Is the art of cooking historically analogous to fine art?
Nadia Volgakova
Could one say the same thing about cooking?
If so, who would be Michaelangelo of cooking? or the Van Gogh? Or
Picasso though I must say that doesn't sound too appetizing. Neither
does the Pollock of cooking.
The Reids
>You know in fine art we have classical period and modern period, etc.
>Could one say the same thing about cooking?
In so far as the culture of a civilisation includes it food,
presumably art and cookery go hand in hand.
>If so, who would be Michaelangelo of cooking? or the Van Gogh? Or
>Picasso though I must say that doesn't sound too appetizing. Neither
>does the Pollock of cooking.
Brillat-Savarrin is presumably in there somewhere...and Jamie Oliver
:-) (I dont think Picasso seems unsappatising translated to food, but
Pollock has connotations of food going out rather than in and a
"Jackson Pollock" is synonyomous with the Oz "technicolour yawn" ).
Perhaps a deconstructed spag' bol' has parallels to art.
Restaurant food here currenly is all presented in portrait format
rather than the traditional landscape, perhaps the idea came from
architecture!
--
Mike Reid
More cute pussy pics "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk/txak_t.htm"
modom
Volgakova) wrote:
>You know in fine art we have classical period and modern period, etc.
By "classical" do you mean ancient Greece -- the Parthenon, the
sculptures of Phidias, and such? If so, we'd need to look into the
foods the Greeks ate in the fifth century BCE.
>
>Could one say the same thing about cooking?
>
>If so, who would be Michaelangelo of cooking? or the Van Gogh? Or
>Picasso though I must say that doesn't sound too appetizing. Neither
>does the Pollock of cooking.
I've always thought that cooking and painting had much in common, but
it's mostly the attitudes involved in each process that I mean, not
the technical specifics. There is a cookbook by the Italian Futurist
polemicist Marinetti, by the way. His Futurist Cookbook isn't
actually something I'd recommend for practical purposes, though. Most
of the recipes involve inedible materials.
I know this is not your question, but here it comes anyway:
Many contemporary artists involve food in their art practice. Check
out Rirkrit Tiravanija sometime. He's been known to feed Pad Thai to
people in galleries as part of his interactive art performances.
Janine Antoni has exhibited huge chunks of chocolate and lard which
she gnawed on and spit out in a ritualized enactment of eating
disorders. (She made lipsticks out of the spit out lard and candy
boxes out of the chocolate.) Felix Gonzales-Torres exhibited piles of
brightly colored candies which the public was invited to sample.
Often the candy piles weighed about 300 lbs, the combined weight of
the artist and his lover, both of whom were HIV positive. Such
things, simple as they are, involve multiple layers of meaning:
Christian communion ("This is my body"), for example, and a sweet
(pun) assault on standard museum behavior (Not only do you touch the
art, but you eat it).
There is an intimacy and a primordial power to food that attracts
artists. In cooking you select portions of the outside world to be
taken into your body. Usually, the parts you choose are cleaned,
purified by fire, and modified according to the customs of your people
before you eat them. Usually you eat with people for whom you feel
affection or with whom you share a bond of kinship. Given this set of
circumstances, it is not at all surprising that fasts and feasts are
used by many religious people as part of their devotional practices.
And since much recent art strives for a spiritual dimension, it's only
natural that some artists involve food in their activities.
As to Picasso and Pollock, their use of novel materials and forms in
paintings would seem to correspond nicely with certain innovations in
cooking, too. You might look again at their paintings without letting
your expectations of what a painting should be interfere with the
experience of the painting itself.
modom
"Southern barbecue is a proud thoroughbred whose bloodlines are easily traced.
Texas Barbecue is a feisty mutt with a whole lot of crazy relatives."
--Robb Walsh, Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook
Brian Connors
The Reids <cleve...@fellwalk.co.uk> wrote:
> Following up to Nadia Volgakova
>
> >You know in fine art we have classical period and modern period, etc.
>
> >Could one say the same thing about cooking?
