Synesis, Phronesis and Metis: A Hermeneutical contribution to Sport Pedagogy as a Human Science

The interest in studying the moral dimension of pedagogy and the rationality of its actions when performed by educators has led to deepening the main concepts of Aristotelian Ethics, mainly synesis and phronesis. To be clear, the former has been scarcely explored in the field of (sport) pedagogy and the philosophy of education (and sport philosophy); the latter is more explored but it needs to be better defined when applied to sport education. As a situation and context which implies a practical dimension as well as human behaviours and moral actions, sport – mainly when perceived as an educational experience or a set of actions aimed to achieve that goal –is linked to the categories of synesis and phronesis. In the sixth book of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle introduced the concept of synesis without offering any explicit and deep analysis. Educationists know well this chapter because it deals with phronesis, which, understood as an intellectual virtue combined with moral virtue and referred to sophia as an intrinsic reference model, is a form of practical knowledge aimed at deliberating and prescribing actions that are good from an ethical point of view. However, the concept synesis, usually translated as “understanding”, “consciousness”, “care”, “intelligence”, or “judgment”, is overlooked and scarcely studied (or ignored) in educational sciences and the sports humanities, mainly in sport pedagogy.