Taste as Experience puts the pleasure of food at the center of human experience. It shows how the sense of taste informs our preferences for and relationship to nature, pushes us toward ethical practices of consumption, and impresses upon us the importance of aesthetics. Eating is often dismissed as a necessary aspect of survival, and our personal enjoyment of food is considered a quirk. Nicola Perullo sees food as the only portion of the world we take in on (...) a daily basis, constituting our first and most significant encounter with the earth. Perullo has long observed people's food practices and has listened to their food experiences. He draws on years of research to explain the complex meanings behind our food choices and the thinking that accompanies our gustatory actions. He also considers our indifference toward food as a force influencing us as much as engagement. For Perullo, taste is value and wisdom. It cannot be reduced to mere chemical or cultural factors but embodies the quality and quantity of our earthly experience. (shrink)

We think we know how to appreciate wine—trained connoisseurs take dainty sips in sterile rooms and provide ratings based on objective knowledge and technical expertise. In Epistenology, Nicola Perullo vigorously challenges this approach, arguing that it is the enjoyment of drinking wine as an active and participatory experience that matters. Perullo argues that wine comes to life not in the abstract space of the professional tasting but in the real world of shared experiences; wines can change in (...) these encounters, and drinkers along with them. Just as a winemaker is not simply a producer but a nurturer, a wine is fully known only through an encounter among a group of drinkers in a specific place and time. Wine is not an object to analyze but an experience to make, creatively opening up new perceptual possibilities for settings, cuisines, and companions. The result of more than twenty years of research and practical engagement, Epistenology presents a new paradigm for the enjoyment of wine and through it a philosophy based on participatory and relational knowledge. This model suggests a profound shift—not knowledge about but with wine. Interweaving philosophical arguments with personal reflections and literary examples, this book is a journey with wine that shows how it makes life more creative and free. (shrink)

In this essay I propose a new theory of taste, starting from the assumption of the multisensorial and ecological approach to the senses, as proposed by Gibson in his psychology of perception and by Dewey in his philosophy and aesthetics. In contrast with an optical approach to tastes and tasting, here I propose the concept of haptic taste to describe a perceptual engagement deeply involved in the processes of experiencing food and beverages, although my examples are mostly related to wine. (...) Finally I spell out the implications of a theory of haptic taste for the way we approach cultivation of taste and expertise. I suggest we should turn from the idea of ‘good taste’ as the result of trained and acquired skills to taste as a task, to mean the practical and continuous attuning with the environment we actively contribute to shape. I believe it is appropriate today to move from a culture of taste, based on an elevation strategy, to a culture with taste, which emphasizes educated nurture. (shrink)

Ogni vino bevuto ha il suo racconto. Mio proposito: renderne facile l’ascolto e la comprensione a te, lettore, che ami il vino – mi leggi –, o sei disposto a riconoscerlo amico.L. Veronelli 1. Introduction: A little something about the wineworld 1.1. The first time In 1971, Mario Soldati, Italian writer, journalist and expert of wine, published the second series of Vino al Vino, a book about wine production in Italy. In the Introduction titled “Wine as a Work of Art” (...) Soldati stated: Between t... (shrink)

Ogni vino bevuto ha il suo racconto. Mio proposito: renderne facile l’ascolto e la comprensione a te, lettore, che ami il vino – mi leggi –, o sei disposto a riconoscerlo amico.L. Veronelli 1. Introduction: A little something about the wineworld 1.1. The first time In 1971, Mario Soldati, Italian writer, journalist and expert of wine, published the second series of Vino al Vino, a book about wine production in Italy. In the Introduction titled “Wine as a Work of Art” (...) Soldati stated: Between t... (shrink)

