A Lucretian philosophy of movement

Houterman, A. (2024). Marx’s repulsion and Serres’s turbulence: a Lucretian philosophy of movement. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 1–16.

Lucretius’ concept of the clinamen shows that movement always tends to deviate from the regular trajectory; this deviation is seen by both Marx and Serres as crucial to how moving bodies are intertwined. A Lucretian philosophy of movement therefore entails that sport is not primarily a rule-guided but a transformative practice: it emerges from moving bodies that experiment with different patterns of motion. Supposedly solid bodies, such as human bodies, technology, or institutions, are the products of entangled patterns of motion. (…) We have explained that phenomena such as joy, talent, teamwork and excitement can be understood as emerging from repulsive and turbulent patterns of motion. They show how we can apply the Lucretian philosophy of movement to sports. According to this theory, sport is primarily an experiment in moving with the movements of the world. Physicality, team play and sensory experiences are not separate phenomena, but themselves quasi-stable patterns of moving matter.