Sport and Performance Ethics in Helmuth Plessner

Plessner’s interest in sport and play has anthropological roots. In the wake of Buy- tendijk, he identifies the ambivalence between the impulse towards constraint and autonomy, which characterizes the playful attitude towards the world. This ambiv- alence is based on the relative closure to the world, on the intertwining of Weltge- bundenheit and Weltoffenheit. This “relative closure” is characteristic of an eccentric being, who on the one hand has sunk into a body and on the other hand instrumen- tally distances himself from it. Sport, which is also etymologically rooted in play, is a symptom of an industrialised society with a disturbed relationship to the body. In fact, it guarantees bodily unity, moving dialectically between the tendency towards records and respect for rules. Today, this balance is at risk because of a tendency to- wards record-breaking, which is intrinsic to the ethos of sporting performance. The recovery of the passive dimension, of the bond as a link, which is proper to the game, and the parameter of health, can be a corrective, proper to the person.