Recent studies have shown how aesthetics can be positively investigated from an evolutionary point of view. Following this line, the present essay sets to study a new relationship between food and evolutionary aesthetics from a specific angle: I put forward the thesis that the approach with food one has in early childhood is part of the birth of an aesthetic attitude. With this, I mean that the set of taste preferences children develop is a pleasure that can be seen as (...) an aesthetic pleasure. This pleasure –- which I call here naked pleasure – is an inextricable nexus of need, enjoyment, and affection. Beyond scientific investigations showing the importance of early nutrition (especially breast milk) for health, there are many other evidences – supported also by psychological research – in behalf of the idea that taste preferences are set from the very beginning of human life in a close relation with human environment. And this is true also for a phylogenetic perspective, given the proved connection between taste preferences and sexual selection. In the last part – taking the “Marsmellow Test” as example – I sketch a reflection on the ethical, moral and social issues depending from or co-evolving with pleasure and taste preferences. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest an aesthetic model that is consistent with anti-foundational scientific knowledge. How has an aesthetics without foundation to be configured? In contrast to the conventional subject/object model, with idealistic and subjective aesthetics, but also with object-oriented assumptions, I suggest that aesthetics has to be characterized as relational aesthetics in terms of process-oriented perception and that this leads to an _Aesthetics Without Objects_ (AWO) approach. The relational nature of processes means that they do not happen _inter_-, that (...) is, between ontologically delimited and stable entities, but rather they _correspond_ between relations. I will try to show that AWO matches well with the onto-phenomenological-epistemic and relational models proposed by recent theories in different fields of science, especially in the relational interpretation of quantum physics. The field of aesthetics, then, does not indicate perceptual fixed contents—either subjective or objectual properties—rather it emerges from a correspondence occurring in an engaged and situated perceptual movement, an _agencing_ that is prior to any sharp distinction between a perceiver and a perceived. I propose to call _haptic_ this perceptual agencing. In the first section, I describe the reasons according to which the adoption of AWO seems more correct and advisable, both with respect to contemporary scientific models and to the current ecological changes on the planet. In the second section, I portray some characteristics of AWO. In the third section, I argue that AWO calls for haptic perception. In the fourth section, I briefly draw some meta-aesthetics consequences concerning, on the one side, socio-political issues of AWO and, on the other side, the possibility for a theory in an anti-foundational model. I conclude with a proposal: a process-oriented aesthetics approach has to be understood mainly as an _art of thinking_. This means rethinking and re-evaluating the idea of aesthetics as an _artisan thought_. (shrink)

Giorgio Gargani non aveva detto a nessuno la verità sul suo male; e il motivo, come avevo intuito non appena lo avevo saputo, non più di dieci giorni prima del suo decesso, e come d’altra parte mi aveva confermato al funerale il figlio maggiore Alberto, era che confessare il suo male avrebbe significato ridurre il carico dei suoi impegni e del suo lavoro. Giorgio Gargani ha lavorato, scritto, studiato, partecipato a conferenze fino a pochi giorni prima della sua morte, e (...) questa passione per l... (shrink)

In this essay, I will present one part of a theory on haptic that is moving along the path and that will be narrated more broadly in a future book. Here, I will connect the haptic to the topic of hot/cold, making first some general considerations about it, then proposing arguments and examplestaken from the domain of food and cooking. Hence, I will restrict to some reflections with the haptic perspective under the lens of the temperature issue with respect to (...) the case of nutrition. It is true, however, that hot and cold are directly related to food since the very beginning of the humanity. It is well know that, from Vico to Lévi-Strauss, the invention/the discovery of fire for cooking has been considered as one, or the, turning point for the “beginning” of humanity or, more in general, the relation between animals and humans. In my opinion, the haptic perception is a broad field of research that consents to reconsider important issues connected also to this point. (shrink)

Although recent years have seen a growing philosophical interest in the exploration of the so-called ‘lower senses’, aesthetic research on taste and smell (the situation is partially different with respect to touch) still covers a relatively small domain, confined to a niche. While historical and socio-anthropological research on the two, often said, ‘chemical senses’ are quite copious since decades, philosophy is far from having a proper and specific field of work. Things are changing, howev...

