Towards a Theory of Food Categorization

By Sumil Thakrar

Forthcoming in the Proceedings of the Society of Drinking a lot of Cough Syrup

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“Everybody knows that something is wrong. But it is uniquely the achievement of contemporary philosophy – indeed, it is uniquely the achievement of contemporary analytical philosophy – to have figured out just what it is. What is wrong is that not enough distinctions are being made.”—Jerry Fodor[1]

There has been a much-needed resurgence in published papers and PhD dissertations on the philosophy of food categorisation. Yet, outside of the philosophy department, we are steadfastly entrenched in a naïve tradition that does little but separate food from drink. The recent attempts at popularizing food categorisation are inadequate at capturing the natural distinctions, and have barely engaged with the emerging philosophical literature. For example, the philosopher Lawson, in her seminal thesis “Nigella Bites”[2], invoked the categories “slow cook weekend”, “comfort food”, and “rainy days”, which critics claim offer an embarrassment of riches that fail to ‘carve nature at its joints’. This paper will clarify the emerging philosophical consensus, and suggest possible avenues for further research.

 

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Monism special issue

Some questions just don’t seem to go away. Why is there something rather than nothing? Do we have free will? How many things are there?  In this issue of the Proceedings of the Society of Drinking a Lot of Cough Syrup, we take up this last question and explore an underdeveloped answer. Monism: because counting is hard.

A Simple Argument for Existence Monism

Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini and David Black

Some say that there is more than one object. It might seem, for example, that my table is one and my chair is one, so together they are more than one — they are two ones. But suppose for reductio that there is more than one one. Then the ones are not one. But one cannot be not one. So there is only one one.

Proceedings, issue 2

Thanks to a little ingenuity and a lot of plagiarism, the Proceedings of the Society of Drinking a lot of Cough Syrup is back with a second issue. The contents are as follows.

Moving Forward by Reading Backwards and Forwards

Ben Bronner and Anonymous

Wittgenstein said that philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language. We argue that perhaps the most bewitching aspect of our language is its left-to-right structure, which subtly insinuates that the world which it pictures also possesses a left-to-right structure, a privileged direction. The solution, of course, is that philosophy should be written solely in palindromes. Some claim this stricture would inhibit genuinely philosophical discussion, to which we respond: Do geese see God?

A new philosophy journal

I am pleased to announce the first issue of the Proceedings of the Society of Drinking a Lot of Cough Syrup. Interested readers may find the Proceedings wherever philosophy journals are sold. The contents of the first issue are as follows.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

If ghosts exist, then where is the evidence? I answer this question by arguing as follows. If ghosts exist, they are subject to the force of gravity. Since ghosts can pass through walls, they would likewise (under the force of gravity) pass through floors. Where would the ghosts go? Clearly to the Earth’s center of mass. This argument shows that, in a normal Bayesian model, the fact that we don’t see any ghosts actually makes it more likely that there really are ghosts.