“UC grad targets vending machines - Akron Beacon Journal” plus 4 more

Attentive readers of this blog may have noticed that those who post comments to my entries often show two interesting and complementary attitudes: a fundamental distrust of (if not downright contempt for) philosophy, coupled with an overly enthusiastic endorsement of science. Take, for instance, my recurring argument that some (but not all!) of the "new atheists" engage in scientistic attitudes by overplaying the epistemological power of science while downplaying (or even simply negating) the notion that science fundamentally depends on non-empirical (i.e., philosophical) assumptions to even get started. read more

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Philosophy Grad Targets Vending Machines - NBC4 Columbus

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 05:41 AM PST

CINCINNATI—A University of Cincinnati philosophy grad's reasoning on vending machines has brought him into conflict with the law.

Twenty-four-year-old Matthew Peterson pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts each of vandalism and breaking and entering. Records show he told police he cut cables and lines to up to 40 beverage and other vending machines on campus because he opposes wasting electricity for advertising and what he called unhealthy or socially isolating products.

As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped two other related charges against the 2007 graduate.

Peterson will face a sentence Dec. 15 ranging from probation to four years in prison.

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One Barrel: What's wrong with "natural wine" - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 02:38 PM PST

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Which commment from which defender of modern winemaking advances did it? Somewhere in the past couple weeks I had to accept: Natural wine is toast.

Not the concept, of course. The belief that wine should be made with a minimum of intervention needed is one worth exploring, and one I'll keep exploring here. But ... that term. It has officially shark-jumped from obscure to trite. Let it take its place alongside artisanal, hand-crafted, sustainable. At least this year, it has been drained of its meaning and reborn as marketing scrawl.

When last we left the One Barrel effort, the SunHawk blend had just begun fermenting. I'll get back to its progress soon (it's been doing just fine, thanks) and compare how we might have made it in more conventional terms.

But let's briefly take a detour. Though too many rhetorical barbs are being launched at "natural wine" by believers in full-intervention winemaking, I realized that I had fallen into a linguistic trap. "Natural" is perhaps the worst word to befall the edible world in a generation. It's bad enough that "organic" as a certified standard has been poked with enough holes to look like Swiss cheese (from BGH-free milk, natch). But "natural" is a true mess. And it's one that winemakers are going to be tangling over for a while. (Look here, here and here for examples.)

I'd apparently forgotten how much the term used to irk me when I was covering the food industry, where "natural" mostly means not processed, colored or with additives. Pretty meager definition, you ask me. In fact, five years ago I called it "[p]robably the most used of the informal food monikers, and perhaps the least meaningful."

(Warning: Anyone not entranced by Enlightement philosophy may want to skip the next couple paragraphs.)

Then I had a flashback to my college years, when under the provocation of the brilliant Columbia rhetorician Ted Tayler, I tackled what I perceived to be the fundamental flaw in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the early crafters of naturalist thought.

Rousseau's theory of natural man (which admittedly has been widely misinterpreted, including by me) pointed toward a state of nature as a way to heal the ills of civilization. Not so surprising for an 18th-century philosopher, but of course the problem with advocating a return to nature is that it presumes a destruction of the society's constructs. This fanciful "state of nature," my collegiate self argued, was a convenient fiction.

Is "natural" winemaking any different? A (very esoteric) book could be filled with the comparisons between wine and Rousseau's philosophy, but the fundamental concern applies to both: You can't simply revert to a state of nature, because it doesn't actually exist.

So what, then, should "natural wine" represent? Perhaps a look back to earlier, less intrusive, less constructed ways of doing things. The linguistic mess (and cynical harnessing of "natural") aside, that's most of what the so-called natural wine movement has tried to achieve — to interpret what wine can offer with a minimum of obfuscation. That's quite different from the sandal-wearing, dirty-cask cliché that natural wine is sometimes painted with. Aside from the foot-stomping, nothing in the course of our One Barrel winemaking this year has been rustic. And there are too many renowned winemakers — from Aubert de Villaine to Josko Gravner — who believe in a less-is-more approach for it to be simply a fringe movement.

