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This paper examines one component of Stephen Mumford’s case for the claim that we should regard sport, art and the aesthetic as more closely connected than has tended to be the case, under the influence of the work of David Best, in recent years. Mumford’s rejection of what I call ‘the drama argument’ is examined in detail and it is argued that all but one element of his case fails to do the job he envisages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stephen Mumford argues that positive aesthetic value is a by-product of both sport and art, and that the principal aim of the artist and the player or athlete could not be to produce positive aesthetic value. Three features of Mumford’s by-product argument are considered. It is argued that problems arise as a result of failure to appreciate Best’s distinction between the evaluative and conceptual uses of ‘aesthetic’, the nature of the descriptions Mumford gives of the intention of the artist in making art and the necessary implicit premises in the argument. There is, therefore, reason to think that Mumford has not established that sport and art are in the same position in the ways in which their aims relate to aesthetic values, nor that the by-product argument can form part of a counter to Best’s position. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stephen Mumford develops his view of sport spectatorship partly through a rejection of an argument he attributes to Best, which distinguishes between two categories of sports, the ‘purposive’ and the ‘aesthetic’, on the basis of the claim that they have different principal aims. This paper considers the principal aim argument andone featureof Mumford’s rejection of that argument, namely, Best’s observation that the distinctions to which he draws attention are based onlogicaldifferences. The paper argues that Mumford misconstrues Best’s argument by taking it to be about the intentions of players and athletes, while it is actually abouta specific featureof the rules of each sport. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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