precedence over the matter or thing-character.^

McLuhan and the Hot-Cool

Marshall McLuhan is a sociologist whose primary concern has been in the implications of various media on the 40 culture. His Understanding Media discusses the concept of various media being hot or cool and he engages in describing, either implicitly or explicitly, many social phenomena in thermal terms. Cool indicates a commitment to and partici­ pation in situations involving many of one's faculties.41

38 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Volume III: The Phenomenology of Knowledge, translated by Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), p. 63.

40 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media; The Exten­ sions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965). 41 Ibid., p. v. 114

Using this thermal scale, hot implies abstraction and detach­ ment from reality; an objective attempt to look at the world as it appears to be rather than as it is. How-to-do-it becomes more important than the thing being done. A hot medium is one of "high definition," i.e., the state of being well-filled with data.4 2

A photograph is, visually, "high definition." A cartoon is "low definition," simply because very little visual information is provided. The tele­ phone is a cool medium, or one of low definition, because the ear is given a meager amount of infor­ mation. 4 3

Hot media are high in definition and low in participation.

In contrast, the cool media are high in participa­ tion, or completion, by the audience. According to McLuhan, humor is hot because it inclines one to laugh at something 44 rather than getting one emphatically involved in something.

McLuhan argues that the manner in which the medium is used determines its hotness or coolness. While both radio and the telephone use only the auditory sense, the telephone is

"cool" because it is low in definition. Similarly, a Fellini or Bergman movie demands much more involvement of the viewer than does a narrative or a comedy and, therefore, takes on a 45 "cooler" aspect. The emphasis in the "cool" medium or the

"cool" phenomenon is on involvement, participation, and

4 2 McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 22. /o 44 45 Ibid.. pp. 22-23. **Ibid.. p. vi. Ibid. 115

doing in contrast to the spectator perspective of an activ­

ity.

In terms of media, McLuhan classifies radio and the

printed page as "hot" media since they are single sense

media of high definition. Television demands more of the

viewer-listener and, depending on the degree of definition

in programming, it can be very "cool." With regard to sport,

the concept may be extended to suggest that from the audience perspective, baseball is "hot" and football is "cool." Base­ ball is a linear, one-dimensional game in which the spectator watches one player throw, then another hit, another move to fields, etc. However, football entails a total action and involvement of all players simultaneously as soon as the ball is snapped. Prom the participant's viewpoint, sailing

is "cooler" than boating in that the sailor must constantly shift to tend the tiller and sails and must become involved with the physical elements of wind and water as well as the mechanical steering elements. The power boater, however, need only remain in one spot and has very few adjustments to make either in steering or operation of the boat.

However, despite the varying degrees of "coolness" 46 in the sport situation, vonMeier points out that of all the expressive media, sport has the potential of being

"supercool." He establishes six thermal categories ranging

^Kurt vonMeier, "The Hot University," U.C.L.A. Daily Bruin. April 25, 1967, pp. 7-8. 116 from "red hot" to cold, and places various phenomena in these categories. For example, he describes the traditional notion of the scientific method as "hot" and the creative 47 and performing arts as "cool."

But even these creative arts tend toward the warm side because they generally involve a great deal of abstraction and even an intellectualization of the doing process.4 8

VonMeier's ideal in sport (and physical education) is that it will help man find out more about his body and more about himself. Sport is the untainted doing process which involves the totality of thought and action, mind and body. This qualifies sport as "supercool" which is just short of the ultimate cold which is manifested in meditation and the internal point of reference.

Part 2

The Perfect Moment

The perfect moment, like the aesthetic experience, can be classified generally as Dionysian in nature. It is a highly affective and intense experience and is considered as a "happening" rather than as a planned occurrence. In this respect it can be likened to the peak-experience and cannot be considered to be cognitively rational. Although the move­ ment sequence in the perfect moment may demand certain

47 VonMeier, pp. 7-8.

48Ibid.. p. 8. 117

decisions, the spontaneity of the situation demands instant

action rather than reflection. The reaction stems from the

degree of expertise which allows the participant to react

and to transcend rational reflection. This does not preclude

cognitive Apollian considerations of technique prior to or

following the experience. There is a freedom and spontaneity

in the perfect moment in which the participant feels free

from external restrictions that may govern or inhibit per­

formance, the most common factors being coaches and crowds.

The participant feels free to act and is, as Priedenberg

remarked, "loose but tough." There is the sense of being on

the threshold of greatness. Sartre called it a "real begin­

ning" like the fanfare of trumpets or the first notes of a 49 50 jazz tune. Dianne Holum commenting on her gold medal performance in the 1500 meter speedskating event at the 1972

Winter Olympics: "I knew I had won; I didn't know what my

time was but coming down the stretch I knew. I felt great,

just great. We trained for 2:20 and it was all there, I

could feel it."

Because of its experiential foundation and intense

affectivity, the perfect moment is characterized by a high degree of subjectivity. Both the aesthetic and sport

49 Sartre, p. 37. 50 Dianne Holum, NBC interview with Curt Gowdy, February 8 , 1972, from Sapporo, Japan. 118 experiences were noted as being highly subjective in 51 nature, but the perfect moment within the sport experi­ ence can be considered even more individualistic in that it carries a uniqueness that sets it apart from experiences of others in the same sport and apart from the experiences of the same individual in the same sport given any variation in existing conditions. To illustrate:

Same Media Criteria Same Man Unknown Fulfilled Conditions

1 ) + + Y Z PM1 A 1 xi +

2 ) + CM + Y = PM2 A 1 + z or no PM 3) + + Y + z = PM3 or PM A 2 X 1 no 4) B + + Y + = PM4 X 1 z 5) + + Y + = PM5 or no PM A 1 xl Z 1

In example 1, the man (A^ and the conditions (Y and Z) are prime for the perfect moment to occur and the unknown factor (X) is such that a perfect moment does occur.

