Idrætspsykologi

Despite their influence in our culture, sports inspire dramatically less philosophical consideration than such ostensibly weightier topics as religion, politics, or science. Arguing that athletic playfulness coexists with serious underpinnings, and that both demand more substantive attention, Daniel Dombrowski harnesses the insights of ancient Greek thinkers to illuminate contemporary athletics. Dombrowski contends that the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus shed important light on issues--such as the pursuit of excellence, the concept of play, and the power of accepting physical limitations while also improving one's body--that remain just as relevant in our sports-obsessed age as they were in ancient Greece. Bringing these concepts to bear on contemporary concerns, Dombrowski considers such questions as whether athletic competition can be a moral substitute for war, whether it necessarily constitutes war by other means, and whether it encourages fascist tendencies or ethical virtue. The first volume to philosophically explore twenty-first-century sport in the context of its ancient predecessor, Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals reveals that their relationship has great and previously untapped potential to inform our understanding of human nature.

The word ‘performance’ divides people. Some talk about high-performance as if performance and results are the very essence of life itself. For others, performance is a dirty word associated with the idea of people who mindlessly tread the professional hamster wheel. In our opinion, both these notions are mistaken and obsolete. Performing can never be a goal in itself. But without performance, we won’t get anywhere. The challenges currently facing humanity demand that we perform at an extraordinary level. Thus, we need to rethink performance and performance leadership and regard it in a more contemporary and meaningful context. In order to perform at an extraordinary level, we need to say goodbye to comfort and step into discomfort. We need to learn to accept the uncertainty and vulnerability that performance and leading performance entail, and be willing to walk paths yet unknown in order to activate new layers of our capacity. The book examines the psychological and philosophical aspects of discomfort in the context of performance and explores what it means to be a high-performing person in our time. A time that calls for a deeper and more meaningful connection between the outer complexity of our life and the inner world we also inhabit.