Swim or Sink

doi:10.1017/9781108682312.007

6 - Swim or Sink

Habit and Skillful Control in Sport Performance

from Part 1 - The Sensorimotor Embodiment of Habits

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2020

Massimiliano L. Cappuccio and

Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza

Edited by

Fausto Caruana and

Italo Testa

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Fausto Caruana: Affiliation:
Institute of Neuroscience (Parma), Italian National Research Council
Italo Testa: Affiliation:
Università degli Studi, Parma

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Summary

What role is played by habitual behaviors in sport skill? To answer this question we examine and contrast two different views on habit: the intellectualist and the enactivist. Intellectualism, which can be traced back to William James’ mechanist account of habits as reflex-like automatic dispositions, claims that deliberation and explicit goal-representation are necessary to make behavior intelligent and flexible because habits alone do not have this capacity. Enactivism, on the contrary, claims that habits are both necessary for and constitutive of the development of sports skills because they can be inherently intelligent and flexible. After reviewing behavioral and neuro-cognitive evidence in favour of each view, we offer an anti-intellectualist argument to support the enactivist view: habitual behaviors are legitimate sources of prereflective motivation and bodily know-how. Accordingly, skillful action control is not constrained but disclosed by habit formation. Automatism then is not a drawback for strategic control and improvisation but their pragmatic foundation.

Keywords

swimming motor intentionality skill development William James Maurice Merleau-Ponty automatization

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Type: Chapter
Information: Habits
Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory
, pp. 137 - 162
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108682312.007 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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