The Philosophy of Athletic Expertise / A Filosofia da Expertise Atlética

This article investigates athletic expertise in elite sport as a philosophically privileged domain for the analysis of central problems in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. It argues that high-performance sport is not merely a field for the application of general philosophical theories, but a set of phenomena capable of testing, challenging, and refining traditional conceptions of agency, knowledge, and moral value. From a metaphysical perspective, the paper examines the notion of distributed agency in hybrid human-technological systems, as well as the ontological status of athletic performances and records. On the epistemological level, it analyzes three forms of knowledge constitutive of athletic expertise — motor, strategic, and somatic knowledge — emphasizing their tacit character and resistance to reduction to propositional knowledge. Finally, the ethical dimension addresses issues concerning the moral responsibility of experts, the limits of technological enhancement, and demands of distributive justice regarding access to the development of athletic excellence. The article concludes that neglecting sport as an object of philosophical inquiry results in an impoverished understanding of embodiment, practice, and human excellence.