In example 2, the man and the conditions are again prime but

/ the unknown factor changes, which suggests that the perfect moment may or may not occur. If it does occur, it will be different depending on the change in the unknown factor.

Example 3 indicates some changes in the man in which case if the change does not inhibit the occurrence of the perfect

51 See Chapter V. 119 moment, it will be a different perfect moment from those experienced in examples 1 and 2. Example 4 is a different man (B) which, although allowing a perfect moment given that all other variables remain constant, produces a different perfect moment. Example 5 holds all of the variables of example 1 constant except the conditions of the media (sport is the same but place, for example, may be different).

Again, the perfect moment will occur in varied form if the change in conditions is not inhibiting. In short, the perfect moment is not repeatable in its entirety. This is similar to Maslow's suggestion that people are more purely different in the peak-experience. The poet, painter, dancer, and athlete come to their media with a perception which is unique to themselves. What they do to and with the media can be imitated and perhaps repeated, but what they sense, feel, and experience is not repeatable.

The man truly jln the experience is alone with his work and the bond between the artist or athlete and the medium can be likened to Buber's I-Thou concept, Sartre's first dimension, and Maslow's peak-experience. Buber talks about a "oneness" with the other which is synonymous with subject-object fusion in the earlier discussions of aestheti- cians Adams, Lechner, and Dewey. This "oneness" presupposes fulfillment of the involvement criterion in which the

"peaker" fuses with the world and becomes "one with the work 120 52 being created." Buber maintained that without genuine

involvement the meeting does not take place, no bond is formed, and "oneness" is impossible, resulting in an I-It relationship. Parenthetically, what is here called the perfect moment is similar to Buber's concept of the I-Thou in its nowness, oneness, and ahistorical nature. Although the perfect moment borders on being mystic, it is not, whereas Buber's I-Thou relationship has religious and mystic 53 overtones. Slusher alludes to sport as a religious experience and it may be feasible to see sport, especially in its perfect moments and within the framework of Buber's writing, as a religious experience. 54 VanDenBerg in his discussions of Sartre's three dimensions of the body, refers to this unity or "oneness" as a transcending or passing over as landscape. In the pathic sense that Straus describes, the object of the experience becomes non-locatable in that involvement and fusion place man with the object in the experience to the extent that there is a unification of entities which, from the per­ former's perspective, cannot be viewed apart. Man becomes the thing he is doing. The perfect moment is "supercool" in

^See page 107. 53 Howard Slusher, Man. Sport and Existence (Phila­ delphia: Lea and Febiger, 1967), pp. 121-172. 54 VanDenBerg, "Human Body and Significance of Human Movement." 121

its demand for high participation and the involvement of

man's total being. It is also essentially low definition in

the sense that basic information, i.e., rules, strategies,

and techniques, serves as the foundation but man creates the

situation and must provide all thought and action to create

the medium of self-expression.

In earlier discussions of the aesthetic experience,

Dewey and Adams noted the immediacy of the experience and

its ahistorical nature. Maslow's peak-experience and Buber's

I-Thou relation are both characterized by a presentness, or

"nowness." Similarly, Straus notes that the pathic moment is

an essential feature of primordial experience and that it is

"immediately present and sensually vivid." In short, they

all maintain these "lived" experiences are free from past

and future experience. The perfect moment can be seen to have this same characteristic. This wave at this time is important. The player is urged to forget his mistakes and think-act as it comes. Coaches know that any psychological nagging induced by previous performance or looking ahead to

the next performance diverts concentration and involvement and destroys the immediacy of this performance. The perfect moment exists in the doing and not in what was or will be done. It is free to be what it is as it occurs.

In this immediacy is an inherent sense of timeless­ ness. Like the pathic moment which is not locatable, the 122

perfect moment cannot be cognitively timed or bounded by the

participant. It becomes too intensely involved and affec­

tive to be limited; it comes and it goes "out" of space and

"out" of time. The perfect moment is not sustained through­

out an entire game but occurs within the time and space of

the game or performance situation. It varies in duration

and perhaps may be made most analogous to orgasm during the

sexual experience. In fact, Maslow suggests that perceptions

of time and space during the love experience and the aes­

thetic experience are similar in that "one small part of the

world is perceived as if it were for the moment all of the 55 world."

The perfect moment is complete. It has a harmony,

a relationship of parts that gives it Sartre's feeling of

melody. There is nothing left to be done and there is a

sense of wholeness and correctness in its occurrence. This parallels the sense of unity and "altogetherness" of the

aesthetic and peak-experiences. It can be seen and felt in

the rhythm of technique, the execution and timing of team­ work, and as the perfect integration of desire, intent, and

technique. The perfect moment is the ultimate effort, a

"cool" process of high participation and low definition. It

is a process which is an end in itself and which serves no

instrumental function. It may be a struggle, a conquest, or

55 Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, p. 88. 123 an achievement or it may be effortless or a second place.