>
> In so far as the culture of a civilisation includes it food,
> presumably art and cookery go hand in hand.
>
> >If so, who would be Michaelangelo of cooking? or the Van Gogh? Or
> >Picasso though I must say that doesn't sound too appetizing. Neither
> >does the Pollock of cooking.
>
> Brillat-Savarrin is presumably in there somewhere...and Jamie Oliver
Jamie Oliver... he's a bit Impressionist, I'd think.
> :-) (I dont think Picasso seems unsappatising translated to food, but
> Pollock has connotations of food going out rather than in and a
> "Jackson Pollock" is synonyomous with the Oz "technicolour yawn" ).
I think the Jackson Pollock school is very well represented in New
American cuisine, actually; there's a restaurant called Prose in
Arlington, MA that seems to be devoted solely to the cause of throwing
things together to see what works. They're still there AFAIK, a couple
of years after they started, so I guess they're doing something right.
(Looking at a few reviews of the place, they're interesting, btw; the
food is pretty good, but the owner (chef as well as head waitress) is
apparently a bit of a flake...)
There are definitely Eschers and Magrittes in the cooking world, though;
Thomas Keller is probably the ultimate culinary Magritte, with his knack
for making things that are actually other things. I don't know if I
could think of a solid culinary Picasso, though if there is one it
probably involves a wok and some serious Pacific Rim fusion.
And then you've got Todd English, who until recently seemed determined
to be the restaurant world's answer to Thomas Kincaid.
> Perhaps a deconstructed spag' bol' has parallels to art.
>
> Restaurant food here currenly is all presented in portrait format
> rather than the traditional landscape, perhaps the idea came from
> architecture!
I've actually seen a cookbook on stack building, but I was under the
impression that the tall food thing was over four or five years ago.
/Brian
Frogleg
Volgakova) wrote:
There are certainly fashions and fads in cooking. And great cooks
referred to as "artists." However, historically most art (before the
current age of performance art or whatever the name is for wrapping an
island in pink plastic) has been designed to last, not to be consumed.
Few cooks/chefs rise to more than local and temporary fame
unless...they write (or are on TV). Quick -- name an influential
French chef after Escoffier and before 1935.
We could only identify a very few current chefs by their styles. With
dear Julia fostering both the Art of French Cooking and the hearty
American hamburger, she defies categorization. Bocuse? The Art of
Preserved Goose with Raspberry Vinegar and Greek Olives? Who's the
champion of current architectural presentation? X on a bed of Y topped
by Z and decorated by 4" diagonally-sliced tubes of potato chips?
"Nouvelle Cuisine, roughly translated, means: I can't believe I paid
ninety-six dollars and I'm still hungry." --Mike Kalin.
Food fashions might be labeled. The Diamond Jim Brady era of upper
class dinners with 12 impossibly rich courses. Cocktails as the
critical feature in the 20s. Wartime economy, and eggless, butterless
cooking. Post-war home ec-influenced introduction of "balanced" meals,
quickly followed by cake mixes, Jell-o molds, and "convenience" foods.
The 60s and "natural" and macrobiotic foods. Brown rice and
vegetarianism as something not confined to monastaries and nudists.
"Gourmet" cooking at home in the 70s. Local, seasonal ingredients in
the 80s? Food gadgetry and cure your own bacon in the 90s. And
imported *everything* in the...oughts?
It's an interesting question.
modom
wrote:
>There are certainly fashions and fads in cooking. And great cooks
>referred to as "artists." However, historically most art (before the
>current age of performance art or whatever the name is for wrapping an
>island in pink plastic) has been designed to last, not to be consumed.
This is probably less true than you appear to believe. While archival
issues certainly were part of the rationale behind many artists'
choices of materials (bronze and oxides of iron ground into linseed
oil are said to be archival since they don't decay very quickly), in
the very long history of art there are many examples of ephemeral
aesthetic events. Music and dance come to mind, as do objects and
paintings intended for ritualistic purposes. Check out Tibetan sand
mandalas which are painstakingly "painted" with sand over many days
and then destroyed after they have served their purpose. Navajo
religious chanters also make temporary paintings as part of their
practice. Such ideas of art informed Pollock's paintings, by the way,
and continue to have influences on contemporary art.
