Embodied Rilkean sport-specific knowledge

Abstract

This paper develops and introduces the embodied Rilkean sport-specific knowledge into the current sports knowledge philosophical debate. This idea is based on my interpretation of Mark Rowlands’ Rilkean memory theory. Broadly speaking, Rowlands proposed that an embodied Rilkean memory is memory content that is then ‘woven into the body and its neural infrastructure’ resulting in new bodily or behavioral dispositions. I propose that elite-level sports knowledge may become contentless bodily and/or behavioral dispositions and take the form of embodied Rilkean sport-specific knowledge. This version of sports knowledge enriches the current philosophy of sports debate that has centered on the analytical distinction between procedural knowledge (knowing how) and declarative knowledge (knowing that). After presenting the embodied Rilkean sport-specific knowledge concept and providing empirical evidence that supports its existence, I argue that the current distinction between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’ may not be exhaustive.