In any case, it is the best man can do with and in the sport experience. The perfect moment is a peak, pathic in percep­ tion, cool to the point of being cold in the McLuhan sense, and the relational bond of the I-Thou. It is a happening in the first dimension and, above all, the perfect moment is. CHAPTER VIII

FEELING, REFLECTION, AND DESCRIPTION IN THE

PERFECT MOMENT, A CONCLUDING SUMMARY

Feeling in the Aesthetic Experi­ ence and the Perfect Moment

Until Dewey's Art as Experience, the affective domain

in art and aesthetics was, for the most part, audience- oriented.1 Plato and Tolstoy took the position that the

artist was to create in and communicate emotion J^o the

audience and that it was not necessary for the performer to feel or experience emotion prior to, during, or following his creative act or performance. Aristotle's catharsis theory is an extension of this communication theory. Veron and the expressionists maintained art was the embodiment of emotion in a medium. The artist must have a prior feeling or emotion and express that feeling or emotion for the audi­ ence. No indication is given as to how, or whether, the artist felt during the creative process. Collingwood sug­ gested art is the expression of one's emotions via some physical media. Ducasse's theory of objective self- expression was concerned with the artist matching his prior

1See Chapter II for more detailed discussion.

124 125 experiences with the feeling that the object yielded back to him after its creation. Art was produced when the prior and post feelings matched and he was not concerned with any alteration of feelings that the aesthetic, or creative, experience may have caused.

Dewey maintained that the artist's feelings occur during the art experience and that these experiential feel­ ings form the basis for expressive art. Emotion stems from some significance the individual artist finds in the experi­ ence and the audience is obliged to "re-create" the creative process in order to appreciate and understand the work. For

Dewey the aesthetic emotion is distinct but not separate from a natural emotional experience.

The fact that esthetic emotion is native emotion transformed through the objective material to which it has committed its development and con­ summation, is evident.2

Although concerned with the artist rather than the audience, the recent symbolic transformation theories of

Langer and Cassirer return to the earlier notions that feeling precedes form and that the form becomes a symbol of the artist's prior feelings. Langer maintained that art was the symbolic articulation rather than a stimulation or catharsis of feeling. Read summarizes her point very suc­ cinctly: "The purpose of art is not to expend feeling, or

2 Dewey, Art as Experience. p. 79. 126 3 excite feeling, but rather to give feeling form." However, to suggest, as these theories do, that feeling in the art or aesthetic process is prior to the actual creative experience ignores any effect that the experience can have on the artist which may, in the end, affect his final form. To feel first and only is to preconceive the experiential mode, to prejudge it and limit it. Kaelin is critical of Langer in this regard: "To suggest that a dancer first understands a feeling, and then translates it into kinesthetic imagery, is to suggest that a dancer dances before dancing."4

This is not to imply that feelings or emotions are absent prior to the aesthetic experience or the perfect moment. Some feeling and emotion are inherent in intent.

Prom the perspective of the performer, the presence of feeling stems primarily from the experience in the medium and, although such feelings may be communicated to or take on symbolic overtones for the audience, these are secondary intentions if they are intended at all. The authentic involvement of man in the experience may intensify or alter any initial or prior feelings. For the artist to describe the essence of the aesthetic experience, or his creative

3 Herbert Read, Icon and Idea (New York: Shocken Books, 1965), pp. 105-106. A Eugene Kaelin, "Being in the Body," NAPECW Workshop Report: Aesthetics and Human Movement (Washington, D.C.: National Association of Physical Education for College Women, 1964), p. 102. 127 process, he must describe it as it occurred, not as it was preconceived. The perfect moment and the aesthetic experi­ ence must occur to invoke a feeling which can be described.

To feel, or describe, without an experiential referent is a sterile symbol of an idea of a feeling or experience.

"Feeling . . . is an act, in which there is a referent . . . 5 to an object that is intentionally present." Feeling is the relation of an existing human being and his world.

The phenomenological approach to feelings and emotions starts from the undeniable fact that consciousness is always a being conscious of something else and that we are conscious of our existing, that means our being physically sub­ jected to a given situation.

The situation must be responded to and the reply to the situation is an attitude, or feeling, not a physiological 7 Q reaction. As earlier discussed, the aesthetic experience and the perfect moment preclude cognition and elicit an affective response. The affective response may or may not differ from the feeling which preceded the experience and it may or may not change the performance or the end-product.

However, the experiential situation in either sport or art does exact an affective response which must be considered in

5 F. J. J. Buytendijk, "The Phenomenological Approach to the Problem of Feelings and Emotions," in Ruitenbeek, ed., Psychoanalysis and Existential Philosophy (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1962), pp. 156-157.

6Ibid. . p. 159. 7Ibid.

®See Chapters IV, VI, and VII. 128 any creative process and, from the performer's perspective, this affective response must be considered as the primary response to the experiential situation.

To symbolize the idea of a feeling in some medium is acceptable as an intention in art and as a theory. Sport has no such intent. However, the feeling which develops in the artist during the symbolization process or any other aesthetic experience is a different matter— a matter which no theory except Dewey's takes into account. And, it is a matter which both an artist and an athlete can share in its aesthetic quality. A third way of dealing with feeling is to attempt to symbolize the feelings of the artist or the athlete during the aesthetic experience or perfect moment which could, given further study, develop into a new art form. Photography, experiential description, and various forms of non-verbal media could possibly be used in an attempt to capture and express feelings which occur as the result of an aesthetic experience.

The Nature of Experiential Description

Assuming that an aesthetic or perfect moment occurs in sport and that it evokes an affective response, can this response be satisfactorily explained or described? Plessner, in saying that "it is only behavior which explains the 129 q body," and Moustakas, who states that "experience is real only when it is lived; as soon as it is talked about or defined, the living moment is lost,"’*'® would seem to suggest that the "lived experience" cannot be sufficiently explained.

