I Drink Therefore I am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine - Hardcover

Scruton, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847065082 ISBN 13: 9781847065087

Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2009

Synopsis

The ancients had a solution to the alcohol problem, which was to wrap the drink in religious rituals, to treat it as the incarnation of a god, and to marginalize disruptive behaviour as the god's doing, not the worshipper's. Gradually, under the discipline of ritual, prayer and theology, wine was tamed from its orgiastic origins to become a solemn libation to the Olympians and then the Christian Eucharist - that brief encounter with salvation which has reconciliation as its goal. We are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health and also the rival opinion that any more than a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin. Whether or not good for the body, Scrtuton argues, wine, drunk in the right frame of mind, is definitely good for the soul. And there is no better accompaniment to wine than philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn not only to drink in thoughts but to think in draughts. This good-humoured book offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap that is written about wine today and a profound apology for the drink on which civilisation has been founded. In vino veritas.

About this title

About the Author

Professor Roger Scruton is currently visiting Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and Research Professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Washington, D.C. His other books include The West and the Rest, England: An Elegy, News from Somewhere and Gentle Regrets (all published by Continuum).

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847065082
• ISBN 13: 9781847065087
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224