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ABSTRACT
The Greek word mētis (μῆτις) traditionally refers to a particular form of wily intelligence associated with the arts of deception (dolos) and the knowledge of tricks (kerdē), subterfuges, and traps. Mētis evokes innovative and ground-breaking solutions, based on the capability to understand, anticipate, and possibly violate the others’ expectations. Most importantly, mētis presupposes practical wisdom, or prudence (phrόnesis), a dispositional quality that underpins all the virtues that deserve to be cultivated by sportspersons and that is pivotal to perfect sportspersons’ moral character. Not only is prudence required to apply mētis profitably for winning a game, but it is also indispensable to perform consistently with the game’s norms—cognizant of sport values. This analysis of mētis is key to illuminate the embodied dimension of tactical and moral reasoning in contemporary sport practice. In this paper, we first argue that the strategic effectiveness of mētis proves that not only sensorimotor control but also higher forms of intelligence, like strategic reasoning, are embodied and inform skilful performance; second, we argue that relying on mētis is necessary not only to interpret the rules of the game in one’s own favor but also to respect the shared values that these rules uphold in the sport practice.
Disclosure statement
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Notes
1. There is an argument to be made to differentiate between rules and norms, with the former usually being codified and explicit and the latter implicit and closer to a social and conventional ethos. Rules can be construed as a particular subset of norms, while not all norms are rules: when norms are not rules, it is because they are embedded in customary habits or practices, for example rituals and conventional behaviours and discourses, thus they don’t have an explicit, contentful, rule-like formulation. Some norms may not be content-bearing epistemically contrary to rules. Presently, we do not delve into this except when pertinent to help elucidate specific facets of mētis.
2. There is a rich literature in the philosophy of sport that deals with deception in sport (Pearson’s Citation1973), ‘Deception, Sportsmanship, and Ethics’, spearheaded a number of discussions (Morris Citation2014; Pfleegor and Roesenberg Citation2014; Sailors, Teetzel, and Weaving Citation2017). A rigorous discussion of these lies beyond the scope of this paper, as we present an alternative framework to assess certain actions and skills in sport that lie in the grey area between overt and questionable cases of deception and implicit and nuanced actions that play with the normative frontier of the acceptable.
3. For a comparative discussion of cheating in ancient Greece in relation to contemporary sport see Stephens (Citation2020). Relying on many examples, some from classical sources such as the Iliad, she argues that gaming the system and outright cheating is prevalent in both eras. A closer examination of these cases, some of which could be ambiguous enough to fall within the boundaries of mētis lies beyond the scope of this inquiry.
4. However, despite the popular belief that ‘everything is fair in war and love’, some kind of deceptive plots are forbidden even in warfare as they violate the basic norms of international diplomacy. Remarkably, while ruses of war (camouflage, decoys, diversionary operations, and disinformation) are not prohibited by international law but are praised as expressions of military acumen, acts of perfidy are condemned as offenses under international law of armed conflict and as an infamy: they include invoking the provisions of the Geneva Conventions that are meant for the protection of persons, with the intent to betray, kill, injure, or capture an adversary.
5. Nonetheless, during this classical period, a bifurcation occurred between a positive view upon the kind of practical, stochastic reason represented by mētis attached to the figure of the doctor and a negative view represented by mētis attached to the figure of the sophist.
6. Technē was the virtue of poiesis, consisting in a fabrication of objects based on true reason.
7. Phrόnesis (prudence) was the virtue of praxis (πρᾶξις), consisting in a rational discernment of what is appropriate or inappropriate in a certain situation.
8. Helmer (Citation2012), however, points out that Detienne himself came to retract some of his extreme views in this regard, and argues—conscientiously combing through Plato’s dialogues—that Plato’s dialogues in fact partake of the four main characteristics of métis that he extracts from Detienne and Vernant. Moreover, our own argument below, which highlights the makes the Aristotelian prudential judgment of the phrónimos a key facet of métis, also questions this somewhat simplified and neat narrative that casts philosophers against métis.
9. Enactivism and ecological psychology, while going against the representationalist and intellectualist grain are not necessarily commensurate, being at odds in. a number of ways that go beyond the scope of this paper. For a critical comparison see Read and Szokolszky (Citation2020); for synthesizing attempts see Baggs and Chemero (Citation2021) and Heras-Escribano, Citation2019; and for a practical and theoretical comparison concerning sport see Avilés et al. (Citation2020).
10. According to Amorim (Citation2011, 59), mētis relates both to technique (intelligence of the object) and tactic (intelligence of the situation).
11. The notion of affordances is crucial in Gibson’s (Citation1986) ecological psychology. This relational concept refers to the possibilities for action allowed by the environment to an animal with certain characteristics and capacities. See Seifert et al. (Citation2017) on the notion of nested affordances as a temporally connected sequence of action possibilities.
13. According to van der Leeuw and Torrence (Citation1989), there is a difference between invention and innovation that could help to distinguish between different novel moves. Invention is what happens locally, at the scale of the individual; innovation implies a widespread acceptance of the invention. Thus, whereas bicycle kick, nutmeg (kicking the ball between the opponent’s legs, then running past him or her to receive the ball again) or tunnel pass became innovations, the seal dribble just remained a personal invention.
14. To be more precise, we could talk about praxical rules/norms as they contain explicit content (as stated in the principles of the game) but also implies a practical, implicit learning and application based on conventional uses.
16. Strategic fouling has been much discussed in the sport philosophical literature, with both opponents and partisans, see Fraleigh’s (Citation2003) seminal discussion and Simon’s (Citation2005) reply, or more recently, Flynn’s (Citation2017) defense of such fouls.
17. Instead of focusing on players, Russell’s (Citation1999) analysis deals with a similar topic but from the perspective of umpires, having to enforce rules that cannot help some indeterminacy of interpretation and application.
19. See Russell (Citation2014) for the argument that cheating may be too broad and vague a conceptual brush to account the sort of moral complexities that arise in sport.
20. There is an even more controversial reading of deeper cultural, historical, and political dimensions. The match in question pit as finalists no other than the two countries who were at war four years earlier in a dispute for the Falkland or Malvinas Islands. His was the first of the two goals that Maradona scored to seal victory, and for the Argentinians carried a highly symbolic retributive weight. On this count, from the Argentinean perspective, short Maradona, much like David besting Goliath, would smite the towering English might through his wily skill; from the English side, he would still prove to be a trickster who fooled the referee (else why continue to play?).
21. See Torres (Citation2000) for a discussion of regulative rules and restorative skills.