Straus argues that the primary barrier in trying to express the nature of the immediate (aesthetic) experience is lan­ guage. It is "sheer self-deception to believe that the reports of experimental subjects are able to transmit to us the subjects' immediate experiences intact.In terms of a scientific explanation, analysis, or interpretation, the aesthetic experience and the perfect moment are analogous to what Moustakas says of interpersonal relationships:

A science that objectifies, evaluates, and puts people in categories eliminates the real persons. It sets up impersonable and unalterable categories based on fragmental views of behavior. It deals with elements of sameness. Such a science abstracts until eventually persons and things become nothing at all. . . . The reality of experience and the personal creations of the individual can never be known in analysis or abstraction, can never be known by precise measurement, but only through a meaningful integration of immediate experience. The unique and idiosyncratic qualities of experience cannot be observed, defined, and classified but must be lived to be really known.12

9 Helmuth Plessner, Laughing and Crying, translated by James Spencer Churchill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), p. 6.

■^Clarke Moustakas, Creativity and Conformity (Prince­ ton: Van Nostrand, 1966), p. 1.

■^Erwin Straus, Phenomenological Psychology (New York: Basic Books, 1966), p. 18. 12 Moustakas, p. 132. 130

Similarly, involvement in sport suggests the impossibility of full explanation of the experience. "Participation in the activity of sport itself, as it involves the player, transcends the intellectualization, escaping obtuse abstrac­ tions. . . .

Before completely discounting the possibility of describing the perfect moment or negating the value of even attempting to do so, it seems necessary to examine the nature of description and what it entails with regard-to-.the one who describes and the one who must "evaluate" the descrip­ tion. The nature of a description of the aesthetic experi­ ence or the perfect moment can be said to be the appreciation, recognition, and reflective awareness of the qualities in the object or medium rather than the object or medium, per se. This suggests that the description is not reductively analytic or quantitatively measurable. It does suggest cognition of an affective experience. Qualitative reflective awareness can result from an affective response and a recog­ nition of the significance that the response has for the individual. 14 Using Walsh's model, which is a definition of the essence of aesthetic descriptions, the following is an

13 James Genasci and Vasillis Klissouras, "The Delphic Spirit in Sports," Journal of Health. Physical Education and Recreation. February 1966, p. 44.

14Dorothy Walsh, "Aesthetic Descriptions," British Journal of Aesthetics. Vol. 10 (July 1970), 237-247. 131

exploration of the nature and value of the reflective description of the perfect moment. Walsh starts her dis­

cussion from the unstated but implied premise that the

aesthetic description is a verbal, linguistic, descriptive terminology. Although Straus cited the ineptitude of

language in describing the "lived experience," it must be considered that language has never been effective in describ­ ing any affective response and is often inept in even the most logical, rational, and cognitive contexts and poten­ tialities. Linguistic inefficiency should not preclude attempts to describe as closely as possible the experiential mode, although it must be granted that it has its limita­ tions. Despite the indefinability of sport and the limitations of logical and linguistic description, Kleinman maintains that:

. . . engagement in game, sport, or art, and a description of this kind of engagement enable us to come to know what game, sport, or art is on a level that adds another dimension to our knowing. . . . Experiential description renders significance to a concept different in kind from linguistic utility.15

Aesthetic description borders on being affective and must be considered to be connotative rather than denotative.1^ "It is true, of course, that some aesthetic descriptions . . . 17 carry a valuational suggestion." However, Walsh maintains

15 Seymour Kleinman, "Toward a Non-Theory of Sport," Quest X , May 1968, p. 31.

16Walsh, p. 237. 17Ibid. 132

that no judgment is implied if the description is aesthetic

as opposed to being critical.

A necessary but not sufficient condition for an

aesthetic description is that it be phenomenally objective.

"Aesthetic descriptions, whatever else they may be, are of 18 the 'it is' rather than the 'I am* character." Phenomenal

subjectivity is the quality or characteristic "in you"

whereas phenomenal objectivity is the quality perceived in

the object or in the experience. Although as Bergson sug­

gested, the sadness of the song may be "in you," what one describes is not "you" or the "thing" but what happened between you and the thing. The description is of the experience, not of one or the other of the components, and in the case of the perfect moment, it is of the perfect moment in which is inherent the "oneness" of man and sport.

Whereas the performer would describe the experience in terms of his affective response, the audience would describe the thing— art object or sporting event. Phenomenal subjectivity is likened to Dewey's charge that although emotion is present in an aesthetic experience, its "expression" is objective while a mere emotional discharge is subjective. Pure sub­ jectivity in describing an affective state is equivalent to sentiment and cannot be described as aesthetic or even valid description.

10Walsh, p. 238. 133

"The aesthetic attitude involves a certain detach­ ment, a detachment sufficient to preclude the purely personal 19 association." Although Walsh was viewing this.detachment in the audience sense, a certain detachment is possible for the artist or the athlete. Reflection after the experience provides a degree of detachment in that the performer becomes audience to his own act. Although the personal association is never removed, it is possible to take an objective view of the experience and remove reaction to it from the purely subjective and sentimental realm. It is true that reflection on one's own performance remains subjective unless given criteria by which the performance may be judged are fulfilled.

And, it is also true that subjective and reflective reporting may be inaccurate, depending on the honesty of the partici­ pant. However, in the experiential realm, any attempt to describe the experience from outside is subject to even more erroneous reporting.

Walsh distinguishes between description and inter- 20 pretation. Husserlian reduction essentially interprets the experience by "bracketing out" and studying essences but the phenomenological method (in the Husserlian sense) does not describe the experience.

Aesthetic descriptions can have a brevity not char­ acteristic of interpretations. . . . Perhaps we can

1 9 Walsh, p. 240.

20Ibid., p. 242. 134

say that aesthetic descriptions are simpler, are more immediate, are less dependent on background knowledge, than critical interpretations. An interpretation is something we consider. something we can think about in our re-examination of the work of art, something we can compare to other interpretations, something we can "weigh" from the point of view of plausibility or implausibility. Aesthetic descriptions are more in the nature of invitations to direct apprehension of the object (experience) described. The quality or character­ istic mentioned is not something we are expected to consider but something we are expected to catch on inspection.21

Again, this is audience-oriented but the distinctions hold for participant description of the experience.

