...more on this post after my obsessive marathon of "the office" season three...
Now that I’ve returned and have a silent time to work, I was thinking about how P, C, S, or A could be applied to the act of eating. I’ve come to this conclusion.
Philosophy has a great role in eating, because not only do we consider if we are hungry or not, but we have ideas on what we want to eat and what we don’t. Most of these ideas stemmed from pleasant or unpleasant experiences with the item we consider eating. Foods can make our mood change, feel more energized, or even put us to sleep. We base our choice for our meal on those factors. Also the time of day, place, or people who may be eating with us. All of these factors determine our final order.
Craft also has a pretty decent sized place in this act. How we eat is a skill taught to us by our elders as we grow into adulthood, and the style in which you eat reflects your own person. In a sense philosophy and craft team up on the act of eating. The way you hold your fork and knife, and which hand is used for what, where your napkin is placed and how well you control the food on your plate. This is all a matter of skill. Anyone can hold these items and get the food into their mouth, but it takes refining and a good deal of now intuitive control, but at one time those inset abilities had to be taught to us.
Science plays the largest part in eating. The food we ingest has cretin affects on the body, good, bad, or indifferent, but an effect either way. The way food tastes is all a reaction of the food interacting with the nerves in the mouth and can basically be traced to electrical impulses sent to the brain. Which make us salivate, reject or consume, and break down the food.
Art, has a very little role in this act, the only way I can validate art in the act of eating is the presentation of the meal. The way food is presented can be considered an art form; in fact, every category can be applied to the presentation and preparation of food. However when dealing with the consumption. Art has no ground in which to stand.
1 comment:
On eating and PACS: eating is a good choice of an act to examine in respect of gaining a general sense of the use of the categories. It is obviously a general approach. We are not looking at eating a particular meal at a particular time, but eating, in general, as considered over all time, so long as eating in some form has been and will be. In this case, we may well ask whether philosophy, art, or science, are really very considerable players. How much time, in respect to eating, do you Matt devote to contemplating the moral implications of eating? Maybe for you a lot... many people I would venture a guess are less involved with the "higher" aspects of eating; most of the act-of-eating is reproduction of learned behaviors. This is (in my understanding) a function of craft.
Science would be employed in studying a new food, to determine its palatability, or in studying the effects of some condition effecting the sense of taste (say, having a cold); young children are great food scientists, while older folks tend to be simply crafty about eating.
You're right, I think, about art and eating. It tends to be at the low end of the chart. Should we do something about that?
Post a Comment