Nicola Perullo

Abstract

Western aesthetics canon offers a dominant picture yet running a lot in philosophical discourse and in commonsense: taste and smell are minor senses, so that food objects and experiences do not bring any knowledge and are not included in «true» and elevate pleasures that only art can give. In this essay, the author try to follow an alternative path  from the concept of «aesthetic experience» developed by John Dewey, according to which food experiences can be aesthetic experiences, both as making  (cooks) and as consuming them (gourmets). Looking at the wotk of the world most famous cook, Ferran Adrià, as well as other  gastronomic avant-garde leading protagonists, strong similarities with aesthetic values in artworks emerge and, more generally, with the meaning of Aesthetics as science of sensibility and perception. The latter brings to connect these food aesthetic values with ethic ones, as Emanuel Lévinas philosophy shows: he is one of the very few thinkers of XX Century considering food and nourishment fundamental elements for his Ethics.

Nicola Perullo (Livorno 1970) is associate professor of aesthetics at University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo (Bra). He wrote on Vico, Wittgenstein, Derrida, and more recently on taste and food and philosophy problems. His books: Bestie e bestioni. Vico e il problema dell’animale (2002), Per un’estetica del cibo (2006), L’altro gusto. Saggi di estetica gastronomica (2008), Filosofia della gastronomia laica. Il gusto come esperienza (2010) e La scena del senso. A partire da Wittgenstein e Derrida (2011).