From Publishers Weekly
Eating, observes Kass, a physician and biochemist who teaches literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago, is a "great paradox." To preserve life, individuals necessarily destroy life. Yet, he argues, if this urgent, most basic animal necessity is humanized through table manners, hospitality, sharing, good conversation and ritual, eating becomes a means to celebrate and broaden human community, friendship and values. This stimulating, original philosophical inquiry views eating among humans as a key to our place in the natural order and as a manifestation of the "hungry soul" that seeks satisfaction in activities motivated by ambition, curiosity, affection and awe. Kass concludes by arguing that Jewish dietary laws are one example of a code that embodies an understanding of the ethics of eating and a reverence for life.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Eating can be a serious business, and in his wide-ranging explorations of it, Kass moves from metabolism to mortality and from digestion to divinity. The variety of dining forms, he discloses, includes feeding the stranger at our hearth, the well-mannered family supper, the convivial and witty dinner party, the inspiriting fictional feast of Dinesen's Babette, the wisdom-seeking symposium of Plato, and the reverent ritual meal. To Kass, the preparation for, the arrangement of, and the intellectual and social atmosphere surrounding a dinner should make it not only a satisfying affair for both giver and receiver but an epitome of the best in social intercourse. Modern eating, with its concomitant incivility, insensitivity, and ingratitude, has already infected other activities of life, he says. At first, much in this fairly heavy book appears to be about things other than eating, but the perceptive reader discovers that Kass hasn't missed his subject but woven an intricate, thought-provoking tapestry around it.
William Beatty
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
