noun. The art or science of contending in public games or other athletic contests.

noun. The science of athletic combats, or contests in public games.

noun. The range of activities associated with aggressive encounters between members of the same species, including threat, attack, appeasement, or retreat.

"Attention to what Jean-Luc Nancy called the "excription" of meaning, the outside of thought, does not necessarily temper the paranoid bent of critical agonistics (105)."

agonist  agonistic  agonistical