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Philosophy and Sport

Apologia Pro Pugilatione

Gordon Marino claims that great virtues can be learned in the ring.

I used to study philosophy uptown at Columbia University and boxing downtown at the storied Gramercy Park Gym on East 14th Street in New York City. Though I was a mediocre pug, I signed a two year pro-contract in my senior year of college, but my manager was so crooked and inept that I was out of the prize ring almost as soon as I stepped into it. Over the years, however, I have remained active as a boxing coach. During this period, my colleagues in philosophy have jabbed and hooked me hundreds of times, screwing up their faces, raising their voices, and asking, “How could you be involved in something as primitive and violent as boxing?” That rhetorical question invariably struck me as ironical because the business of philosophy has always seemed to me to be a bloody one. To be sure, no one tries to break anyone’s nose over Kant but violence should not be understood solely in terms of the intent to inflict bodily harm.

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