Philosophers at the Dinner Table Carolyn Korsmeyer
Doubtless all but the most ascetic philosophers sometimes enjoy their food. However, eating and drinking often enter their theories only by way of caution: Beware the indulgence of the body and its tempting pleasures! The distinction between the satisfaction of physical appetite and the contemplative transports of aesthetic enjoyment has been promoted since the advent of modern theories of the arts; for it was assumed that the fine arts are designed to give pleasure to the eye and ear, disregarding the so-called inferior senses, including the sense of taste. The distinction between higher and lower senses can be found in writings as early as Plato, though it became a central point of philosophy in the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Theories of aesthetic ‘taste’ arose in the wake of a theoretical shift that identified beauty as a type of pleasure rather than an objective quality. As a consequence, drawing a distinction between the satisfactions of appetite and the more contemplative pleasures of the aesthetic kind seemed especially necessary. Eating, drinking, and sex represent the ‘animal’ part of our nature, for they are activities that we share with other living creatures. But the creation of arts and the development of sciences are strictly human accomplishments. Thus the bodily pleasures delivered by taste, smell, and touch must be of a different kind from the satisfactions of art that deserve the label ‘beauty’. Whether taste can operate aesthetically and whether food and drink should be counted among the arts pose two different questions, although they tend to arise together. In addition to worries about the pleasures of a bodily sense is the fact that the objects of taste, food and drink, are perishable. In appreciating
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food one causes it to disappear, whereas generations may stand before more enduring products such as buildings, paintings, and sculptures; and music —at least scored music—can be heard over and over across time. The table produces only temporary achievements, quickly consumed. Finally, there is an obvious practical consideration: We can live without art; but food has instrumental value that has little to do with its aesthetic merits, since nutrition is needed to sustain a living organism. Such, anyhow, is the standard brief against the aesthetic and the artistic standing of food and drink. Today, however, traditional divisions between ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ senses are converging in both art practice and aesthetic theory, requiring reconsideration of older philosophical views. The potential alliance between aesthetic and gustatory taste has waxed and waned over the last two centuries. Gourmet dining and the delights it occasions seem on the face of it to be the most likely counterparts to enjoyment of fine art, and from time to time, such an idea has gained philosophical traction. In the century after the major European theories about beauty and art appeared, another set of authors, among the most famous Jean-Anthelme BrillatSavarin and Grimod de la Reynière, wrote encomia to fine cuisine and promoted gastronomy as a fine art. They recommended ways to develop a discerning palate that savors the subtleties of flavor and—not to neglect the other senses—that appreciates the beauty of surroundings and the conversation of amiable company. Though the attempt to blend the two sorts of taste was inventive, philosophical theory was reluctant to embrace the gastronomic argument, largely because so much was at stake with the identification