What I want to point out basically is that before the art you refer to
as coming "before the current age..." there was art that didn't always
conform to your presupposition of an enduring object. The idea of art
being an event is hardly new. Incidentally, the great American
philosopher John Dewey argued in _Art as Experience_ that any work of
art is actually art only when it lives in a particular consciousness.
Absent anybody looking at it, even the greatest painting imaginable is
only potentially art. Put it in a closet and even _Guernica_ isn't a
complete work of art. It takes you and me to complete it in the act
of viewing. The point here is that the aesthetic experience is a
living process, not something framed and hanging lifeless on a wall.
Right now I'm disposed to extend this idea to cooking and eating, as
well because they seem to fit pretty well.
In the case of cooking, the food is consumed, not the recipe. I could
see talking about it in terms of a musical score or written
choreography or an architect's design or one of Sol Lewitt's
instruction drawings. (see
http://www.franklinfurnace.org/flow/lewitt/lewitt.html for example)
You could make another one after the first dish or performance is
done. And another after that. So even though cooking has an
ephemeral aspect to it, there is something that endures also.
Victor Sack
> Incidentally, the great American
> philosopher John Dewey argued in _Art as Experience_ that any work of
> art is actually art only when it lives in a particular consciousness.
I.e. noumenon vs. phenomenon? He must have remembered his Kant well...
[snip]
> So even though cooking has an
> ephemeral aspect to it, there is something that endures also.
Especially garlic...
Victor
Frogleg
>On Tue, 02 Jul 2002 22:21:32 GMT, nob...@nevermind.com (Frogleg)
>wrote:
>
>
>>There are certainly fashions and fads in cooking. And great cooks
>>referred to as "artists." However, historically most art (before the
>>current age of performance art or whatever the name is for wrapping an
>>island in pink plastic) has been designed to last, not to be consumed.
>
>This is probably less true than you appear to believe.
<snip>
> Music and dance come to mind, as do objects and
>paintings intended for ritualistic purposes. Check out Tibetan sand
>mandalas which are painstakingly "painted" with sand over many days
>and then destroyed after they have served their purpose. Navajo
>religious chanters also make temporary paintings as part of their
>practice. Such ideas of art informed Pollock's paintings, by the way,
>and continue to have influences on contemporary art.
Good point. I tend to equate "art" with painting, sculpture, and
architecture, 'though given a minute to think, would include music and
dance and theater. Specific dance and theater performances are pretty
ephemeral, 'though choreography, plays, and music scores are not.
However, to get me off this particular hook, the original poster
included "who would be Michaelangelo of cooking? or the Van Gogh? Or
Picasso?" I assumed he/she was talking about traditional visual art
and artists.
>
>What I want to point out basically is that before the art you refer to
>as coming "before the current age..." there was art that didn't always
>conform to your presupposition of an enduring object. The idea of art
>being an event is hardly new. Incidentally, the great American
>philosopher John Dewey argued in _Art as Experience_ that any work of
>art is actually art only when it lives in a particular consciousness.
>Absent anybody looking at it, even the greatest painting imaginable is
>only potentially art. Put it in a closet and even _Guernica_ isn't a
>complete work of art. It takes you and me to complete it in the act
>of viewing. The point here is that the aesthetic experience is a
>living process, not something framed and hanging lifeless on a wall.
>Right now I'm disposed to extend this idea to cooking and eating, as
>well because they seem to fit pretty well.
To quote Peg Bracken, "I didn't come here to argue" the definition of
Art. But it's kind of interesting. Given that you subscribe to the
idea that the participation of the viewer is necessary to complete a
work of art, how many viewers does it take? Ah hah! The Navajo shamen
and his subject? I.e., two? Or perhaps just the appreciation of the
artist himself? One?
"Hanging lifeless on a wall" is where I usually expect to see
paintings. That's where I look at 'em in museums; that's where I put
'em in my house. It seems appropriate, somehow. :-)
>In the case of cooking, the food is consumed, not the recipe.