Is it time to find a better term? "Minimalist wine"? "Hands-off wine"? Catchprhases have long halflives in the modern wine industry, so I have no doubt that "natural" will soon be invoked with abandon: "made using the most natural means possible," "an all-natural winemaking process." The potential for abuse is only slightly more reductionist than those who boil "natural wine" down to a thing about yeast or a thing about sulfur dioxide.

But again I circle back to my mental comparison between natural wine and the simplicity of farm-to-table cooking. Did Alice Waters & Co. end classic French technique and rich reductions? Hardly. Should every restaurant bank so heavily on simplicity? Probably not. But the push away from fussy was revolutionary in its way, and after a generation of more in-your-face winemaking, it's important to acknowledge a voice that argues for doing less.

As it turns out, I'd jotted down some thoughts from One Barrel co-conspirator Kevin Kelley on the matter, and I think that's a good place to leave things until next time:

"The arguments I hear all the time is that wine is a contrived product. It's manmade. It has nothing to do with nature. But we're a part of nature and to remove ourselves from that is wrong. So I think some of the definitions, some of the viewpoints of natural winemaking are still thinking in that mentality.

"I say it all the time myself, I'm trying to remove myself from the process. What I should be saying is that I'm trying to acknowledge my place in this process, but trust nature to do what is best."

Next: Considering the alternatives. (Read more One Barrel entries here.)

Posted By: Jon Bonn (Email, Twitter) | November 19 2009 at 10:30 AM

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SU Humanities Center presents new, informal Faculty Works series - CNYLink from Eagle Newspapers

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:58 PM PST

"Faculty Works," a new series of informal presentations by Syracuse University humanities scholars, gets under way at the SU Humanities Center with an inaugural event featuring Edward F. Mooney, professor of religion and philosophy reading from his latest book, "Lost Intimacy in American Thought: Recovering Personal Philosophy From Thoreau to Cavell" (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009).

The presentation is Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 12:30 p.m. in the Leonard and Ruth Sainsbury Library on the second floor of the SU Humanities Center. This event-and all others in the series-is free and open to the public, and is preceded by a light lunch at noon. For more information, call 443-7192.

Gregg Lambert, Dean's Professor of the Humanities, says the monthly series is designed to highlight faculty scholarship in a fun, relaxed environment. "We will feature readings from faculty essays, chapters, poetry and short stories, as well as related audio and visual material," says Lambert, who also serves as founding director of the SU Humanities Center and as principal investigator of the Andrew W. Mellon Central New York Humanities Corridor. "My hope is that that these presentations will trigger interdisciplinary conversations that continue well beyond the events themselves."

Mooney, whose scholarship lies at the intersection of religion, philosophy and literature, has published eight books and dozens of chapters, articles and essays. "Lost Intimacy" casts new light on a strand of American philosophical writing by Henry David Thoreau, Henry Bugbee, Stanley Cavell and others.

"These writers used literature and autobiography to convey what it means to be human, emotionally speaking," says Lambert. "Ed's book examines contemporary American thought through the lens of intimate, transformational writing."

"Lost Intimacy" continues a polemic that Mooney began in his last book, "On Søreon Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time" (Ashagte Publishing Company, 2007), about the role of the humanities. "We have in the humanities a place for discovering voice, for hearing testimony, confession and eloquence, for writing out a self, for letting oneself be read by texts and thus transformed, for probing that fugitive murmur, the soul," says Mooney. "The passages I share will highlight this spirit of intimate exchange and mutual recognition."

Lambert has high hopes for "Faculty Works," inspired by the success of the short-lived "Humanities Coffee Hour" from two years ago. "One of the goals of the SU Humanities Center is to bring people together for focused discussions and for special meetings and events," he says. "I think there's room on campus to be substantive without being stuffy or formal."

Mooney will be followed in February by English professor Bruce Smith, who will read from his latest book of poetry.

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Philosophy

Thursday, November 19, 2009