Where Kant Meets Kareem

You’ll hear that line used to describe any number of sports. A new book is out that makes the case for basketball, and offers up an analytic view of some of the game’s finer points.

Basketball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Paint, the paper-bound version of which was recently published by The University Press of Kentucky, is a nearly 300-page collection of essays about the intersection between sport and the mind. Edited by Jerry L. Walls, a professor of philosophy and religion at Asbury Theological Seminary, and Gregory Bassham, a professor of philosophy at King’s College, in Pennsylvania, the book gets contributions from what the editors call “a dream team of 26 basketball fans, most of whom also happen to be philosophers.” (Among them is Myles Brand, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.)

Essayists look at questions such as “How should you deal with strategic cheaters in pickup basketball?” and “Why does a player shoot well in warm-ups but struggle during live action?”

Given that Indiana is considered a birthplace of basketball, and that the state’s flagship institution, Indiana University, has been embroiled in a scandal that involves Kelvin Sampson, the men’s basketball coach who recently resigned under pressure, it seemed only fitting to start our Q&A session with Walls and Bassham with a discussion of the Hoosiers.

Read On...