Experiential description resists definition in causal terms. Although it is a "bracketing out" of affec­ tive essences, it is not a reduction of those essences, or the experience, to any series of facts, laws, or universal truths. A descriptive expression of "feeling and emotion are affirmations of our attitudes toward situations. The pure description of a feeling is the definition of an exist­ ing human being in his well-defined attitude toward the 22 situation." To understand the situation is to understand 23 the expression of feeling. To have experienced the situa­ tion is to have an insight into the situation and the 24 feelings which are created by the situation. As Bannister

2 1 Walsh, pp. 243-244. 22 23 Buytendijk, p. 160. Ibid., p. 116.

2^Roger Bannister, First Four Minutes (London: Corgi Special, 1957), p. 12. 135

commented, it is almost impossible to describe a rose to

someone who has never seen a rose. One can read Herzog's

Annapurna and think that he must have felt joy at reaching

the top of Annapurna and, like any excellent description or

narrative, it can move the reader or listener. However, if

the reader has done any mountain climbing, even though it was not Annapurna, there is an insight into the feelings,

the situation, and the description which the words cannot

render but which "having been there," in a sense, can convey.

The pure description of the phenomenal field of an individual . . . engaged in each sport may reveal aspects of the ongoing experience that you may have so far overlooked and therefore neglected in your teaching efforts. To give overt recognition and sympathetic attention to the varieties of subjec­ tive experiences of your students as they are engaged in movement might well develop into a phenomenological methodology in physical education.

Descriptions of sportsmen who have possibly achieved the perfect moment in their sport can provide not only teach­ ing insights but perhaps a closer and more human examination of the athlete experiencing in his medium what it has been

assumed that the artist experiences in his medium— an aesthetic experience.

Examples of Experien­ tial Descriptions

Although descriptions which verbalize all aspects and criteria of the perfect moment are scarce in the literature

25 David Ecker, "Research in Creative Activity," NAPECW Workshop Report; Aesthetics and Human Movement (Wash- 136

and biographies of athletes, many descriptions will point to

one or more of the criteria as being significant enough to

remember. It must be remembered that unless the athlete has

fulfilled all criteria, the description is not of a perfect

moment. Although there is no way of documenting the fulfill­

ment of a requirement in the following descriptions, they are

offered as possible examples of experiential description in

which it is as possible as not that what is being described

is a perfect moment in sport.

With regard to intent, the following statements sug­

gest that it is present in varying degrees:

The sailplane pilots who have made these spic flights, and even Phillip Wills' non-flight, have all made careful plans before they towed off to the wild blue. Their efforts weren't risky stunts, but well thought out flights planned to lead to success.

I remember how the fans were all up on their feet applauding when I went to the on-deck circle, and feeling the chills up my spine, and thinking how much I wanted to put one out of there— and knowing what the odds were.^> Our mission was accomplished. But at the same time we had accomplished something infinitely greater. How wonderful life would now become! What an incon­ ceivable experience it is to attain one's ideal and, at the very same moment, to fulfill oneself. I was

ington, D.C.: National Association of Physical Education for College Women, 1964), pp. 118-119.

o g Peter Dixon, Soaring (New York: Ballentine Books, 1970) , p. 71.

^ T e d Williams, My Turn at Bat; The Story of My Life (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), p. 189. 137

stirred to the depths of my being. Never had I felt happiness like this— so intense and so p u r e . 28

Some have described the oneness which is created

between self and game, self and the elements, and action and

intent.

Football is a great medium of expression, a per­ formance that is more total because it is completely spontaneous. If you knew all about Carl Eller, then you would see Carl Eller in my playing. . . .29

There was no pain, only a great unity of movement and aim.20

Most soaring pilots don't gush over with poetic prose about the glorious moments aloft. They feel this thrill and contain it and relish the memories later. The moments of beauty and drama are there, there for the skilled and the determined, there for the flier who spends the time and makes the effort to become one with the air element.31

The concept of oneness is reflected also in the athletes'

descriptions of their abilities to transcend bodily pain and

fatigue, physical elements of wind and cold, as well as

crowd noise.

You are in complete fatigue but you keep pushing yourself. Only at the finish do you give in to the hurt.33

2 8 Maurice Herzog, Annapurna. translated by Nea Morin and Janet Adam Smith (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1952), p. 168. 29 Carl Eller, "Message from Minnesota: Three Dots and a Dash," Sports Illustrated, December 14, 1970, p. 30. 30 Roger Bannister, The Four Minute Mile (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1963), p. 213. 31 Dixon, p. 71.

3^"Don't Cry Until It's Over," Sports Illustrated. January 4, 1971, p. 34. 138

Mario Andretti comments after winning the Indianapolis 500, which followed a severe accident during the time trials the week before the race.

