Editorial

In the Leading Article, Simon Jenkins provides insights from the classical American pragmatists; i.e., C.S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey for a heterogeneous set of commentators—mainly philosophers and sports coaching scholars—to pick up on themes, issues, problems, and questions relevant to sports coaching.

David Shier shows how the concept of “wide reflective equilibrium,” articulated by influential moral and political philosopher John Rawls, shares a number of core features with philosophical pragmatism such as fallibilistic inquiry rather than a quest for certainty; and that these features can be seen in the four themes discussed by Jenkins: pragmatic temperament, communities of inquiry, mixed method research, and reflection. In general terms, reflective equilibrium is “the endpoint of a deliberative process in which we reflect on and revise our beliefs about an area of inquiry, moral or non-moral.” ¹ According to Rawls, “the proper method of ethics should be one of trying to achieve reflective equilibrium, testing theories against judgments about particular cases, but also testing judgments about particular cases against theories, until equilibrium is achieved.” ² A distinction is made by Rawls between narrow and wide reflective equilibrium:

[The notion of reflective equilibrium] varies depending upon whether one is to be presented with only those descriptions which more or less match one’s existing judgments except for minor discrepancies, or whether one is to be presented with all possible descriptions to which one might plausibly conform one’s judgments together with all relevant philosophical arguments for them. (Rawls, ³ p. 43)

Emphasizing the importance of the method of wide reflective equilibrium in ethics, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states:

Sometimes it is true that we cannot resolve disputes about how to weigh conflicts among principles unless we bring more theoretical consideration to bear (these considerations need not involve comprehensive ethical theories). Sometimes we can agree on relevant principles and agree to disagree on other theoretical issues, still arriving at agreement about the rightness of particular policies or actions and their justification in light of relevant reasons and principles. Sometimes we must see what is distinctive about particular cases and revise or refine our reasons and principles before we can arrive at an understanding of what to do. Finally, and of the greatest significance, the method of wide reflective equilibrium should make it clear that work in ethical theory cannot be divorced from work in practical ethics. We must test and revise theory in light of our considered judgments about moral practice. ¹

In their commentaries Tim Elcombe, David Turner, and Daniel Campos each build on themes related specifically to C.S. Peirce with Elcombe taking a Darwinian perspective with reference to Peirce’s “agapastic” theory of evolution, and both Turner and Campos discussing abductive reasoning.

Heather Reid examines whether the “practical ends can justify their means in coaching.” She shows that the coach-as-scientist vs. coach-as-philosopher argument goes back to ancient times and makes reference to the debate between Galen (a medical doctor) and Philostratus (for who the virtue of arete was the goal of athletic training). John Devine and Camilla Knight advocate virtue ethics as a better alternative to ‘crude pragmatism’ than philosophical pragmatism with four principal layers of a virtue approach to coaching (theory of sport, theory of the sport, theory of the role, and theory of virtue). Jules Evans sees his work with the Philosophy Club at Saracens Rugby Club, cited in the stimulus article, as bridging the gap between science and ethics (players and coaches don’t just want instrumental value-free techniques). Diane Culver and Erin Kraft argue that the social learning concept of communities of practice is similar to Peirce’s communities of inquiry.

Tania Cassidy and Gary Byrne emphasize the interconnections between the work of Schön and Dewey and use a vignette about an All Blacks rugby union coach (Sir Graham Henry) and captain (Tana Umaga) to illustrate a process of Deweyan inquiry in which Henry “formed new habits of mind, and subsequently developed predispositions towards present and future action.”

Emphasizing the importance of critical reflection as inquiry, Edward Hall and Shirley Gray note that:

Dewey regarded reflection as a forward-looking intellectual practice grounded in the holistic consideration of prior experience. Yet, a crude, uncritical approach to reflection will carry the ‘tried and tested’ from our previous experiences and project them unquestionably into the future.

Also, in the tradition of philosophical pragmatism, Hall and Gray advocate participatory action research which has been applied effectively in physical education to challenge prevailing, dominant curriculum models and to increase pupil engagement. While Hall and Gray suggest participatory action research as a way to challenge the status quo, Joseph Mills draws on Foucault to contend that

if coaches are unaware of how relations of power work to render their own thought and their athletes docile, any new reasoning, reflection or deeper thought can only occur with the same disciplinary framework that contains the same overt and restricting organization of athlete’ times, spaces and movements that fosters docility.

With regard to two prominent sources of information for coaches—the Coaching Association of Canada website and the International Sport Coaching Framework—Andy Gillham identifies “no real evidence of philosophical thought suggested by, or encouraged within, any of these materials.” Gillham poses several questions:

Is the mere act of writing something down enough? Is there any sort of process or framework that would help guide the coach to a more effective philosophy? Would the results be equivalent if the terminology was adjusted away from philosophy?

Gillham also suggests that the professional development of coaches “may be well-served” by an increase in reflection for coaches. Anthony Grant acknowledges the importance of reflection in coaches, but emphasizes the importance of being “able to recognise and avoid the cognitive quagmires too frequently associated with unbridled self-reflection and theoretical introspection.” Questioning the notion of coaching philosophy as “a definitive compass or guide to practice,” Robyn Jones argues that “what coaches do and really reflect on is practice” and articulation of one’s coaching philosophy can only come as a justification of practice. Jones also provides a critique of his own research ⁴ that was cited in the stimulus article: “following an objective data collection method (i.e. systematic observation) with an interpretive, subjective one (i.e. interviews) naturally creates an epistemological misalignment.” Drawing on Biesta, ⁵ Lee Nelson discusses the ontology and epistemology of mixed methods research and provides advice to sports coaching researchers who seek to use mixed methods research. Stephen Mumford argues that “coaches are entirely right to take an informed pragmatic attitude in which effective decision-making regarding successful interventions can come about only through engagement with mixed methods and assessment of a whole realm of evidence”:

The world is complicated. Many factors come into the equation in dictating final outcomes. Different causal factors cut across each other so no change is guaranteed to succeed, even if it is the right one to make in the circumstances. The best a coach can do is recommend a change that tends most towards success but knowing that many other factors will also determine the actual outcome, including the efforts of the other competitors. But which interventions will tend towards success or, rather, tend towards success the most? That is a question of causal discovery for which we need scientific method; or, rather, methods, plural.

Mumford elucidates a justification from contemporary analytic metaphysics for a pluralistic approach to methods and reasoning in science with emphasis on causation.

Jim McKenna makes four overlapping suggestions for making more use of philosophy in coaching, i.e. relevance, accessibility, real-worldness, and unconscious influences. A thread running through his commentary is Ericsson’s theory of expertise, ⁶ e.g. developing more efficient mental representations of philosophical matters (through deliberate practice). In a similar vein, Andrew Cruickshank and Dave Collins advocate an expertise (rather than competency) approach to incorporating pragmatic philosophy into coaching practice: “a constant and considered use of the ‘it depends’ philosophy over a simple ‘do it this way’ approach.”

Provocatively, Fran Pirozzolo suggests that legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi, who embraced Jesuit philosophy “would be an example of the kind of coach who possesses the approach recommended by philosophical pragmatism”. While the expression “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing ” is often attributed to Lombardi and associated with `crude pragmatism’, what he claimed to have said was actually “Winning isn’t everything, but the wanting to win is” ⁷ (p.56).