A philosopher’s tome of two halves

As well as enjoying the odd flutter, the footballer Joey Barton has long fancied himself as something of a sporting philosopher. Even he, however, has never come up with a sentence like this: ‘From the phenomenological perspective conscious thought only interferes with immediate reactions: ‘Just Do It’, the Nike slogan, perfectly encapsulates the phenomenologist’s message.’ But then, David Papineau, the author of this observation, is a real philosopher. Or a right proper brainbox, as he might be termed in Barton’s Burnley dressing room.

And here he has come up with a collection of essays that purport to give us the answer to the question: what can sport teach us about philosophy (and philosophy about sport)? Though after reading it, the sports fan might wish

to have a reply to a rather more pressing query: how will I ever get those five hours back? Because unlike some of Barton’s observations, this is not a book that can be swiftly digested. Dense, opaque and arcane, it requires a considerable expenditure of brain cells to yomp through its more challenging passages.

Though it would be wrong to suggest there are not rewards once such a commitment has been invested. Papineau is excellent on the issues of nationhood and nationality in international sport. He writes with vigour on the collision between sport and money. And he is very good on the supposed moral superiority of the amateur (there isn’t any, he suggests).

All intelligent, plausible investigation. But Papineau endangers his entire proposition by including within the book a footnote that can lay claim to being the single most pretentious analysis of sport ever committed to print: a sixline equation describing the options available to Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere when deciding whether to pass to his colleague Olivier Giroud. It is meaningless, affected, showy. Such is the scale of its idiocy, it can’t be long before it’s quoted by Joey Barton.