Another good point. However, the number of identifiable people
associated with particular recipes is rather small. Virtually
non-existent, I think. To go back to the original post, who *could* be
the Van Gogh of, say, Caesar salad, with no agreement as to who first
produced it? Not to mention the lack of absolutes in recipes.How many
variations of Caesar salad (or fettucini Alfredo) are there?
> I could
>see talking about it in terms of a musical score or written
>choreography or an architect's design or one of Sol Lewitt's
>instruction drawings. (see
>http://www.franklinfurnace.org/flow/lewitt/lewitt.html for example)
>You could make another one after the first dish or performance is
>done. And another after that. So even though cooking has an
>ephemeral aspect to it, there is something that endures also.
Not really in the sense of Art, however. More as general culture or
societal interest. At best, a craft. My grandma's peach preserves.
Chef Somebody's way with sweetbreads. Are Chez Panisse's recipes
classic and unique works of art? Not at all. Alice Waters is one of
many chefs who promotes using fresh, local, in-season ingredients.
Dear Julia didn't create/write down the be-all, end-all recipe for
scallop soup, although it'd be hard to convince me that she didn't.
Cooking ain't Art. :-)
modom
Sack) wrote:
>modom <mo...@koyote.com> wrote:
>
>> Incidentally, the great American
>> philosopher John Dewey argued in _Art as Experience_ that any work of
>> art is actually art only when it lives in a particular consciousness.
>
>I.e. noumenon vs. phenomenon? He must have remembered his Kant well...
>
Not exactly. Dewey makes no mention of Kant that I recall, nor of
Kant's ding an sich. As a Pragmatist he had no use for "something X,
I know not what." The German connection would more likely be Hegel's
_Phenomenologie des Geistes_ with its insistence on examining the
experience of consciousness without regard to a putative object beyond
the phenomena. This is not to say that Dewey was an Idealist, only
that there seem to be certain very general parallels between his and
Hegel's modes of thinking.
Yadda Yadda. Whatever.
>[snip]
>> So even though cooking has an
>> ephemeral aspect to it, there is something that endures also.
>
>Especially garlic...
I've eaten enough of the stuff by now that I don't notice it on
people's breath. A few years ago, I visited a friend's house after
snacking on some marinated mushrooms with herbs and garlic. After I'd
been there for a few moments, my pal asked his wife what she was
cooking with all that garlic because it smelled pretty good.
She wasn't cooking.
modom
wrote:
>On Tue, 02 Jul 2002 20:05:00 -0500, modom <mo...@koyote.com> wrote:
>
>>This is probably less true than you appear to believe.
><snip>
>> Music and dance come to mind, as do objects and
>>paintings intended for ritualistic purposes. Check out Tibetan sand
>>mandalas which are painstakingly "painted" with sand over many days
>>and then destroyed after they have served their purpose. Navajo
>>religious chanters also make temporary paintings as part of their
>>practice. Such ideas of art informed Pollock's paintings, by the way,
>>and continue to have influences on contemporary art.
>
>Good point. I tend to equate "art" with painting, sculpture, and
>architecture, 'though given a minute to think, would include music and
>dance and theater. Specific dance and theater performances are pretty
>ephemeral, 'though choreography, plays, and music scores are not.
>
>However, to get me off this particular hook, the original poster
>included "who would be Michaelangelo of cooking? or the Van Gogh? Or
>Picasso?" I assumed he/she was talking about traditional visual art
>and artists.
You're off the hook because you're right about the OP's query and its
parameters. I just wanted to complicate things a little because of
your reference to Christo and its implications for contemporary art.
I'm an artist, you see.
>>
>>What I want to point out basically is that before the art you refer to
>>as coming "before the current age..." there was art that didn't always
>>conform to your presupposition of an enduring object. The idea of art
>>being an event is hardly new. Incidentally, the great American
>>philosopher John Dewey argued in _Art as Experience_ that any work of
>>art is actually art only when it lives in a particular consciousness.
