Philosophers

[Liza]

Um, sorry - what's the point about the duck / rabbit again? Was Witters a stoner or something? (And in my family, that's a good thing.

[jhlurie]

If you listen very carefully you can hear Ruby scream in the distance.

Not really.  Liza didn't do the "eGullet Full Monty" and bring up body fluids.

Somewhere out there a philosopher said something about body fluids.  Quick... someone go find it.   I'm betting on "bile" as the most likely suspect, rather than the ones we've spoken about previously.

[tommy]

Somewhere out there a philosopher said something about body fluids.  Quick... someone go find it.   I'm betting on "bile" as the most likely suspect, rather than the ones we've spoken about previously.

a great chinese philosopher once said:

"Man who fart in church sit in own pew."

how's dat?

[stefanyb]

Somewhere out there a philosopher said something about body fluids.  Quick... someone go find it.   I'm betting on "bile" as the most likely suspect, rather than the ones we've spoken about previously.

a great chinese philosopher once said:

"Man who fart in church sit in own pew."

how's dat?

Thats not necessarily fluid.

A famous philosoher once said  "Have sex with a prostitute to hear a hormone"  Thats two kinds of bodily fluids.

[tommy]

Thats not necessarily fluid.

generally speaking.

[stefanyb]

Changing gears back to the original question,  I've thought about it and so-called philosophy without words is, by definition, just as m'Lord Michael Lewis said- semiotics.

Never mind.

[lxt]

Yvonne – I agree that food as a product of a certain technique, as a result of one’s experimentation and experience can hardly be attributed to a philosophy; it is rather science.  However, is it wise to dismiss ‘Philosophy of food/cuisine’ as a concept?

Robert Del Grande’s reasoning, in my opinion, can be well validated as a philosophy:

“What we strive for cooking-wise comes from 4 words: simple, simplistic, complex, complicated. So, we have to caution ourselves about simplistic that becomes complicated. We like simple that offers complexity. That’s at least a paradoxical relationship and we understand how it works. Generally the world is simplistic and then realizes that it’s simplistic, and then begins to add things from a sense of insecurity, trying to get complex, but ends up as complicated. And as we say here, there’s complicated and then just past complicated is a mess and then just past a mess is a swamp. It’s a starting point that you can use… with young cooks, with every dish the first question you ask them is, ‘How much can you take away for it to be just as good?…’ Generally, with the young cooks, you can take away half of it and it generally improves…  Each dish on the plate should be a manifestation of one single thought.”

I found Robert Del Grande amusing and have a very hard time dismissing his notion as a simple ‘philosophical waxing’.  Philosophy – the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with the view to improving or reconstituting them (Webster).  Del Grande’s reasoning seems to fully qualify for the above description.

[John Whiting]

with young cooks, with every dish the first question you ask them is, ‘How much can you take away for it to be just as good?…’ Generally, with the young cooks, you can take away half of it and it generally improves…

That much is very well observed. The rest of the paragraph is ill-defined and self-contradictory waffle. For instance, simplistic means over-simplified. For the world to be oversimplified, it must be so with reference to a higher standard; but the world, by definition, must include that higher standard. In Wittgenststein's words, "The world is everything that is the case". Another chef whose culinary talents outweigh his logic and his literary style.

[Deacon]

I think it's undeniable that Alice Waters, for instance, has a very coherent "philosophy of food." It isn't the kind of thing that would be expressed in some academic treatise, but you'd be able to learn it by eating at Chez Panisse. Anyone who starts an entirely new genre of food has to be said to have her own "philosophy" of it. But the language it's expressed in isn't English or French or German--it's not linear and verbal, it's a gustatory "language." There are ingredients combined into dishes just as words are shaped into paragraphs. There are appetizers (introductions, forewords), entrees (chapters), and desserts (conclusions, afterwords). Some ideas are epigrammatic, pithy one-liners, like a one-or-two-bite amuse bouche.  Some are whimsical and light-hearted, others are grimly serious. Some philosophers are direct and to the point, and some can drone on ALL EVENING.

