Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Ix. Remembering Tasting Thinking: Unfinished Conversations Friedrich Hölderlin’S Andenken, Poetry Being, Anaximander Heraclitus, Rilke Heidegger, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

My conversations with Friedrich Hölderlin arose unexpectedly from a first reading of his poem Andenken / Remembrance. The poem begins with memories from a visit he made at age 31 to Bordeaux, France in 1801. His memories almost immediately took me to similar memories of a year-long visit I made to Europe as a study-abroad student when I was 20. Our conversations continue through looking at the connections between our memories. Early in my European travels, in Paris, were visits to the Musée du Louvre and the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume. They were my real introduction to fine …

Vii. Learning Totaste: Praising The Transcendent Rilke’S Sonnets To Orpheus Heidegger Hölderlin Heraclitus, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

Oh 2005 R. Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Bianco Reserva!

It was to accompany pan-seared sea scallops in a vinagreta of grape seed oil, vinagre de Jerez, chervil, chives and parsley from our garden. The previous bottle had been the best pairing to date. But, the taste of the wine became everything. This fifth and last 2005 from my cellar was unique, similar to neither any of its siblings nor to any other wine. It was expected to be close to one a year earlier. R. Lopez de Heredia wines are not released until ready for drinking; this one had …

Viii. Hieronymus’ Bench: Conversations Dürer Heaney, Auerbach Panofsky, Heidegger Heraclitus, Hölderlin Rilke, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

The names in this essay’s sub-title sketch its outline. An image by Albrecht Dürer and a poem by Seamus Heaney, essays by Eric Auerbach and Erwin Panofsky are new inclusions into a rambling immersion into Heraclitus Heidegger Rilke and Hölderlin. The resulting octet gives major solo roles to the new contributors while at the same time deepening the wonder at the questions arising. The first seven chapters and the late-added overture were each written as stand-alone works and had breaks of time separating them. This new essay began before Learning to Taste (Ch. 7) was completed. While completing Learning to …

Introduction, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

These stories are from of an odyssey that began over 50 years ago. In my final year of college I planned to attend law school. A passage in Plato (Republic III 405a) was the catalyst of an unanticipated realization that I would pursue my goals more authentically teaching philosophy at the college level. Two years earlier (1968) I had made an abrupt change abandoning a chemistry major, and to study in Vienna, Austria for a year, searching to find my own path. My interest in wine did not arise in that year but the seeds that soon grew into a …

Vi. Barolo Landscape Studies: Barolo Mga 360º Vermeer Rilke, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

Oh tall tree in the ear / O hoher Baum im Ohr! astonished me years ago, reading Rilke with students. WHAT did it mean? He knew. Jubilant praise sings in my ear. An ascending tree crossed paths with astounding wine unexpectedly. Breaking in new hiking shoes in vineyard dust in Serralunga d’Alba began a 40-year-long anticipated visit to Barolo and Barbaresco. Walking also through vineyards in La Morra, Barolo and Neive, tastings at Azienda Agricola Vigna Rionda S.S. di Massolino Fiili (Serralunga d’Alba) and Castello di Neive Azienda Agricola (Barbaresco), invited private tastings at La Morra’s Poderi Marcarini and at …

V. Agrarian Opera: Wines Of Beauty At The Kitchen Table Rilke's Duino Elegies, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

Did you hear me? (Rilke) when I cried out … tasting that 1985 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Enrico VI?

Rilke’s Overture then wonders if an Angel might hear his cry. Beauty, he insists, is nothing other than the beginning of Terror. This Terror can be endured, though barely, and yet is revered — because it serenely disdains from destroying us. Rilke’s first line connected, so unexpectedly, to my taste of that 34-year-old Barolo. I uttered an unspoken gentle, “Oh my!” – and remember both that taste and the murmur. My question echoes the question Rilke asked himself. Terror was not …

Paracelsus And The Biblical Foundations Of Magic: Natural, Celestial, And Demonic Astronomy, Dane Thor Daniel

