Gastronomy, beer and philosophy

For some time, I’ve been trying to rationalise discussion of cooking and booze on this blog. Or at least I’ve been trying to work out how to discuss that matter and still wax philosophical about it.

As I’ve cited before, in the foreword to my little penguine classics edition of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, R.J. Hollingdale writes of Nietzsche, “In a man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.”

Maybe I’ve been entertaining a false dichotomy between my philosophy and my passion for food and drink. Perhaps in On The Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche warns against my narrow scholarly ascetic. (Maybe in Nietzsche we see the subtle and then more accurate beginning of today’s “Po-Mo” caricatures of scientists.)

Perhaps it’s a case of more aesthetic, less ascetic.

Between the Australian tradition of the BBQ, the subsequent reflective discussion that occurs at such events and attempted revivals of “philosophy at the pub”, perhaps there is a bit more perspective to be considered on the relation between food, drink and thought. Perhaps I could turn to Nietzsche’s Perspectivism by Steven D. Hales to help my contemplation.

Or I could skip a few steps and start on another book he edited a couple of years ago.

Validation smells like Saaz.

Suddenly it all makes sense.

I’ll have to brew up some ale for winter and start posting a few recipes on-line.

~ Bruce

P.S. And for anyone interested, here is the .pdf file of an article by Hales on Plato’s Theory of Forms, involving Plato’s own Parmenides third man critique.

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