I do think food at the highest levels, like art or architecture at the highest levels, can use a kind of non-verbal language that expresses coherent ideas. I mean, what about "less is more"? What about "make it new"? What about "dare to be naive"?

[John Whiting]

I quite agree about Alice Waters expressing a philosophy through her food, but she also expresses it eloquently in words and through the way she has organized her restaurant. I've mentioned it before, but it's all set forth in my essay, The Green Gourmets

[lxt]

John- As Wittgenstein would say “There can never be surprises in logic”. Your point is well presented.  Since del Grande, in your opinion, had logical fallacies, his argument is not valid, as the conclusion must follow logically from the premises.  However, more often than not, in identifying logical fallacies, it’s tempting to think that if we find errors, we automatically disprove the conclusion.  Del Grande’s reasoning could be presented as a hierarchy of Atom to Element to Compound (AKA molecule) – which is of just the right complexity for cooking purposes -- to Mixture of molecules, where the last becomes ‘complicated’.  As to “Another chef whose culinary talents outweigh … his literary style,” the excerpt was taken from one of del Grande’s interviews, and hardly represents his literary talent, assuming that two different skills are required for writing and extemporaneous speaking.  Ex facto, del Grande has Ph.D. in Biochemistry along with his culinary achievements, and if there were any relevance of the IQ's' relation to educational level and the ability to express oneself decently in a literary format, I would give del Grande the benefit of the doubt.

Well, since there is no legitimate use of language beyond picturing facts and stating tautologies, I shall retire now.

[John Whiting]

Now, that's pretty good. You extemporize much grander than del Grande!

[Wilfrid]

Let me weigh in with Wittgenstein's remark about food - this is doubtless all he would have had to say on eGullet:  "I don't care what I eat, so long as it is always the same."

No, Liza, he wasn't a stoner.  Although, come to think of it, he did like to go to the cinema and sit as close to the screen as possible, and he especially liked cartoons.  The only other gastronomic fact I can add is that, unlike our own S. Plotnicki, Witters was inordinately fond of pork pies.

[Jinmyo]

I like pork pies!

[Gavin Jones]

But everyday? There's only so much pork I can take.

(even in pie format)

[Deacon]

". . . but she [Alice Waters] also expresses it eloquently in words and through the way she has organized her restaurant. I've mentioned it before, but it's all set forth in my essay, The Green Gourmets."

Not bad, Whiting. Eloquently put. What I should have said was, "A philosophy of food is BEST expressed through the food itself." People can, of course, articulate their thoughts about food verbally--we do it every day here. But no description of the Grand Canyon can substitute for staring at the Grand Canyon in person. And likewise, as much as I love talking and writing about food, I'd much rather eat it!

[lxt]

I appreciate the pun, John.  'Many who bear the wand, but few who become Bakchoi.'  Does it mean I passed initiation?

Wilfrid – Wittgenstein didn't mind what he ate so long as he ate what he liked.    

Wittgenstein's Trifle:

Put some tinned or bottled peaches in the bottom of a glass bowl. Cover with brioche slices dipped in Grand Marnier. Then a layer of proper custard, flavored with orange zest, Chill to set. Spread over whipped cream and some flaked toasted almonds. Eat every day exactly the same. Just don't think about it too much.

[Wilfrid]

The duck-rabbit.

Wittgenstein used it to illustrate the point that "seeing" is a complicated concept.  He didn't just mean that we sometimes see the picture as a duck, then sometimes as a rabbit.  As I suspected, he was after something more elaborate.

He takes the example of someone who is familiar with the picture, but has always taken it to be a picture of a rabbit.  When shown the picture and asked what they see, they say "I see a picture of a rabbit."  If it is pointed out to them that it might be a picture of a duck, they say:  "Ah, now I understand.  I now see a picture of a duck."  Or "I now see a picture of a duck-rabbit."  The conundrum is that what they actually see in physiological terms has not changed.  It's the same image delivering the same visual sensation.