>>Absent anybody looking at it, even the greatest painting imaginable is
>>only potentially art. Put it in a closet and even _Guernica_ isn't a
>>complete work of art. It takes you and me to complete it in the act
>>of viewing. The point here is that the aesthetic experience is a
>>living process, not something framed and hanging lifeless on a wall.
>>Right now I'm disposed to extend this idea to cooking and eating, as
>>well because they seem to fit pretty well.
>
>To quote Peg Bracken, "I didn't come here to argue" the definition of
>Art. But it's kind of interesting. Given that you subscribe to the
>idea that the participation of the viewer is necessary to complete a
>work of art, how many viewers does it take? Ah hah! The Navajo shamen
>and his subject? I.e., two? Or perhaps just the appreciation of the
>artist himself? One?
Artists generally make bad audiences for their own art because of the
trap of ego involvement. Although there are notable exceptions like
John Cage, it's best that the audience be another, more neutral party.
Dewey speaks of the individual experience not of a group. And that
seems fine by me. There are socially complicating factors, of course,
when one comes to issues like market value, fame, historical
importance, and cultural influence.
>
>"Hanging lifeless on a wall" is where I usually expect to see
>paintings. That's where I look at 'em in museums; that's where I put
>'em in my house. It seems appropriate, somehow. :-)
Yes it certainly does. And I wanted to suggest that such an
experience and such an expectation of what art should be is itself a
historical idea. It had a begining, and it will someday have an end.
Museums of art didn't exist when Valasquez painted Las Meninas. By
their nature, museums tend to establish a separation between art and
life. For about the past fifty years, the friction between individual
art production and, some say ossified, official culture as experienced
in museums has constituted a major issue for many artists who sought
to connect art with life. This has led to more fluid art in some
cases.
>
>>In the case of cooking, the food is consumed, not the recipe.
>
>Another good point. However, the number of identifiable people
>associated with particular recipes is rather small. Virtually
>non-existent, I think. To go back to the original post, who *could* be
>the Van Gogh of, say, Caesar salad, with no agreement as to who first
>produced it? Not to mention the lack of absolutes in recipes.How many
>variations of Caesar salad (or fettucini Alfredo) are there?
>
I thought there was a Cesar who invented that salad. He worked in a
Tiajuana restaurant. Or did I dream that up?
>> I could
>>see talking about it in terms of a musical score or written
>>choreography or an architect's design or one of Sol Lewitt's
>>instruction drawings. (see
>>http://www.franklinfurnace.org/flow/lewitt/lewitt.html for example)
>>You could make another one after the first dish or performance is
>>done. And another after that. So even though cooking has an
>>ephemeral aspect to it, there is something that endures also.
>
>Not really in the sense of Art, however. More as general culture or
>societal interest. At best, a craft. My grandma's peach preserves.
>Chef Somebody's way with sweetbreads. Are Chez Panisse's recipes
>classic and unique works of art? Not at all. Alice Waters is one of
>many chefs who promotes using fresh, local, in-season ingredients.
>Dear Julia didn't create/write down the be-all, end-all recipe for
>scallop soup, although it'd be hard to convince me that she didn't.
>
>Cooking ain't Art. :-)
Anthony Bourdain in _Kitchen Confidential_ agrees with you entirely.
He despises kitchen artists, and praises skilled hard-working
craftsmen. Artists, in his opinion, are too fussy and egotistical for
real cooking on the scale and level of intensity that his book
celebrates. I'm cool with that, except for a problem with that
characterization of what an artist is. Art is also work. Artists
have to do manual and intellectual labor. There is a certain myth
abroad in our culture about artists, and that myth is only partially
related to the facts of the profession. Take for example the idea of
creativity: Artists are said to create entirely new forms and ideas in
an almost God-like fashion. But Picasso, a truly creative man, didn't
just make his stuff up out of thin air. There were precedents in
artists from the previous generation (notably Cezanne) and in African
sculpture. Even the idea of looking at non-European art for
inspriation wasn't original to him, Gauguin did it twenty years before
Picasso's first Cubist canvas was begun. Be-all and end-all hasn't
yet occured in art. And to my way of thinking it won't occur. Nor
should it.
