"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

22 December 2009

Scruton on wine.


I am reading Roger Scruton's "I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine." He's a master. I knew I would love this book from the first lines of the preface ...

"This book is not a guide to drinking wine, but a guide to thinking it. It is a tribute to pleasure, by a devotee of happiness, and a defense of virtue by an escapee from vice ... My purpose is to defend the opinion once attributed to Plato, that 'nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the god's to man,' and I am confident that all those who are offended by this innocent endeavour thereby give proof of their irrelevance."

While I can't say I've completely thrown off the clutches of vice, I'm sure I will be given the full treatise as to why I should through Professor Scruton's lecture.

More to follow, but if you can't wait, the book is here.

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