FOOTBALL AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PHENOMENON: MEANING, PLAY, AND HUMANITY PUT TO THE TEST AT THE AFRICA CUP OF NATIONS
Keywords:
philosophy of sport, soccer, African Cup of Nations, ethics, identity, politics, aestheticsAbstract
Often relegated to the status of mere popular entertainment, football is nevertheless a philosophical subject in its own right, as a social practice, a physical experience, a symbolic phenomenon, and a space for the production of meaning. Using an approach based on the philosophy of sport, this article analyzes soccer as a total philosophical phenomenon, drawing on classical and contemporary references (Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Camus, Bourdieu, Mbembe). The Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) will serve as an empirical and symbolic framework for examining the ethical, aesthetic, political, and identity dimensions of contemporary African soccer. The hypothesis put forward is that the CAN constitutes a privileged philosophical laboratory where the fundamental tensions of the human condition are revealed: freedom and rules, chance and merit, body and recognition, play and power.
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