Sorry to ramble on so. I'll be quiet now.
GaryO
It would follow that you are assuming food in Western culture to be
separate from Eastern culture and others such as African, South
American, etc., just as your choice of artists names imply. It may
be easier for you to research the subject of food by breaking it down
more akin to music than art. For example, while there is the broad
genre which the average uneducated person considers to be classical
music (aka "longhair" music, "dead guys'" music, etc.), that general
area of Western music breaks down into six eras: Middle Ages,
Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Twentieth Century. Do
note that there is, indeed, an era formally designated as "Classical"
within the genre which the general public often denotes as simply,
Classical music. Although it would seem otherwise, much of the
popular music from various cultures has not stood the test of time to
be included in any of the eras, regardless of actual chronology.
Likewise, while there appears to be an emerging world cuisine which
may or may not be studied analogous to the six eras of music, with the
ethnic favorites which have not yet made it into that repertoire being
likened to that popular music which did not withstand the passing of
time. The scope of this task is far beyond this post, however.
Suffice it to say that Middle Ages in music MAY be analogous to
medieval cookery in French cooking. One might state a case for
Auguste Escoffier being the father of modern cooking, and, perhaps,
the greatest cook ever. However (and before acknowledging the vast
knowledge from the history of Chinese cooking), if one considers
classical French cooking to be like the six eras of music, does one
discount all other cuisines as analogous to popular music which did
not withstand the passing of time? If so, does one ignore Italian
cuisine? Does one consider medieval cookery to be the primitive
forbear for all cooking, when the much earlier ancient Roman and
ancient Greek cookery was similar and probably further evolved? Many
Chinese will say that all recipes that you can find in Western
cuisines have a predecessor in Chinese cooking.
For an interesting insight into the tip of the iceberg which you have
queried upon, read Ayla Algar's "Classical Turkish Cooking:
Traditional Turkish Food For The American Kitchen," which is a very
fine cookbook with excellent historical background as well as the
interesting anecdotal asides which seem to spice up most great
cookbooks. For an interesting treatise of a much more finite subject,
read James Beard's "American Cookery," a true masterpiece.
Hope this helps (and hoping that this was not too far off the mark),
GaryO
Victor Sack
> On Wed, 3 Jul 2002 08:44:10 +0200, sa...@uni-duesseldorf.de (Victor
> Sack) wrote:
> >
> >I.e. noumenon vs. phenomenon? He must have remembered his Kant well...
> >
> Not exactly. Dewey makes no mention of Kant that I recall, nor of
> Kant's ding an sich. As a Pragmatist he had no use for "something X,
> I know not what." The German connection would more likely be Hegel's
> _Phenomenologie des Geistes_ with its insistence on examining the
> experience of consciousness without regard to a putative object beyond
> the phenomena. This is not to say that Dewey was an Idealist, only
> that there seem to be certain very general parallels between his and
> Hegel's modes of thinking.
What I said was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it is indeed true
that Dewey could have hardly escaped Kant's influence. In fact, the
influence was very heavy indeed. It is obvious that he used some of
Kant's postulates as building blocks of his own philosophy. In fact,
the _ding an/für sich_ was just such a block. In this case, he just
took Kantian idea of objects (art or otherwise) having by themselves no
specific purpose a bit further. Hegel, himself heavily influenced by
Kant, contributed his own ('experience') part.
There are more borrowings from Kant, such as Dewey's emphasis on
morality as growth, with the growth itself being the only moral 'end'.
Yet, however much all that moral growth could imply Kantian _summum
bonum_, he emphatically rejected such a notion. Etc., etc. This all is
akin to your saying that Picasso had precedents like Cezanne, etc....
All of this is just IMHO, of course. BTW, Dewey's doctoral thesis was
on Kant.
> >Especially garlic...
>
> I've eaten enough of the stuff by now that I don't notice it on
> people's breath.
