Appetites for Thought : Philosophers and Food.

ISBN:

9781780234557

Title:

Author:

Onfray, Michel.

Personal Author:

Onfray, Michel.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (138 pages)

Contents:

Cover -- Appetites for Thought: Philosophers and Food -- Imprint Page -- Contents -- Introduction: The Banquet of the Omnivores -- One: Diogenes -- or, The Taste of Octopus -- Two: Rousseau -- or, The Milky Way -- Three: Kant -- or, Ethical Alcoholism -- Four: Fourier -- or, The Pivotal Little Pie -- Five: Nietzsche -- or, The Sausages of the Anti-Christ -- Six: Marinetti -- or, The Excited Pig -- Seven: Sartre -- or, The Revenge of the Crustaceans -- Conclusion: The Gay Science of Eating -- References -- Bibliography.

Local Note:

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

Subject Term:

Philosophers - Nutrition.

Added Author:

Muecke, Stephen.

Barry, Donald.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view book

Publication Date:

2015

Publication Information:

London :

Reaktion Books, Limited,

2015.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
641.3001	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ON-DEMAND	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Appetites for Thought offers up a delectable intellectual challenge: can we better understand the concepts of philosophers from their culinary choices? Guiding us around the philosopher's banquet table with erudition, wit, and irreverence, Michel Onfray offers surprising insights on foods ranging from fillet of cod to barley soup, from sausage to wine and coffee.

Tracing the edible obsessions of philosophers from Diogenes to Sartre, Onfray considers how their ideas relate to their diets. Would Diogenes have been an opponent of civilization without his taste for raw octopus? Would Rousseau have been such a proponent of frugality if his daily menu had included something more than dairy products? Onfray offers a perfectly Kantian critique of the nose and palate, since "the idea obtained from them is more a representation of enjoyment than cognition of the external object." He exposes Nietzsche's grumpiness--really, Nietzsche grumpy?--about bad cooks and the retardation of human evolution, and he explores Sartre's surrealist repulsion by shellfish because they are "food buried in an object, and you have to pry them out."

A fun romp through the culinary likes and dislikes of our most famous thinkers, Appetites for Thought will intrigue, provoke, and entertain, and it might also make you ponder a bite to eat.

Author Notes

Michel Onfray is a French philosopher and founder of the tuition-free Université Populaire in Caen, France, where he teaches. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, The Atheist Manifesto . Stephen Muecke is professor of ethnography at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a writer of fiction. His translations include Jos Gil's Metamorphoses of the Body . He lives in Sydney. Donald Barry (1955-2014) was a lecturer at the University of Western Sydney and a translator specializing in French.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

This is the sort of book an author in the French provinces hopes will get noticed in Paris. Does what one eats affect what one thinks? Onfray, an independent scholar associated with a university he founded in Caen, seems to think so. The title is a loose rendering of the French original: Le Ventre des philosophes: Critique de la raison diététique which, in a more literal translation, would be "The Philosophers' Stomach: A Critique of Dietetic Reason" (the subtitle echoes Kant). The question is whether the book is an entertainment or a serious philosophical monograph. With an imaginary opening banquet, Onfray presents the dramatis personae: Diogenes, Kant, Nietzsche, Fourier, Sartre, Marinetti. The last, a more futurist than philosopher, thought pasta signified Italy. The alimentary preferences of Marquis de Sade and Freud add an additional voyeuristic touch. In the final analysis, does it matter that Kant drank too much wine or that Sartre hated shellfish? The book, though erudite and lavishly footnoted, needs a good dose of David Hume: correlation is not causation. That being said, the book entertains even though it may not add to the reader's philosophical understanding. Summing Up: Optional. Faculty and professionals. --David Stewart, emeritus, Ohio University