But do you know what I remember most? That night the burns on my face hurt for the first time since the accident.33 Roger Bannister after running the first sub-four minute mile:

My effort was over and I collapsed almost uncon­ scious. . . . It was only then that the real pain overtook me.3^

I knew we were going to score, the adrenalin flowed so strongly, I forgot the cold.35

I didn't know it was raining until she called the corner and I realized that my whole sprint down the field was through a sea of mud .38

I became so absorbed on the court. I was not aware of my own mannerisms, of the crowd, or of anything which did not directly concern the match, the shots I tried to make, the ball I had to hit, and the limits within which I had to keep it.3^

Nothing existed outside the circle during the heat of competition.38

33 Mario Andretti, What1s It Like Out There? (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), p. 226. 34 Bannister, Four Minute Mile, pp. 214-215. 35 Jerry Kramer, Farewell to Football (New York: Bantam Books, 1969), p. 5. 36 College woman field hockey player after Washington State-Idaho Field Hockey match at Pullman, Washington, Octo­ ber 17, 1969. 37 Lew Hoad, The Lew Hoad Story (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1958), p. 113. 38 Marty Johnson, "Descriptions of Wrestling Experi­ ence," unpublished paper presented in P.E. 842, The Ohio State University, Spring Quarter 1971. Time takes on significance not only in the inability of athletes to assign specific lengths of time to the actual experience but also in terms of the importance of this one experience. Ted Williams, in his last time at bat, reflects 39 "Twenty-two years coming down to one time at bat." Simi­ larly, Tom Seaver comments after seeing the winning run cross the plate in the 1 0 th inning to give him his first

World Series victory: "I never realized before that a man's whole life could be compressed in a single play, in a single 40 game, in a single day." Andretti and Bannister comment on the closing moments of their races: 41 The last five laps took at least 500 years.

The world seemed to stand still, or did not exist. The only reality was the next 200 yards of track under my feet. Those last few seconds seemed never ending. The faint line of the finishing tape stood ahead as a haven of peace, after the struggle.

About the non-competitive sport of skydiving, Kittenger remarks:

There is no sound. Not a whisper of wind. No vibration. Nothing. Nothing? No sensation . . . Something fantastic, impossible is happening to me . . . There is only . . . nothing. The flat-

39 Williams, p. 189. 40 Tom Seaver, The Perfect Game: Tom Seaver and the Mets (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), p. 1. 41 Andretti, p. 225, 42 Bannister, p. 214. 140

ness far below, frozen in time and space. . . . Time itself has ground to a halt.43

Athletes participating in individual sports have noted the individual aloneness and the challenge of partici­ pation.

Free fall is free being, man diving is man alive . . . the exhilaration of sinking to the world of nothingness, or at least to stillness, and thereby creating the self as A L L . 44

In surfing the challenge is wholly individual. There is no team nor any human competitor. Surf­ ing is just you and the ocean, you against the waves or with the waves. You call the signals. You lay the strategy. You execute the maneuvers. You make on-the-spot improvisions and adjustments to suit the situation of the moment. Add to these things the fact that no two waves are the same. . . . A solitary person, an individual, meeting unique challenge after unique c h a l l e n g e .45

There are no phonies in body surfing. There is no glory in carrying a pair of fins. It's a basic, primative thing. It's just you and the ocean.4°

Whether as athletes we liked it or not, the four minute mile had become like an Everest— a chal­ lenge to the human spirit.4?

43 Joseph Kittenger, The Long Lonely Leap (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1961), p. 174. 44 Benjamin DeMott. "Suspended Youth." American Scholar, Vol. 32 (1962), 110. 45 / Jim Allen, Locked in: Surfing for Life (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970) , p. 17. 46 Curry Kirkpatrick, "The Closest Thing to Being Born," Sports Illustrated. February 22, 1971, p. 63. 47 Bannister, pp. 187-188. 141

It's lonely up front 48 alone.

Descriptions of what may have been a perfect moment are marked by a high incidence of affect rather than cogni­ tive considerations of how it was done, although analysis will sometimes follow such affective reflections. Bannister, after posting the first sub-four mile in history:

I grabbed Brasher and Chataway, and together we scampered round the track in a burst of spontaneous joy. . . . I felt suddenly and gloriously free of the burden of athletic ambition I had been carrying for years. In the wonderful joy my pain was for­ gotten and I wanted to prolong these precious moments of realization.^

I slammed into Jethro hard. All he had to do was raise his left arm. He didn't even get it all the way up and I charged him. . . . Bart churned into the opening and stretched and fell and landed over the goal line. It was the most beautiful sight in the world, seeing Bart lying next to me and seeing the referee in front of me, his arms over his head, signaling the touchdown. There were thirteen seconds to play.50

In later passages from his book, Kramer notes his pride in his own performance as offensive lineman which allowed Bart

Starr to score the winning touchdown in the championship game against the Dallas Cowboys in the closing seconds of the game. Marti Liquori expresses his surprise after beating

48 LaFerne Price, "The Wonder of Motion: A Sense of Life for Woman," unpublished doctoral dissertation, Univer­ sity of Iowa, 1970, p. 35. 49 Bannister, pp. 214-215. 50 Jerry Kramer, Instant Replay (New York: New American Library, 1968), p. 217. 142

Jim Ryun for the first time in the 1969 N.C.A.A. Track

Championships at San Jose, and the picture on page iii is a visual comment on his positive affect.

I kept saying to myself, "Come by, will you, dam­ mit so I can see what I have in me." Every time he challenged, though, I held him off. . . . All of a sudden there was daylight. I couldn't believe it. . . . For a minute I was so surprised, I thought I'd never make it to the l i n e . 51

Tom Seaver after his first World Series victory:

Usually, after I pitched a game, I lay awake for several hours, reliving the game, trying to figure out what I had done wrong, what I would want to change. But for once, on the night of October 15, 1969, I had no trouble falling asleep. I didn't want to change anything that had happened. The game was beautiful. The game was perfect.52

Ted Williams, after hitting a home run in his last career at bat:

There were only 10,454 people in Fenway Park that day but they reacted like nothing I ever heard. . . . They cheered like hell, and as I came around, the cheering grew louder and louder. . . . You can't imagine though the warm feeling I had, for the very fact that I had done what every ballplayer would want to do on his last time up. . . .53

Herzog, in a non-competitive experience when he reached the top of Annapurna:

We knew we were there now— that nothing could stop us. No need to exchange looks— each of us would have read the same determination in the other's

51 Marti Liquori, quoted by Skip Myslenski, "The Way to San Jose," Sports Illustrated. June 30, 1969, p. 13.

^Seaver, pp. 167-168.

