| The metaphor taste suggests a sensibility valid beyond art, as evident in contemporary food studies, Perls' Gestalt psychotherapy, mystical Sufism, and the etymology of sapience. The wisdom of taste offers an undervalued stubborn empiricism of well-being, suggesting a comparison of Foucault's history of sexuality with a history of gastronomy.;Aesthetic taste can invoke unprecedentedly deviant emotional states stimulating a regenerative intensification of life. Arguably, the function of art is to invoke an aesthetic of existence. While traditional aesthetics looks down upon pleasure, denying value to the aesthetic experiences of touch, smell, and taste, Shusterman's somaesthetics offers a poignant critique. Disinterested interest is compared with Winnicot's theories of play and the religious practice of Sabbath as a prerequisite of an aesthetic sensibility.;The nebulous sense of sense is explored. The gravity of language upon sense requires a suspension of signification. Voices of contemporary phenomenology invite an attentive responsiveness to our embodied treasury of sensibilities. The prejudice against figurative language is upended, if we recognize the prominence of metaphors in philosophical and psychological theories. Seemingly oblique comments by prominent philosophers suggest the sensibilities inherent to smell and taste.;Brillat-Savaran's transcendental gastronomy is reanimated with philosophical vignettes and a ritual meal practice. Nineteenth century cultural precedents and Gebser's anthropology of prevailing structures of consciousness situate the contemporary foodie phenomenon, also revealing its possible pitfalls, including a misplaced objectivity, status-seeking, and the desire for constant novelty, excitement, and sublime experiences.;A change of taste arises due to a truncation of the multivalent modalities of living, causing the pathology of the modern self. Our visual propensity, the absent body phenomenon, and the ubiquity of communications technologies stimulate a society of the spectacle and what Benjamin described as the sex appeal of the inorganic, resulting in a wild hunger. Revitalizing correctives to this truncation arise from the anthropology of the senses, Levin's embodied ontology, Marcuse's polymorphous perversity, and a sensible transcendental drawn from Deleuze and Irigaray.;The epilogue is a collection of aphorisms called "the tasting manifestoes."... |
