Philosophy, Risk and Adventure Sports

With interest and participation in extreme and adventure sports growing year on year, the time is ripe for a thoughtful and analytical assessment of this phenomenon from a rigorous philosophical perspective. This collection of essays is the first single-source treatment of adventure sports from an exclusively philosophical standpoint. The text offers students a uniquely focused reader of this burgeoning area of interest and provides scholars with a source book for further studies in this area. Featuring contributions from well-respected writers in the field who each also have personal familiarity of participation in adventure and extreme sports, this is set to become a classic analysis of the intersections between philosophy and extreme experiences, encompassing essential related concepts of elation, danger, death, wilderness and authenticity.

1. The Quest for Excitement and the Safe Society Gunnar Breivik 2. Legislators and Interpreters: an examination of changes in philosophical interpretations of 'being a mountaineer' Paul Beedie 3. Philosophy Outdoors: First Person Physical John Michael Atherton 4. Adventure, climbing excellence and the practice of 'bolting' Philip Ebert and Simon Robertson 5. Reading water: risk, intuition, and insight Douglas Anderson 6. Nature and Risk in Adventure Sports Kevin Krein 7. Aesthetic and ethical issues concerning sport in wilder places Alan P. Dougherty 8. Outline of a Phenomenology of Snowboarding Sigmund Loland 9. The Performative Avant-Garde and Action Sports: Vedic Philosophy in a Postmodern World Robert E. Rinehart 10. Extreme sports and the ontology of experience Ivo Jirásek 11. Kant Goes Skydiving: Understanding the Extreme by way of the Sublime Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza 12. Can BASE jumping be morally defended? Gunnar Breivik 13. Walking the Edge Verner Møller