53Williams, pp. 189-190. 143

eyes. A slight detour to the left, a few more steps— the summit ridge came gradually nearer— a few rocks to avoid. We dragged ourselves up. Could we possibly be there? Yes! A fierce and savage wind tore at us. We were on top of Anna­ purna! 8,075 meters, 26,493 feet. Our hearts overflowed with an unspeakable happiness. If only the others could know. If only everyone could know. Descriptions of these experiences are often accom­ panied by the wish to communicate feelings and the difficulty of putting such feelings into words. Joe Nameth describes the victory over Oakland to win the American Football League

Championship.

It's pretty hard to describe how that feels, throwing a pass and seeing a man catch it and seeing him in the end zone and seeing the referee throw his arms up in the air, signaling a touch­ down, signaling that you've done just what you set out to do. It's an incredible feeling. It's like your whole body's bursting with happiness. . . . I just felt perfect after that Oakland game.55

Andretti, on taking the white flag for his Indy 500 victory:

Finally Vidan waved the white flag. One lap to go. Concentrate on getting through the turns. Check the gauges. Don't think about what could happen. Don't think about what is waiting for you the next time around. Drive your car. This is what you were born to do. This is it, pal. One more turn, just one more turn on a race track, and there it is. The checkered flag. I'd like to tell you what I felt at that moment, but there is no way.56

54 Herzog, p. 167. 55 Joe Nameth, I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow (New York: New American Library, 1969) , p. 67.

^Andretti, p. 225. 144

Allen, in talking about the surfing experience and the chal­

lenge of the waves in general:

This is what makes the sense of achievement in surfing so deep and personal that surfers who write . . . can only clumsily attempt to explain to others what strange magnetism it is that draws them back. . . .57 Not only is the experience difficult to explain, but there

is, in some descriptions, the sense that this experience was

the ultimate experience and may never happen again. Ban­

nister and Elliot describe:

[Bannister, after first sub-four mile]: No words could be invented for such supreme happiness, eclipsing all other feelings. I thought at that moment I could never again reach such a climax of single-mindedness. I felt bewildered and over­ powered.

[Elliot, on winning the gold medal at the 1960 Olympics]: X had won! The gold medal was mine. And for the first time since the first lap I could hear the crowd's roar. How can I describe the jubilation that I felt in my heart at this moment? It is indescribable and something I'm quite resigned never to experience to the same degree agai n .59

In the following description of running, Mike Spino points

to many of the characteristics of the perfect moment which

were developed earlier in Chapters V, VI, and VII.

In the last half mile something happened which may have occurred only one or two times before or since. Furiously I ran; time lost all semblance of meaning. Distance, time, motion were all one. There were

^Allen, p. 17. 58 Bannister, pp. 215-216.

^ H e r b Elliot, The Herb Elliot Story (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1961), p. 176. 145

myself, the cement, a vague feeling of legs, and the coming dusk. I tore on. . . .My running was a pouring feeling. Perhaps I had experienced a physiological change, but whatever, it was magic. I came to the side of the road and gazed, with a sort of bewilderment, at my friends. I sat on the side of the road and cried tears of joy and sorrow. Joy at being alive; sorrow for a vague feeling of temporalness, and a knowledge of the impossibility of giving this experience to anyone.60

Concluding Summary

The sport experience, like the aesthetic experience

is a living and on-going process. For this reason it is most accurately discussed and examined as an experiential process and from the perspective of the performer. The

intent of this paper was to examine the commonalities

inherent in both the sport and aesthetic experiences to provide a common foundation for considering sport as an

aesthetic experience. These commonalities included: intent and desire to achieve some internal or external standard of excellence; voluntary involvement; structures of space and time; a non-utilitarian and artificial characteristic; a

Dionysian affectivity, spontaneity, and subjectivity; a com­ mand of technique; and the unique and unified characteristic of the experiences.

Following this examination, four specific criteria were developed for the experiential sport aesthetic called

60 Mike Spino, "Running as a Spiritual Experience," in Jack Scott, The Athletic Revolution (New York: The Free Press, 1971), pp. 224-225. 146

the "perfect moment." The first was authenticity of intent,

i.e., did the performer establish a performance goal which

was feasible to accomplish, given his abilities and the

conditions surrounding the performance. The second cri­

terion was that of expertise, i.e., the performer must have

demonstrated excellence, though not perfection, in the

sport. The third criterion was one of man acting as a total

entity, i.e., the integration of mind and body committed

wholly to the movement and the experience. The last

criterion was an involvement of the individual in the act

to such an extent that the performer can transcend cognitive

considerations of technique and bodily manipulations in the

sense that the performer becomes "one" with that which he is

doing.

Given fulfillment of these criteria, the perfect

moment concept was developed from the previously established

concepts of Buber's I-Thou, Maslow's peak-experience,

Straus's gnostic-pathic moment, Sartre's adventure, and

McLuhan's hot-cool. The perfect moment in sport was estab­

lished as being synonymous with the aesthetic experience in

art and was further characterized by an emotional or feeling

response by the performer who has achieved, or undergone,

this perfect moment. The perfect moment was shown to be

cognitively unanalysable but, given the difficulty of lan­ guage, possible to describe to some extent. Some examples of experiential descriptions by athletes are provided to 147 allow the reader to perhaps gain some insight into the experience. However, it was maintained throughout the paper that this aesthetic concept for sport gains its validity in doing and in the beauty of having experienced the sport rather than viewing, however empathetically and however well- executed, the sport experience. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Adams, Elizabeth Kemper. The Aesthetic Experience; Its Meaning in a Functional Psychology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1907.