Unless I happen to have eaten some myself, I still notice, but now I
generally don't mind... So, I'm well on my way to achieve your hallowed
state. :-)
Victor
Greykits
.
>By
their nature, museums tend to establish a separation between art and
>life.
I haven't been back to the Denver Art Museum, pretentious piece of crap it is,
in 15 years. While visiting there with my mother, who painted, we looked
closely at some brush-strokes, not touching at all, and the guard shooed us
away. Maybe we should have been three feet away from the painting and we were
one foot away. Maybe we looked like terrorists or thieves? To borrow a word
from another person here, I would call this ferkoktah (didn't spell it right).
Like, we were going to nick off a piece of the pieta in Cowtown.....
I think that maybe Life may be an art.....you go through it gracefully or
clumsily, always tripping on your big old feet. Enough of this.
Cooking is a performance art, not so much like a painting. You have a
painting, or a statue, there forever. As a painter, I can say that I've had
some meals that have been works of art, in that realm. I suppose they would
have been performance art, like the speakers in the gutters in downtown Denver
that made different sounds. And, no, I don't cook with linseed oil.
modom
Sack) wrote:
>What I said was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it is indeed true
>that Dewey could have hardly escaped Kant's influence. In fact, the
>influence was very heavy indeed. It is obvious that he used some of
>Kant's postulates as building blocks of his own philosophy. In fact,
>the _ding an/für sich_ was just such a block. In this case, he just
>took Kantian idea of objects (art or otherwise) having by themselves no
>specific purpose a bit further. Hegel, himself heavily influenced by
>Kant, contributed his own ('experience') part.
It's been a long time since I read any German philosophers. I don't
recall any _fur sich_ in Kant, for example. "For itselfness" is a
category I always associated with Hegel. But then, my exposure to
Kant was limited to the first Critique and the _Foundations of the
Metaphysics of Morals_. I attacked the Critique of Judgment on a
couple of occasions and found it to be entirely opaque. Anyhow, I'm
sure you're right. Ain't nobody in the Euro-American tradition that's
escaped Kant. On this July 4th, I should acknowledge him as THE
philosopher of democracy, in fact.
Although I read some Dewey a little more recently, I don't recall the
particulars you refer to. His repeated references to "the living
organism" and similar things in _Art as Experience_ seemed to me to
resonate with an organic root metaphor (OBFood: Dr. Pepper) one can
find in Hegel's philosophy. In the preface to the Phenomenology, for
example, Hegel writes about the developing concept of truth by
discussing the various stages of a plant's development: seed, sprout,
stem, leaf, bud, flower, fruit, and whatnot.
>
>There are more borrowings from Kant, such as Dewey's emphasis on
>morality as growth, with the growth itself being the only moral 'end'.
>Yet, however much all that moral growth could imply Kantian _summum
>bonum_, he emphatically rejected such a notion. Etc., etc. This all is
>akin to your saying that Picasso had precedents like Cezanne, etc....
>
I should reread Kant, I guess. I recall his conception of morality as
a sort of actualization of true freedom through Reason, not as an idea
of growth. Or do you equate those ideas?
>All of this is just IMHO, of course. BTW, Dewey's doctoral thesis was
>on Kant.
>
There you have it! BTW, have you read Menand's book _The Metaphysical
Club_? It's a quadruple biography of sorts about the intellectual
lives of Dewey, W. James, O. W. Holmes, and C. S. Peirce. I started
it a couple of weeks ago, but haven't gotten far into it yet. (Things
keep getting in the way.) Menand locates the Americans' distrust for
anything like a _summum bonun_ in the collective experience of our
Civil War. At least in Holmes's case. He got shot a couple of times,
and all the conflicting absolutes surrounding that war seemed utterly
wrong-headed in the face of the carnage he witnessed.
>> >Especially garlic...
>>
>> I've eaten enough of the stuff by now that I don't notice it on
>> people's breath.
>
>Unless I happen to have eaten some myself, I still notice, but now I
>generally don't mind... So, I'm well on my way to achieve your hallowed
>state. :-)
Yeah, right.