With this text I would like to suggest the idea that vegetarianism, understood as a “principle choice” based on rational arguments and ethical norms, is supportive of and in line with the philosophy that it usually intends to contend, that is, the individualistic and anthropocentric subjectivism that is typical of the most striking tradition of Western metaphysics. Since I do not believe in the goodness and effectiveness of this model and tradition, I intend to point out that classic, rigid vegetarianism (...) is an ontological mistake that would be best avoided, precisely in order to promote a different type of thinking that is more inclusive, open, dynamic, and enlightened. I propose to name this strategy gustatory wisdom, based on a diet of caring and attention rather than on principles and rigid norms. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to show how flavors – specifically food flavors – and the atmospheres they help create have a strong sociopolitical value. Smells are here dealt with as vector elements inscribed in the collective space; they, on the one hand, affect the way in which refusal or acceptance occur and, on the other, mold perceptual and fruition model. By «aromatic aesthetics», we refer to the dimension in which smells are related to peculiar atmospheric policies. Stemming from this (...) framework, we present the notions of sterilization, deodorization, and flavoring anew in the light of bodily, sensory and cognitive effects on the individual and on the relations with the surrounding world, particularly with food. The concoction of synthetic flavor mixtures and its subsequent perception cause atmospheric manipulations able to affect both collectively and individually the sense of smell. In contrast to this aggressive and standardizing practice, we try to outline an alternative approach based on the idea of engagement aiming to contribute to a complete ecological aesthetics. (shrink)

Nicola Perullo's Taste as Experience draws on the author's philosophical background and his experience as a professor of aesthetics at a culinary institute. He aims to understand the experience of taste, analyzing it into three 'modes of access': pleasure, knowledge, and indifference. His perspective, influenced by Dewey, illuminates various elements of taste, eating, and drinking.

Il libro di Nicola Perullo – una raccolta di sei saggi già pubblicati su varie riviste e presentati ora in forma rielaborata – suscita interesse sia per l’ampiezza della tematica, sia per l’originalità di una prospettiva che si presenta al tempo stesso come antifondazionalista e realista. La possibilità di filosofare tenendo insieme i presupposti, che potrebbero apparire prima facie divergenti, antifondazionalista e realista è mostrata dall’Autore sulla scorta di una lettura incrociata di Wit...

Dopo Per un’estetica del cibo (2006) e L’altro gusto (2008), Nicola Perullo torna sul tema, tanto interessante quanto spesso trascurato, della filosofia della gastronomia, prendendo questa volta in esame l’esperienza del gusto. Superato brillantemente il pregiudizio secondo il quale sarebbe meglio non occuparsi degli oggetti gastronomici in quanto “meramente empirici”, Nicola Perullo entra nel vivo dell’indagine domandandosi che cosa propriamente sia implicato dall’atto di gustare, che cosa s...

L’estetica, intesa come scienza della conoscenza sensibile e del bello naturale e artistico, ha indubbiamente a che fare con il giudizio di gusto. In base a che cosa infatti diciamo che un quadro è bello o che una rappresentazione teatrale ci ha colpito? In base al gusto, appunto: al richiamarsi a quel je ne sais quoi che fa sì che apprezziamo le opere d’arte, per esempio. Sarebbe tuttavia legittimo domandarsi che cosa siamo disposti a includere sotto la categoria di “opera (...) d’arte”. Sicuramen... (shrink)

Quantum physics, which offers an explanation of the world on the smallest scale, has fundamental implications that pose a serious challenge to ordinary logic. Particularly counterintuitive is the notion of entanglement, which has been explored for the past 30 years and posits an ubiquitous randomness capable of manifesting itself simultaneously in more than one place. This amazing 'non-locality' is more than just an abstract curiosity or paradox: it has entirely down-to-earth applications in cryptography, serving for example to protect financial information; (...) it also has enabled the demonstration of 'quantum teleportation', whose infinite possibilities even science-fiction writers can scarcely imagine. This delightful and concise exposition does not avoid the deep logical difficulties of quantum physics, but gives the reader the insights needed to appreciate them. From 'Bell's Theorem' to experiments in quantum entanglement, the reader will gain a solid understanding of one of the most fascinating areas of contemporary physics. (shrink)

