ABSTRACT
The statement summarized the grandeur of the Olympic Games renovator, celebrating his main intellectual commitment. Apart from this grandiloquence, however, the term “Olympism” during Coubertin's lifetime denoted a philosophical direction, despite its vagueness. The Baron de Coubertin himself coined “Olympism” as a “philosophy of life” when this concept was embodied in a new “Olympic Charter” put into circulation in 1914. In reviewing the history of philosophical accounts of Olympism, two things stand out: first, the continuous controversy, and second, the ability of successive accounts to adapt to changing views in philosophy and the social sciences without any further epistemological claim. The structure of my argument facing the quaestio disputata of Olympism is rooted in two approaches, both of which support the interpretation of process philosophy: the first refers to the thesis that there have been philosophical discourses, a philosophy strictosensu, regarding Olympic athletics and sports celebrations.