Allen, Jim. Locked In: Surfing for Life. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970.

Allport, Floyd H. Theories of Perception and the Concept of Structure. New York: Wiley and Sons, 1955.

Andretti, Mario. What's It Like Out There? New York: Bantam Books, 1971.

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Hawkins, Alma. Creating Through Dance. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1964.

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Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. New York: Pantheon Books, 1953.

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Kaelin, Eugene. Art and Existence. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1970.

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Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation. New York: Mac­ millan, 1964.

Koffka, K. Gestalt Psychology. London: Bell Limited, 1930.

Kramer, Jerry. Farewell to Football. New York: Bantam Books, 1969.

Kramer, Jerry. Instant Replay. New York: New American Library, 1968.

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Langer, Susanne. Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. Balti­ more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967.

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Periodicals

Anderson, C. "Creativity and Education." Educational Horizons, Vol. 40 (Winter 1961).

Beardsley, Monroe C. "Aesthetic Experience Regained." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol. 28 (Pall 1969).

DeMott, Benjamin. "Suspended Youth." American Scholar. Vol. 32 (1962), 107-112.

"Don't Cry Until It's Over." Sports Illustrated. January 4, 1971, pp. 33-35.

Ecker, David. "Research in Creative Activity." NAPECW Workshop Report: Aesthetics and Human Movement. Washington, D.C.: National Association of Physical Education for College Women, 1964. 156

Eller, Carl. "Message from Minnesota: Three Dots and a Dash." Sports Illustrated. December 14, 1970, pp. 28-31.

Felshin, Jan. "Sport and Modes of Meaning." Journal of Health. Physical Education and Recreation. Vol. 40 (May 1969).

Fraleigh, Sondra. "Dance Creates Man." Quest XIV. June 1970.

Genasci, James, and Klissouras, Vasillis. "The Delphic Spirit in Sports." Journal of Health. Physical Education and Recreation. Vol. 37 (February 1966).

Harper, William. "Man Alone." Quest XII. May 1969.

Hein, Hilde. "Play as an Aesthetic Concept." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol. 27 (1968-1969).

Jensen, Judith. "Sport in Poetry." Quest. June 1971.

Kaelin, Eugene. "Being in the Body." NAPECW Workshop Report: Aesthetics and Human Movement. Washington, D.C.: National Association of Physical Education for College Women, 1964.

Kaelin, Eugene. "The Well-Played Game: Notes Toward an Aesthetics of Sport." Quest X . May 1968.

Kirkpatrick, Curry. "The Closest Thing to Being Born." Sports Illustrated. February 22, 1971.

Kleinman, Seymour. "The Significance of Movement: A Phenomenological Approach." NAPECW Workshop Report: Aesthetics and Human Movement. Washington, D.C.: National Association of Physical Education for Col­ lege Women, 1964.

Kleinman, Seymour. "Toward a Non-Theory of Sport." Quest X . May 1968.

Kretchmar, R. Scott, and Harper, William. "Why Does Man Play?" Journal of Health. Physical Education and Recreation. Vol. 40 (March 1969).

Langer, Susanne. "The Expression of Feeling in Dance." Impulse 1968. San Francisco: Impulse Publications. 157 Lipman, Matthew. "The Physical Thing in Aesthetic Experi­ ence." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol. 15 (September 1956).*

Lowe, Benjamin. "The Aesthetics of Sport: The Statement of a Problem." Quest. June 1971.

Loy, John. "The Nature of Sport: A Definitional Attempt." Quest X . May 1968.

Metheny, Eleanor. "This Thing Called Sport." Journal of Health. Physical Education and Recreation. Vol. 40 (March 1969).

Myslenski, Skip. "The Way to San Jose." Sports Illustrated. June 30, 1969.

Reising, R. W. "Where Have All the Heroes Gone?" Quest, June 1971.

Santayana, George. "Philosophy on the Bleachers." Harvard Monthly. Vol. 28 (July 1894).

Slusher, Howard. "To Test the Waves is to Test Life." Journal of Health Physical Education and Recreation. Vol. 40 (May 1969).

Smith, Nancy. "Spotlight on Dance." Journal of Health. Physical Education and Recreation. Vol. 35 (November 1964).

Stein, Morris. "Creativity and Co-operation." Educational Horizons. Vol. 41 (Summer 1963).

VonMeier, Kurt. "The Hot University." U.C.L.A. Daily Bruin. April 25, 1967.

Walsh, Dorothy. "Aesthetic Descriptions." British Journal of Aesthetics. Vol. 10 (July 1970).

Wenkart, Simon. "The Meaning of Sports for Contemporary Man." Journal of Existential Psychiatry. Vol. 3 (Spring 1963).

Unpublished Materials

Johnson, Marty. "Description of Wrestling Experience." Unpublished paper presented in P.E. 842, The Ohio State University, Spring 1971. 158

Kleinman, Seymour. "Phenomenology, the Body, Physical Education." Unpublished paper presented at the American Association of Health, Physical Education ancl Recreation National Convention, Chicago, March 19 56.

Kretchmar, R. Scott. "A Philosophical Description of Sport." Unpublished paper presented at the American Associa­ tion of Health, Physical Education and Recreation National Convention, Seattle, April 1970. j Little, Araminta. "Concepts Relating to the Development of Creativity in the Modern Dance." Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California, 1965.

Price, LaFerne. "The Wonder of Motion: A Sense of Life foir Woman." Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Uni­ versity of Iowa, 1971. Putnam, BettyL Jean. "Concepts of Sport in Minoan Art." Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California, 1967.