In the historical context of a crisis in biological psychiatry, psychedelic drugs paired with psychotherapy are globally re-emerging in research clinics as a potential transdiagnostic therapy for treating mood disorders, addictions, and other forms of psychological distress. The treatments are poised to soon shift from clinical trials to widespread service delivery in places like Australia, North America, and Europe, which has prompted ethical questions by social scientists and bioethicists. Taking a broader view, we argue that the ethics of psychedelic therapy (...) concerns not simply how psychotherapies are different when paired with psychedelic drugs, but how psychedelic therapies shape and are shaped by different values, norms, and metaphysical commitments. Drawing from the published literature and interviews with seven psychedelic therapists working in clinical trials in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia, this article opens the black box of the treatments to consider the values and informal debates currently animating the therapies. Considering questions of patient autonomy, mechanisms of therapeutic action, and which therapies are best suited to pair with psychedelic substances, we examine the ethics of psychedelic therapy as an emergent form of life. To bring this form of life out in fuller relief, we conclude by comparing and contrasting it with ayahuasca use in Amazonian shamanism. (shrink)

This chapter deals with one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy, inappropriate appeal to authority (IAA). IAA has many different facets. At its core, it is a fallacy that assumes that because someone is an authority, we should listen to that person. The problem with IAA is that it ignores content in favor of credentials and power. There are a few different ways in which IAA can occur. IAA seems to be the result of a flaw in human thinking. (...) Social cognitive theory, a theory that helps explain human action, notes that humans tend to act like each other. The tendency to listen to authorities who are not authorities explains why celebrities are able to sell us stuff. The important thing to remember about IAA is that it is not just a fallacy that comes up in arguments that do not matter. (shrink)

For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from self-evident. Democracy, in crisis across the West, must prove itself. This highly timely volume is both a conceptual and practical guide of impressive scope to the challenges of good governance as the world continues to undergo profound transformation in the coming decades.

Methexiology is not a particular theory, but rather a general philosophical orientation. Therefore, in Methexiology: Philosophical Theology and Theological Philosophy for the Deification of Humanity, Nicolas Laos elucidates the significance of methexiology for the study of ontology, epistemology, ethics, philosophical psychology, theory of justice, philosophy of history, and philosophy of religion. Laos argues that, faced with the modern and the postmodern crises of meaning, we need a new myth, a new spiritual formula, for the resacralization of humanity and the cosmos, (...) without restoring defunct totems, without using tales as "cheap" substitutes for the lack of a life-giving myth, and without negating history. In his Methexiology, Laos studies the "genealogy" of the modern and the postmodern crises of meaning, and, based on his new interpretation of classical Greek philosophy and Hesychasm, proposes methexiology as a way of overcoming the crises of meaning and as a way of resacralizing humanity and the cosmos through a new metaphysically grounded humanism. (shrink)

The empirical study of belief is emerging at a rapid clip, uniting work from all corners of cognitive science. Reliance on belief in understanding and predicting behavior is widespread. Examples can be found, inter alia, in the placebo, attribution theory, theory of mind, and comparative psychological literatures. Research on belief also provides evidence for robust generalizations, including about how we fix, store, and change our beliefs. Evidence supports the existence of a Spinozan system of belief fixation: one that is automatic (...) and independent of belief rejection. Independent research supports the existence of a system of fragmented belief storage: one that relies on large numbers of causally isolated, context-sensitive stores of belief in memory. Finally, empirical and observational data support at least two systems of belief change. One system adheres, mostly, to epistemological norms of updating; the other, the psychological immune system, functions to guard our most centrally held beliefs from potential inconsistency with newly formed beliefs. Refining our under- standing of these systems can shed light on pressing real-world issues, such as how fake news, propaganda, and brainwashing exploit our psychology of belief, and how best to construct our modern informational world. (shrink)

In recent years much research has been undertaken regarding the feasibility of the human uterine transplant as a treatment for absolute uterine factor infertility. Should it reach clinical application this procedure would allow such individuals what is often a much-desired opportunity to become not only social mothers, or genetic and social mothers but mothers in a social, genetic and gestational sense. Like many experimental transplantation procedures such as face, hand, corneal and larynx transplants, UTx as a therapeutic option falls firmly (...) into the camp of the quality of life transplant, undertaken with the aim, not to save a life, but to enrich one. However, unlike most of these novel procedures – where one would be unlikely to find a willing living donor or an ethics committee that would sanction such a donation – the organs to be transplanted in UTx are potentially available from both living and deceased donors. In this article, in the light of the recent nine-case research trial in Sweden which used uteri obtained from living donors, and the assertions on the part of a number of other research teams currently preparing trials that they will only be using deceased donors, I explore the question of whether, in the case of UTx, there exist compelling moral reasons to prefer the use of deceased donors despite the benefits that may be associated with the use of organs obtained from the living. (shrink)