I'll shut up now. Gotta got to Wal Mart for ribs and an ethernet
card.
Victor Sack
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2002 08:17:16 +0200, sa...@uni-duesseldorf.de (Victor
> Sack) wrote:
>
> >What I said was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it is indeed true
> >that Dewey could have hardly escaped Kant's influence. In fact, the
> >influence was very heavy indeed. It is obvious that he used some of
> >Kant's postulates as building blocks of his own philosophy. In fact,
> >the _ding an/für sich_ was just such a block. In this case, he just
> >took Kantian idea of objects (art or otherwise) having by themselves no
> >specific purpose a bit further. Hegel, himself heavily influenced by
> >Kant, contributed his own ('experience') part.
>
> It's been a long time since I read any German philosophers.
Same here. Actually, it's been a long time since I read *any*
philosophers...
> I don't
> recall any _fur sich_ in Kant, for example. "For itselfness" is a
> category I always associated with Hegel.
Who borrowed it from Kant. It's in Kant's _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_
(Critique of Pure Reason), I think.
> I should reread Kant, I guess. I recall his conception of morality as
> a sort of actualization of true freedom through Reason, not as an idea
> of growth. Or do you equate those ideas?
No, it has only an indirect connection to freedom. Kant's _summum
bonum_ is a combination of virtue and happiness. 'Virtue' here is
perhaps comparable to fortitude, a strength of obedience to duty, to
moral obligations. It is, however, freedom of one's actions, thoughts,
emotions, etc. that qualifies them as moral obligations at all. Moral
perfection is attained through doing one's duty, and one is duty-bound
to perfect oneself. One is also duty-bound to promote the happiness of
others.
Now, Dewey (in Reconstruction of Philosophy) takes a similar view of
moral growth, but rejects the notion of _summum bonum_, because he holds
that human nature is constantly changing and there could be no such
absolute. According to him, there can be no absolutes, and fixed moral
standards aren't practically feasible.
> There you have it! BTW, have you read Menand's book _The Metaphysical
> Club_?
Nope, wasn't even aware of the book's existence...
> It's a quadruple biography of sorts about the intellectual
> lives of Dewey, W. James, O. W. Holmes, and C. S. Peirce. I started
> it a couple of weeks ago, but haven't gotten far into it yet. (Things
> keep getting in the way.) Menand locates the Americans' distrust for
> anything like a _summum bonun_ in the collective experience of our
> Civil War. At least in Holmes's case. He got shot a couple of times,
> and all the conflicting absolutes surrounding that war seemed utterly
> wrong-headed in the face of the carnage he witnessed.
This is very close to Dewey's position indeed, which is that moral
responsibility has to be determined by intelligent choice - for each
case is a special one - and not by appeals to abstract absolutes.
> I'll shut up now. Gotta got to Wal Mart for ribs and an ethernet
> card.
A new, very fast cooking method? Tell us more.
Here's a recipe for the soup I'll be making this weekend if I manage to
score some sorrel. The recipe is from _Twelve Months of Monastery
Soups_ by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette.
Victor
Saint Bertille Herb Soup
1 small head leaf lettuce
1 bunch sorrel
1 cup chopped parsley
10 scallions or 2 leeks
1 bunch watercress
butter
1 1/2 quarts water (or vegetable stock if served hot)
1 cup white wine
1/2 cup cream or half-and-half
1 egg yolk, beaten
1/2 cup chervil
salt and pepper to taste
1. Shred the lettuce and the sorrel. Chop the parsley, scallion and
watercress into small pieces.
2. Melt the butter in the soup pot, add the chopped greens, and cook
slowly for a few minutes over low heat. Stir continually. Add the
water (or stock) and the wine. Cover the pot and cook for about 40
minutes.
3. Remove the pot from the heat, add the cream, beaten egg, chervil,
salt, and pepper. Blend well in a blender. Reheat the soup for a few
minutes, but do not allow it to boil. Refrigerate the soup and serve
cold. Or it can be served hot with slices of French bread on the side.