Lake Campus Research Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Paracelsus’s understanding of magic--which he discussed in terms of the types of natural, “celestial” (or Christian), and demonic astronomy—is based largely on his idiosyncratic Biblical exegesis. An important and iconoclastic voice within early modern natural philosophy and medicine as well as Reformation spiritualism, the Swiss-German broke with medieval theories of magic via his synthesis of theology and magic. Although incorporating the mostly extra-Biblical concepts of the tria prima (salt, sulphur, and mercury), elemental matrices, and microcosm-macrocosm analogy, Paracelsus’s spagyrical world (or magico-alchemical cosmos) also featured a concept developed in his extensive theological writings, namely, that the universe consists of two …

Iv. Gifts Of Taste: Discussing Wine With Heraclitus And Friedrich Hölderlin, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

It happened on a weekday evening. Dinner was Pasta e Fagioli and I would have chosen a wine from Tuscany. But, in my cellar a thought arose to explore, and a 19-year-old 1999 Paitin di Pasquero-Elia Barbaresco Sorì Paitin ended up on the table. A new pairing 1 plus a wine from a new-to-me producer I had waited 15 years for it to mature provided opportunities. Pasta e Fagioli should be a fine accompanist to the wonderful softening taste of a maturing Barbaresco from the good 1999 vintage. The pairing worked well enough to repeat. That was merely the prelude.

I. Expect The Unexpected: Heraclitus, Kant And The Æsthetics Of Fine Wine, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

Actually, you do not even have to taste this wine,” said the owner of a high-end fruit market who, due to his own passion, sold wine as well. “Just smell it!” He was right. I opened that 1947 Giacomo Borgogno Barolo Riserva a year later to celebrate my wife’s 35th birthday, when the wine was also 35 years old. I expected that the wine would be good, a library release only one year earlier from what was considered the best Barolo vintage of the 20th century by a well-regarded producer. The wine was wonderful to smell and, indeed, to taste. …

Ii. Contemplation And Fine Wine: Tasting With Saintsbury, Schopenhauer, And Pater, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

One never knows when it will happen. I went to my cellar to choose an accompaniment for a chestnut soufflé and a 1995 Domaine Huet Vouvray Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec returned with me . Before opening that wine, I had a set of informed questions...

Iii. Tasting Dwelling Thinking: Tasking Wine Thinking About Being With Heidegger, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

It started simply enough. Wanting something not yet tasted I brought from the cellar a barely 6-year old 2009 Fattoria di Felsina Berardenga Chianti Classico. Had it turned the corner into its optimal drinking window? Six years is usually a bare minimum for these wines to get through their early awkwardness while reports said the 2009’s were early-maturing. A pleasant surprise, it was delightful. Chianti aroma and taste as well as the harmonious, full-spectrum profile one expects even from an entry-level Felsina Chianti were all in place. Based on that experience I opened on the next opportunity a 2009 Badia …

The Morality Of Superheroes: Gods No More, Jessica Testerman

The University Honors Program

Do you think a superhero is a god or a mortal?

Modern pop culture is saturated with superheroes; in fact, it feels like there is a new superhero movie every three months or so. Thus, it is no wonder that after being soaked in this culture of superheroes that act with impunity in worlds of their author’s creation that a someone should wonder at the morality of superheroes. In my work, I argue against the popular belief that anyone who acts “good” and has a superpower is a superhero.

I propose a new way of defining the superhero that removes …

Respect Of Utilitarianism: A Response To Regan's 'Receptacles Of Value' Objection, Scott Wilson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

According to Regan, classical utilitarians value individuals in the wrong way: rather than valuing them directly, the utilitarians must value individuals merely as receptacles of what is valuable (i.e. pleasure). I demonstrate that Regan's argument is ineffective. I first show that Regan's argument presupposes a faulty understanding of the nature of hedonism and intrinsic value. I then argue that since pleasures are states of individuals, when a person values a pleasure she thereby values the individual as well.

