Competitive Sports’ Philosophical Salvation For Man

People in our age are living in a doubled dilemma which includes that existing exists authentically to death and the dissimilation of modernity. Modern competitive sports provide a philosophical salvation for man. The paper analyses this philosophical salvation from three aspects:firstly, competitive sports combine the body and the spirit of human. The values of competitive sport are the foundation of its own existence and development, and reflex the needs of human. Human has been living in the paradox of being and dying since always, and considers competitive sport as a game for the boundary-crossers who suffer from the destiny of dying. By carrying hopes of breaking limitations, the beyond value of competitive sport creates a philosophical way of being for the human. Human body has a bridge metaphor. The artistic nature of competitive sport brings an eruption of the will to power. Though the infiniteness can only be approached but not arrived, modern competitive sport provides a Sisyphus-styled survival value of transcendence. Secondly, the disenchantment of the world is an existing phenomenon which would carry on. The development of modernity, the emergence of human subjectivity combined with the extension of instrumental rationality will make re-enchantment a long lasting unfinished cause. Competitive sports are a re-enchantment based on body. During the world’s re-enchantment process, the divinity foundation and religion-like character provide competitive sport with congenital foundation and reality condition. Thirdly, To solve the problem caused by human transcendent destiny and modernity, German Romanticism Philosophy advocates using poeticizing to achieve the self-salvation of human beings. Competitive sport possesses a strong nature of Romanticism. It is an expression of human pursuit for infiniteness. Based on the body, competitive sport also enables the human to regain the poetical connection with the living world and spread out the peculiar human aura. Meanwhile, competitive sport will promote the "Heimkunft" of human spirit through reviving mythology, and let the human get back to poetic dwelling where they will believe in divinities.