Discussing an aspect of the European avant-garde that has often been neglected-its relationship to the embodied experience of food; its sensation; and its consumption-Cecilia Novero exposes the surprisingly key roles that food plays in the theoretical foundations and material aesthetics of a broad stratum of works ranging from the Italian Futurist Cookbook to the magazine Dada; Walter Benjamins writings on eating and cooking; Daniel Spoerris Eat Art; and the French New Realists.Starting from the premise that avant-garde art involves the questioning of bourgeois aesthetics; Novero demonstrates that avant-garde artists; writers; and performers have produced an oppositional aesthetics of indigestible art. Through the rhetoric of incorporation and consumption and the use of material ingredients in their work; she shows; avant-garde artists active in the 1920s and 1930s as well as the neo-avant-garde movements engaged critically with consumer culture; memory; and history.Attention to food in avant-garde aesthetics; Novero asserts; reveals how these works are rooted in a complex temporality that associates memory and consumption with dynamics of change.
#926363 in eBooks 2005-08-05 2005-08-05File Name: B00352LB2G
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Interesting approach to the matter of truth and knowldgeBy Elizabeth G.I am using this as a text for a philosophy class on knowledge. The book is a very readable text that explains current debates about the objectivity/subjectivity of truth and knowledge. I believe students will find the book interesting and very readable -- and issues are addressed in a way that includes discussions they will have had with others outside a philosophy class.5 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Lynch v. HeersinkiBy Kenneth H. WatmanI suspect my comment comes too late. but. having finished Professor Lynchs book and enjoyed it. I am motivated to write. even if no one reads what I say.Professor Lynch does commit both the naturalistic fallacy and the is/ought fallacy. But he does not conflate them. Indeed the key to his argument is that he doesnt. Instead he applies a pollsters or psychologists empirical approach to the "ought" problem. Maybe the better way to put it. he applies a kind of Delphi method to the "ought" problem. But he does not use a naive "intuitionist" or "sentimentalist" approach. as does Hume. Professor Lynch is more thoughtful than that. So Mr. Heersinkis criticism is solid. and would be even more so were he to make the following distinctions in Professor Lynchs methodology.Rather than committing straight-forwardly the naturalistic fallacy. a simply confusion between "is" and "ought." Professor Lynch is more provocative. He repeatedly founds his "ought" statements on what he believes most people think or almost instinctively feel. So he asks if he or we would like to be brains in vats. and he is correct to say neither he nor I nor most of the rest of us (probably) would choose that option. He argues therefore. what most people think is an indication. empirically valuable data. of whether the truth is an objectively existing "ought." In other words. he is saying. "XXX million people must be on to something for them to all feel alike."But it is here he makes a fundamental error. not of logic but of empiricism. Though ones first reaction is to say that it is a deep fallacy to implicitly assert the truth of a proposition based on what some number of people thinks it is true. I do not believe the truth value of widely shared feelings and beliefs can be so easily dismissed. Certainly. the earth is not flat. no matter whether everyone in the world thinks it is. and it is highly likely the Theory of Evolution is true. regardless of the large number of Creationists.But I do not automatically dismiss the views of Creationists. Rather. a view held by so many motivates me to think. not dismiss. Similarly we also know empirically there is "wisdom in crowds." at least as to certain questions. When a great many people believe something to be true. it deserves our attention. though that alone is not sufficient to support agreement.That attention it deserves arises from the demonstrable truth that what a great many people think often turns out to have substance or partial truth. though hardly all the time. Put another way. what a great many people believe or feel are legitimate data for addressing "ought" questions. If one is asking whether finding and acting according to the truth brings happiness or a certain satisfaction to many people. instrumentally or as an end in itself. an empirical finding that the truth does bring those things cannot be ignored as irrelevant to certain. important "ought" propositions..If it is empirically supportable that finding and acting according to the truth brings happiness or a certain satisfaction to many people. then one to say to many (most)(all) people. "You ought to seek the truth. if you have as your goal happiness or a certain satisfaction." Our study of human behavior empirically supports this contingent "ought" assertion.In that way. the is/ought distinction can be substantially blurred or even eliminated. Professor Quine does something similar. I believe. in his criticism of skepticism. Hume. and the analytical/synthetic distinction.What remains then is for Professor Lynch is to show empirically how many people actually believe as he says they do. His argument based on what you and I might believe. explicitly or tacitly. just isnt remotely good enough to even suspect his "ought" conclusion is true. He can substantiate that conclusion only if he can show empirically that most do indeed find happiness or that certain satisfaction when finding and acting according to the truth of the world or the semantic position that asserts it.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. True DatBy bronx book nerdI recently began delving into philosophy and am reading a number of books on philosophical subjects. I read and reviewed the The Dream Weaver: One Boys Journey Through the Landscape of Reality (Anniversary Edition) (2nd Edition)and am currently reading Sophies World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (FSG Classics)and The Philosophers Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods (CourseSmart). I firmly believe that philosophy has a lot to offer to get a better understanding of reality and to form sound beliefs. At the same time this new endeavor is a challenge and yet another reason why I should have paid more attention while in college. particularly since I attended Columbia where the required core curriculum course Contemporary Civilization covered all of the major works in the subject.True to Life attempts to make the case that not only is truth something good to strive for its own sake but also something necessary for a well-functioning liberal society. For each of his own arguments. Lynch presents possible opposing views as well as his refutations to those views. Overall. I think he makes a convincing case that the pursuit of truth is necessary because it is both instrumentally good and because it is good for its own sake. I will not pretend to be able to restate his case but I will attempt to add a couple of other reasons why the pursuit of truth is good. First. lying can become a habit. one that can become more comfortable with the more it is practiced. This can lead to decline in other virtues and an increase in other vices. For example. the person who gets comfortable with lying about why they are home getting late from work. while perhaps initially for no bad reason. may soon be tempted to engage in some other wrongdoing during the time that now covered by the lie. Second. lying deprives. in a sense. other people of the opportunity to exercise other good character traits. For example. being honest about a harm caused gives the offended person the chance to exercise forgiveness. compassion and understanding. Obviously that would not be the primary purpose of truth-telling. but the reality is that these characteristics are also ones that need introduction and practice for one to become "good" at them. as in to know when to exercise them properly.That said. as a layperson. I found Lynchs book to be relatively easy to comprehend and appropriately challenging when the details called for it. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting a thorough understanding of the philosophical viewpoints on truth. both those that see it as a worthwhile pursuit. and those that do not.