So what does one mean when one uses an expression like, "Ah, now I see..." when the visual sensation actually hasn't changed?  Wittgenstein warns that we must at all costs avoid the notion that there is a kind of mental image which is a twin of the visual image, and that our mind is now seeing the mental image in a different way.  One of the consistent themes of Wittgenstein's philosophy is to show that philosophical problems are created rather than resolved by positing hypothetical mental content.  He goes on to suggest that there are uses of the expression "I see" which have more to do with imagination and interpretation than the physiological experience of sight.

Well, there you go.  Please address all questions to Lord Quinton at Oxford University, who gets paid for waffling about this stuff.  

[Jinmyo]

Ah, now I see.

[Gavin Jones]

I guess the difference is maybe better encapsulated in the separation of the verbs to eat (as ingest) and to taste (to interpret what one has ingested - not to eat a little bit of).

So with the duck-rabbit Markman cooked you would at all times be eating 'duck-rabbit' but you might taste duck or rabbit or duckrabbit?

[Wilfrid]

Ouch, double post, but the one below is the one to read.

For no reason, let me give you a line I read this morning:

"Isn't truth an idea which traverses a temperament?"

Huneker.  And I've no idea what it means, but it's striking.

[Wilfrid]

You're right, Gavin.  You could re-run Wittgenstein's analysis, substituting "taste" for "see".  Raises some interesting questions.  Say you are eating a dish, and someone says to you, "Do you taste the garlic?"  You reply, "I didn't notice it before, but yes, now I can taste it."  And of course, Witter's conundrum is that the physiological part of the taste process doesn't change when you "recognize" the garlic in the dish.

Actually, a better analogy would be a rabbit dish - say a stew -which has some duck in it which you don't notice at first.  Hmm, duck-rabbit stew.  Or pate, maybe.  Why not?

[stefanyb]

"Isn't truth an idea which traverses a temperament?"

If "traverses" were substituted with "supercedes" it would be clear to me, although I do not know if this is what was meant.

[g.johnson]

He takes the example of someone who is familiar with the picture, but has always taken it to be a picture of a rabbit.  When shown the picture and asked what they see, they say "I see a picture of a rabbit."  If it is pointed out to them that it might be a picture of a duck, they say:  "Ah, now I understand.  I now see a picture of a duck."  Or "I now see a picture of a duck-rabbit."  The conundrum is that what they actually see in physiological terms has not changed.  It's the same image delivering the same visual sensation.

So what does one mean when one uses an expression like, "Ah, now I see..." when the visual sensation actually hasn't changed?  Wittgenstein warns that we must at all costs avoid the notion that there is a kind of mental image which is a twin of the visual image, and that our mind is now seeing the mental image in a different way.  One of the consistent themes of Wittgenstein's philosophy is to show that philosophical problems are created rather than resolved by positing hypothetical mental content.  He goes on to suggest that there are uses of the expression "I see" which have more to do with imagination and interpretation than the physiological experience of sight.

I'm probably missing something here, but a couple of comments.

Though the physiological response at the input end (the retina, the primary visual cortex (PVC)) will be the same to duck or rabbit, the response in the higher processing regions will be different.

There are indeed 'mental images' that correspond (at the retina and PVC) to the physical images in a one to one fashion. At a higher level, the retinal image is broken apart for processing in different regions that detect, edges, color, movement, etc.

By some mysterious synthesis the right combination of color, edges, etc. is recognized as a rabbit or a duck. That recognition too is a physiological response (except to an unreconstructed Cartesian dualist). This is, in a way, an act of imagination, but there is no other way of imposing meaning on what we see.

[Wilfrid]

I would love to plunge into these deep waters if I wasn't running for a plane shortly.  Very interesting.  Just a quick question: do you think the higher level processing - in pure physiological terms - is going to be change when someone stops seeing just a duck and sees a rabbit for the first time - in the same picture of course?

If the answer is yes, some of Wittgenstein's premises may be flawed.  Boy, I wish I could spend some time on this.  But then, like most philosophical problems, it's not as if it's going to go away.