Beyond ‘crude pragmatism’ in sports coaching: Insights from C.S. Peirce,William James,and John Dewey: A commentary

Introduction

As well as being an art, there is no reason why sports coaching cannot be a science and, indeed, that it couldn't become more effective by being scientific. Why is this? As in scientific practice, a coach aims to make interventions that will produce beneficial results, in this case, for the individual or team that she or he is coaching. To know what those interventions are, and exactly how to apply them to best effect, is a special case of the way in general, we come to understand how to intervene in the world to get what we want. But perhaps, the sporting case is even more complicated in virtue of the fact that coaches are dealing with complex human beings who are seeking sporting success over other human beings, often in very complex and unpredictable game situations where the bounce of a ball can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Sometimes, the intervention is doubly uncertain. A coach may recommend a particular strategy or tactic but then it still falls to the athlete to execute it effectively under demanding competitive conditions.

A pluralistic approach to methods and reasoning in science

Jenkins urges a more reflective, critical and scientific approach to coaching and considers a plurality of methodological norms and models of reasoning that would achieve that end. The pragmatic approach accepts the reality of an uncertain world, how best theories may still nevertheless be fallible and an ineliminable degree of epistemic humility. I applaud this attitude and would like to add a few further words on the ontological underpinning of such a view.

Much of science comes down to causes: the discovery and utilisation of the causal connections in the world. ¹ Not all of science is about this – some of it is about the discovery of structures, including mathematical structures – but science is justified as successful in that it shows us what causes what. Hence, science shows us, for instance, how nuclear reactions can produce usable energy, how a process of refinement can turn oil into plastics, and how drugs can cure certain diseases. Without real causal connections in the world, we couldn’t intervene experimentally to see what changes what and nor would the outcomes of experiments have any application. Such a framework clearly applies to coaching too. Changes in diet, training regime, tactics or something as simple as a golf swing are all made on the basis that they will produce a change in another significant variable; namely, the chance of sporting success. I use the word ‘chance’ here deliberately. 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. There is a justification to be found within contemporary analytic metaphysics for taking such a pluralistic approach to methods and reasoning in science of the kinds described in Jenkins’ article. If causes were very easy to find, that would be one thing. For example, on Hume’s ² old theory of causation, it consists in nothing more than constant conjunction (with the cause occurring before the effect and next to it). Constant conjunction is another term for regularity. If it were so simple, then to know causes is simply to know what is constantly or regularly conjoined with what. For example, if a coach found that whenever an athlete was put on a vegetarian diet, they became winners, then the coach will have discovered that vegetarianism is a cause of success. But pure constant conjunctions of this nature are not to be found in sport, nor in other parts of the natural world. We might be able to say that a degree of regularity is to be found when we have a causal connection – a raised incidence, for example – but because causation is not identical with causation then it’s possible to have one without the other. Regularity is not the same as causation, therefore, but it could be a symptom of it: causes tend to produce regularities, such as raised incidences of some variable, but they need not do so in every case. Vegetarianism might improve performance to a degree but without leading to victory in every case.

But a raised incidence of some effect is not the only symptom of causation. Causes tend to make a difference, to raise the probability of their effect, to have generative mechanisms and to be subject to interference. Causation is one single thing but it has plural symptoms, being reducible to none of them. It is right, then, that we have plural methods in science that aim at the discovery of causes, each latching on to one of those symptoms. It seems unlikely that one approach would uncover the full picture. We need to gather evidence from a variety of sources and compare notes, building a theory and developing it over time, bit by bit. Similarly, we have plural states of knowledge and ignorance from which we begin our enquiries and plural purposes that we hope to achieve. Bacon ³ suggested that the one true scientific method was inductive and in contrast Popper ⁴ offered falsificationism. But the truth is more likely to be that we have a toolkit of reasoning tools and methods that we bring to bear as need be: induction, abduction, deduction, reflection and hermeneutics. And even when we use all these, we cannot know for sure that we have discovered the truth. We will have a theory, which has some warrant, but never complete certainty. All causal theories must be falsifiable in the light of newly discovered evidence, tentative and provisional.

Conclusion

The point of offering such a backdrop is to support the claim that pragmatism is not simply a weak position of uncertainty and compromise. Perhaps, that is ‘crude pragmatism’. Instead Jenkins supports Cushion and Partington’s ⁵ call for ‘legitimate philosophical thinking’. I think it is there to be had. In looking for what is effective, 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. Were causal effectiveness revealed in one simple phenomenon, it would be otherwise; but it isn’t and we all have to deal with that.