The Species-Norm Account Of Moral Status, Scott Wilson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Many philosophers have argued against Singer’s claim that all animals are equal. However, none of these responses have demonstrated an appreciation of the complexity of his position. The result is that all of these responses focus on one of his arguments in a way that falls victim to another. This paper is a critical examination of a possible response to the full complexity of Singer’s position that derives from the work of Carl Cohen, Kathleen Wilkes, and F. Ramsey. On this response, a being’s moral status depends not on the capacities and abilities she does in fact have, but instead …

Desolation's March: The Rise Of Personalism And The Reign Of Amusement In 21st Century America, Stephen Paul Foster Ph.D.

Books Authored by Wright State Faculty/Staff

Dr. Stephen Foster (author of Melancholy Duty, Kluwer, 1997) has undertaken a critique of American decadence and moral squalor. He argues that three basic cultural phenomena have conjoined to warp and degrade the moral and cultural landscape of the country. Treated together for purposes of critique these phenomena have intertwined in the national psyche. They are the impact of personalism (via J. J. Rosseau) and the leveraged individual, the growth of the therapeutic state and the overwhelming preoccupation with entertainment. The author suggests the moral and cultural quandary these "states" have wrought and the attendant loss of artistic, moral …

The Self-Growth Of Vision And The Self-Repose Of Color: A Heideggerian Meditation On The Studio Paintings Of Jean Koeller, Charles Taylor

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Overture - Calvino's Mr. Palomar, Charles S. Taylor

Wine Journey: Tasting Dwelling Learning at The Kitchen Table

This is not a culinary essay. The bread of interest is Scottish, discussed by a philosopher, Hume, whose craft is often ridiculed precisely because it bakes no bread. The archaicallynamed cheese is Parisian; the Italian watercress constitutes part of a salad of Italo Calvino's last protagonist, Mr. Palomar. Still, contrary to appearances, my concern is no picnic. If we think of the pleasure that one can derive from bread, cheese and salad we begin to turn in the right direction. Kant tells us that beauty is determined by the feeling of pleasure in the subject who has become disinterested. Kant …

Descartes' Meditations - Trilingual Edition, David B. Manley, Charles S. Taylor

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The publication of this English-Latin-French edition of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy is quite simply an experiment in electronic scholarship. We decided to make this edition available and to encourage its free distribution for scholarly purposes. The idea behind the experiment is to see how others involved in electronic scholarship might put these texts to use. We have no predetermined ideas of what such use may be when transformed from this origin. The texts have no hypertext annotations except for those used for navigation. We invite others to download this edition and to create their own hypertext annotated editions and …

Readings In Eastern Religion (Review), Stephen Paul Foster Ph.D.

University Libraries' Staff Publications

The article is a book review of Readings in Eastern Religion edited by Harold Coward, Eva Dargyay, and Ronald Neufeldt.

Tom Robbins' Chink: A Posthumous Zarathustra, Charles S. Taylor

Charles S. Taylor

This essay examines the ideas of one of the central characters in Tom Robbins’ 1977 novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues/ in relation to the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. It makes no argument for any influence of Nietzsche upon Robbins but rather considers similarities in thought as such.

This essay was first published by The Enigma Press, the private-press of Earl R. Nitschke, Professor of Printmaking at Central Michigan University in a limited edition.

Tom Robbins' Chink: A Posthumous Zarathustra, Charles Taylor

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This essay examines the ideas of one of the central characters in Tom Robbins’ 1977 novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues/ in relation to the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. It makes no argument for any influence of Nietzsche upon Robbins but rather considers similarities in thought as such.

Marxism And Behaviorism: Ideological Parallels, Stephen Paul Foster Ph.D.

University Libraries' Staff Publications

Marxism, as a philosophical system, attempts to provide an accurate analysis of man and his social institutions. Behaviorism, as a system of psychology, claims that its method is fundamental to an understanding of human nature. Both systems justify their claims on the grounds that they are employing methods which are scientific in character. Marxism bases its method on historical analysis, maintaining that history unfolds in an orderly, predictable manner and that a proper analysis of it reveals scientific laws. The general methodology of the natural sciences is the model for behaviorism. Behaviorists point to the successes of the natural sciences …