The Aesthetics Of Food: The Philosophical Debate About What We Eat And Drink

Description

The Aesthetics of Food sets out the continuing philosophical debate about the aesthetic nature of food. The debate begins with Plato’s claim that only objects of sight and hearing could be beautiful; consequently, food as something we smell and taste could not be beautiful. Plato’s sceptical position has been both supported and opposed in one form or another throughout the ages. This book demonstrates how the current debate has evolved and critically assesses that debate, showing how it has been influenced by the changing nature of critical theory and changes in art historical paradigms (Expressionism, Modernism, and Post-modernism), as well as by recent advances in neuroscience. It also traces changes in our understanding of the sensory experience of food and drink, from viewing taste as a simple single sense to current views on its complex multi-sensory nature. Particular attention is paid to recent philosophical discussion about wine: whether an interest in a wine reflects only a subjective or personal preference or whether one can make objective judgments about the quality and merit of a wine. Finally, the book explores how the debate has been informed by changes in the cooking, presenting, and consuming of food, for example by the appearance of the restaurant in the early nineteenth century as well as the rise of celebrity chefs. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 3 Title Page......Page 5 Copyright Page......Page 6 Table of contents......Page 7 Chapter One The Aesthetics of Food: Cuisine and Taste......Page 11 Ferran Adrià and Contemporary Cuisine......Page 14 Theories of Taste......Page 19 Taste in Asia......Page 22 Notes......Page 25 Chapter Two Taste in Antiquity: Plato’s Rejection of Food......Page 29 From Wild Man to Civilized Being: The Epic of Gilgamesh......Page 30 Food and the Evolution of Homo Sapiens......Page 32 Plato’s Rejection of the Pleasures of Food......Page 34 Heldke’s Critique of Plato’s Rejection of Cuisine in Gorgias......Page 36 Plato’s Account of Taste......Page 38 Plato’s Theory of Taste and the Greeks’ Love of Food......Page 41 Summary......Page 44 Notes......Page 45 Chapter Three Aristotelian and Roman Views on Taste......Page 49 Aristotle on Gluttony......Page 50 Aristotle’s Theory of Taste......Page 52 Taste and Touch......Page 54 Freeland’s Critique of Aristotle’s Theory of Touch......Page 56 Aristotle’s Common Sense......Page 57 Can Food Be Beautiful?......Page 58 Summary of Aristotle’s Theory of Taste......Page 61 Gustatory Experience in the Roman Empire......Page 63 Christianity Struggles with Food and Wine......Page 70 Notes......Page 74 Chapter Four Medieval and Renaissance Views on Food......Page 81 Food in the Monastic Refectory and the Feudal Hall......Page 82 Renaissance Gastronomy in Italy......Page 84 Seventeenth-Century French Cuisine......Page 88 Service à la française......Page 90 The Distillation of Alcohol......Page 92 Descartes, Alcohol, and Animal Spirits......Page 93 Notes......Page 95 Chapter Five Critical Taste in the Enlightenment......Page 99 Addison on Fine Taste......Page 100 Shaftesbury and Hutcheson......Page 103 Du Bos and Voltaire......Page 108 Hume’s Theory of Taste and Gustatory Experience......Page 110 Delicacy of Taste and the “Finer Emotions”......Page 116 Reid on Taste......Page 118 Conclusion......Page 120 Notes......Page 121 Kant on Taste......Page 127 Taste of Sense and Taste of Reflection......Page 129 Disinterestedness and Having a Gustatory Appetite......Page 131 Kant on Common Sense......Page 135 Gastronomy and Brillat-Savarin......Page 136 Brillat-Savarin and Gourmandism......Page 140 Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste......Page 141 Taste and the Gastronomic Revolution......Page 143 Carême and the Celebrity Chef......Page 145 Expressionism and Food......Page 146 Lewis Carroll on Food......Page 147 Notes......Page 149 Chapter Seven Creating and Tasting: Can Fine Food Be Fine Art?......Page 155 Clement Greenberg’s Modernism......Page 156 Clive Bell and “Significant Form”......Page 157 Prall and Beardsley on Whether Tastes and Smells Can Have Structures......Page 158 Dewey on Having an Experience with Food......Page 160 Modernism and Cuisine......Page 162 Telfer and Korsmeyer on the Pleasures of Taste......Page 164 The Art World and Cuisine......Page 167 Kuehn and Monroe: Can Cuisine Be Fine Art?......Page 168 Postmodernism and the Multisensitivity of Taste......Page 169 Notes......Page 173 Chapter Eight Tasting Wine......Page 177 Scruton on Taste and Smell......Page 178 Hume’s Wine-Tasting Example Reconsidered......Page 181 Analytic Realism......Page 182 Analytic Interpretivism......Page 185 The Synthetic Character of Wine Tasting......Page 188 Notes......Page 190 Chapter Nine The Philosophical Debate about the Aesthetics of Food......Page 193 Bibliography......Page 199 Index......Page 209