The Nature of History and Philosophy

Although many students of kinesiology (and quite a few other majors) think of history
and philosophy as less practical than other areas of study, we consider these subjects to be
essential for successful everyday living.

, imagine trying to function

without any understanding of the past, from our own individual pasts to the collective past of
humankind. If we entirely lacked memories or understandings of previous events and patterns,
we would not know, how to perform the simplest daily tasks, such as deciding what to wear
based on the weather or season or determining what is sale or healthy or enjoyable to eat.

Indeed, some people do suffer from memory disorders that inhibit their ability to perceive
the world historically and make connections between past and present events, and as a
result, they face enormous difficulties in navigating everyday tasks. Thus, both as individual
beings and as members of communities, we experience reality historically.

memory and historical knowledge form crucial parts of human

consciousness for both individuals and groups; , we are wired to think
historically.

In addition, does not consist simply of studying everything that happened

in the past but hinges on selecting particular sets of information that can inform present
actions and allow for the possibility of forecasting the future.

Mere study of the past for the sake of the past is antiquarianism not history. In order
for the past to have any meaning, historians must connect it to the present that people
inhabit and the futures that people imagine. Viewed in this way, history represents an
important human endeavor shaped by many of the characteristics that make us human.

Historian’s sit through the past for information, exploring everything they can find-in
sources as varied as written documents, artistic depictions, human- made structures, and
genetic markers of disease in order to construct coherent stories about the past. In creating
the most accurate and coherent stories that they can, historians generally rely on chronologies;
In other words, they chart change over time and look for connections between past and present
through causal sequences.

the questions that cultures ask provide

another set of coherences for structuring historical narratives. Answers
vary over time, but humans have historically wondered in many times
and many places about the proper relationship between individual
liberties and the good of the community, about what constitutes the good
life, about the purpose and meaning of human existence, and about a host of other issues.
Many of these questions involve physical activity in a variety of ways, including questions
about the relationship of body and mind, the role of sport and exercise in living a
meaningful life, and the potential connections between play and ethics.

, both in their focus on enduring

questions and in their insistence on interpretive processes that employ clear, logical, and
rigorous reasoning. Scholars in both fields work with ideas. Both examine particulars and
make broader or more abstract claims that they think are true. This practice can be referred
to as good logic, right thinking, insightful Intuition, effective reasoning, or, as Aristotle put it,
"practical wisdom. Most philosophers and historians believe in the power of intelligence to
ferret out generalities (Inductive reasoning); to draw proper conclusions from premises
(deductive reasoning); or to simply see relationships, differences, and similarities (intuitive
reasoning).

. Unlike history,
philosophers do not need to examine documents or Inter- view individuals with special
information about a person, time period, or event. Instead, they examine things with the
mind's eye. This does not, however, give them license to make just any claims they wish;
rather, they believe that philosophy, when done well, possesses rigor.

This is the case because from a philosophical perspective we live in a mostly

common world. That is, we experience life in similar ways. As a result, we can check
someone else's philosophical claims against our own experience. Philosophers, like
historians and scientists, must hold many of their claims tentatively and look for their studies
to be replicated. They must have others examine the same things and see if they come to the
same or similar conclusions, good and clear thinking should allow us to slowly circle in on
the best answers for the riddles of nature and human existence:

• What things are (metaphysics)

• How we know (epistemology)
• How reasoning works (logic)
• What counts as beautiful or pleasing (aesthetics)
• How we should behave (ethics)
• What is valuable or what constitutes the good life (axiology)
 Philosophers work in the domain of intangibles - of ideas, values, purposes, motives,
emotions, logical relationships, and the like. Most philosophers think that intangibles are
real. That is, intangibles such as love and anger are commonly experienced, they have
causative power, and their features can be described. In this view, any research on human
existence and behavior that does not take intangibles into account would be incomplete.
Thus, philosophers see themselves as complementing the work of researchers in other
disciplines. Microscopes and petri dishes, for instance, are not well suited to the task of
examining intangibles; reflection and "practical wisdom," on the other hand, do fill the bill.
For Instance, no one will ever understand fully what love is merely from looking at a brain
wave.

. As we have already noted,

history helps to pull philosophy out of the clouds and bring it back to earth. It provides
context for ideas and values. It also provides a kind of intellectual cold shower for any
philosophers who would argue that nothing ever changes or, alternately, that everything
always changes. Without context and the wisdom that comes from understanding history,
the engine of philosophy could easily run off the tracks.

Here is an example. Historians have noted that in certain cultures sport involves an
ethos or spirit in which athletes follow both written and unwritten rules. Any victory
achieved by violating this ethos is viewed as unworthy or "cheap." Some educators during
the 19th and early 20th centuries argued that this kind of fair-play ethos should be applied
not just to sport but to all of life. In this view, sport can and should play a pedagogical role in
culture.

While this historical fact is interesting in its own right, philosophers would be
inclined to address broader philosophical issues in it. What they would ask is the
relationship between games and rules? What is fair play? Is fair play a prerequisite for valid
sporting competition? This decontextualizing move is done in hopes of finding larger
answers to larger questions, any conclusions reached as a result of this move would not
contradict historical analysis, but they would transcend it.

We hope you enjoy the interplay of context-specific and transcendent analysis that
you will find in the remainder of this text. We believe that the two approaches need each
other; indeed, in a sense, they ask for each other. This is the way it is, or at least should be,
with cross-disciplinary studies in kinesiology.