Dwight Furrow is Professor of Philosophy at San Diego Mesa College in San Diego, California. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of California, Riverside in 1993 and specializes in the philosophy of food and wine, aesthetics, and ethics. Professor Furrow is the publisher and author of Edible Arts, a blog devoted to food and wine aesthetics. He is also the author of Ethics: Key Concepts in Philosophy, Reviving the Left: The Need to Restore Liberal Values in America, Against Theory: Continental and Analytic Challenges in Moral Philosophy and many professional journal articles, op-ed pieces, and magazine articles on issues in ethics and political philosophy. He can be reached through the Edible Arts blog. Email: dwightfurrow [at] gmail [dot] com
by Dwight Furrow Contemporary discussions of wine quality tend to oscillate unhelpfully between subjectivism and objectivism. One side argues that wine quality is thoroughly subjective because individual differences among tasters preclude agreement on the nature or quality of what is being tasted. The other side points to objective, scientific analyses of chemical components detected through…
by Dwight Furrow Perhaps the most important development in cuisine over the last 20 years has been the emergence of what has come to be known as modernist cuisine. Originally referred to as "molecular gastronomy", it is a form of cooking that uses materials and techniques first employed in the food industry to create new…
by Dwight Furrow When I first encountered the claim that our perception of wine was influenced by the music we listen to while imbibing, I was skeptical. It would seem to have all the hallmarks of a magic trick–barriers to accurate perception due to the vagueness of wines' properties and subject to the power of…
by Dwight Furrow Wine language often suggests that wines express emotion or exhibit personality characteristics despite the fact that wine is not a psychological agent and could not literally possess these characteristics. There is a history, although somewhat in recession today, to refer to wines as aggressive, sensual, fierce, grand, angry, dignified, brooding, joyful, bombastic,…
by Dwight Furrow Can we make sense of the idea that wines express emotion? No doubt wine can trigger feelings. Notoriously, at a party, wine triggers feelings of conviviality via the effects of alcohol. But the wine isn't expressing anything in that case. It's the people via their mannerisms and interaction encouraged by the wine…
by Dwight Furrow The wine world is never short on controversy. Among the most persistent are worries about how wine quality is assessed. Are scores the best way of assessing quality? Why do I disagree with wine critics so much? Why do price and quality often seem unrelated? Are cult wines worth their cost? And…
by Dwight Furrow Wine and science writer Jamie Goode's post What is Greatness in a Wine? is insightful because it moves greatness out of the realm of subjectivity and personal preference: "Greatness is conferred on wine by a community of judgement. When we, as the wine community, taste wines together, we recognize the great wines.…
by Dwight Furrow Turner's The Fighting Temeraire Beauty is not solely in the eye of the beholder so I argued last month. This month I can't resist taking on the other platitude that harms our understanding of beauty—that beauty is only skin deep. The word "beauty" has fallen on hard times in the art world…
by Dwight Furrow In philosophy the most important development in the last 300 years has been the idea that what can be intelligibly said about reality is constructed out of our subjective responses, suitably constrained by social norms and intersubjective communication. This is the essence of Immanuel Kant's so-called Copernican Revolution in philosophy which converted…
by Dwight Furrow I must confess to having once been an olfactory oaf. In my early days as a wine lover, I would plunge my nose into a glass of Cabernet, sniffing about for a hint of cassis or eucalyptus only to discover a blast of alcohol thwarting my ascension to the aroma heaven promised…
by Dwight Furrow Over the past several months I've been writing about creativity in the arts, a project motivated by skepticism among philosophers that winemaking could legitimately be considered an art form. (See Part 1, and here, here, and here) As Burham and Skilleas write on the decisions made in the vineyard and winery: These…
by Dwight Furrow Among the most striking developments in the art world in the past 150 years is the proliferation of objects that count as works of art. The term “art” is no longer appropriately applied only to paintings, sculpture, symphonic music, literature or theatre but includes architecture, photographs, film and television, found objects, assorted…
by Dwight Furrow Goldsworthy, Maple Leaves Arrangement There is an ingrained set of assumptions and attitudes about creativity in the arts that harms our understanding of art and ultimately human existence. That is the idea of the artist as a relatively unconstrained maker, a fashioner ex nihilo who brings something new into being solely through…
by Dwight Furrow Philosophical definitions of art are not only controversial but tend to be unhelpful in understanding the nature of art. While trying to accommodate new, sometimes radically unfamiliar, developments in the art world, philosophical definitions typically do not explain why art is something about which we care, arguably something a definition should do.…
by Dwight Furrow Most of the wine purchased in the U.S is an industrial product made by mega-companies that seek to eliminate the uncertainties of nature in pursuit of a reliable, inexpensive, standardized commodity. But most of the wineries in the U.S. are small-to-mid-sized, artisan producers who lack both the technology and the inclination to…
by Dwight Furrow The question of whether food preparation can be a fine art turns on two issues: Does food have the rich assortment of meanings typical of fine art? and Does food express emotion in the same sense that music or painting does? As I argued in American Foodie, both these questions depend on…
by Dwight Furrow Almost everyone connected to the world of wine has a story about their “aha” experience, the precise moment when they discovered there was something extraordinary about wine. For some that moment is a sudden, unexpected wave of emotion that overcomes them as they drink a wine that seems utterly superior to anything…
by Dwight Furrow Black Square, Malevich 1923 However, traditional Western aesthetics apparently demurs on this point since it enshrines complexity as a fundamental aesthetic value. Works of art are considered great if they repay our continued attention. Each new contact with them reveals something new, and this information density and the way it is organized…
by Dwight Furrow We who are absorbed in the philosophy of wine are usually preoccupied by questions about objectivity, meaning, the nature of taste, aesthetic properties, and other exotica that surround this mysterious beverage. But wine considered as an aesthetic object can never be wholly severed from the commercial aspects of wine, and no philosophy…
by Dwight Furrow In grasping the role of art in contemporary life, one noteworthy theme is the process of artification. “Artification” occurs when something not traditionally regarded as art is transformed into art or at least something art-like. As far as I know, the term was first used in a Finnish publication by Levanto, Naukkarinen,…