1. L'oeuvre musicale et son écoute -- 2. Le monde-musique et son solfège -- 3. Le musicien et son intellectualité musicale -- 4. Les raisonances du monde-musique ; postlude d'Alain Badiou.

Trente et un penseurs, parmi lesquels Jacques Derrida, Françoise Héritier, Edgar Morin, Jean-Luc Nancy, Michel Onfray ou encore Jacques Rancière, pour comprendre les errements et les raisons d'espérer d'une planète convulsée. Dix-neuf entretiens et débats avec les intellectuels les plus engagés dans la réflexion sur le temps présent dressent un état des lieux des questions qui taraudent notre modernité. Issu du Théâtre des idées, cycle de rencontres intellectuelles du Festival d'Avignon (2004-2012), ces dialogues singuliers s'attachent à faire vivre l'esprit critique, (...) cette faculté de juger, de soumettre la réalité sociale, artistique ou politique au tamis du jugement argumenté, qu'il soit sérieux ou ironique, virulent ou tempéré. De très actuelles "résistances intellectuelles" qui esquissent ce que pourrait être un service public des idées, c'est-à-dire un accès direct, libre et partagé à l'intellectualité. (shrink)

Blaise Pascal est le penseur radical des limites et des contradictions de l'homme, ni ange ni bête. Contrairement à ce qu'en prétend l'orgueil de toute une modernité, la raison ne peut pas tout ; mais contrairement au désespoir du fanatisme, la raison n'est pas sans force. Jusqu'où alors peut-elle s'exercer? Pour Pascal, la philosophie ne saurait faire l'économie de la question de Dieu, Elle doit donc croiser la théologie. Mais comment vont se nouer l'ordre de l'esprit et celui de la (...) charité? Pascal produit ainsi une analyse critique de la philosophie comme telle, de ses capacités et de ses limites, que le présent ouvrage se donne pour tâche de clarifier. Que peut la philosophie? Mais qui décide de ce qu'elle peut, et surtout de ce qu'elle ne peut pas? Comment s'établissent alors ses rapports avec la théologie? Ce que Pascal nous invite ainsi à penser, c'est toujours à la fois la misère et la grandeur de la philosophie. (shrink)

Dans son dernier cours au Collège de France, Michel Foucault nous parle d'un oubli, plus fondamental à ses yeux que le fameux "oubli de l'être", ou plus précisément d'une négligence ; une négligence dont la philosophie est responsable, ce qui est d'autant plus paradoxal qu'il concerne précisément la vie philosophique. "Je voudrais, en tout cas, suggérer simplement que s'il est vrai que la question de l'être a bien été ce que la philosophie occidentale a oublié et dont l'oubli a rendu (...) possible la métaphysique, peut-être aussi la question de la vie philosophique n'a-t-elle pas cessé d'être, je ne dirais pas oubliée, mais négligée ; elle n'a pas cessé d'apparaître comme en trop par rapport à la philosophie, à la pratique philosophique, à un discours de plus en plus indexé au modèle scientifique" Cette négligence a une histoire. Car le problème de la vie philosophique a été posé dans toute sa radicalité dans l'Antiquité ; il n'était pas complètement oublié à l'époque moderne, comme en témoigne l'oeuvre de Spinoza ; mais à partir du moment "où la philosophie est devenue un métier de professeur, c'est-à-dire au début du XIXème siècle", elle a évacué du champ des problèmes pertinents, des problèmes "sérieux", cela même qui pourtant lui avait donné son horizon et sa raison d'être : la possibilité de définir une vie philosophique, c'est-à-dire une vie juste, une vie bonne, une "vraie vie". (shrink)