Drink or think, do you have to choose?
Jaime Rubio Hancock, a journalist in the Ideas section of El País, traces the deep and ancient links between philosophical thought and alcohol. Each week, Courrier International offers you a column that raises questions about our modern condition, drawing on literary, scientific, and, of course, philosophical works.
The stereotype of the philosopher is that of a man locked in his library, surrounded by books, who writes about esoteric subjects like the soul, essence, or death. But often thinkers have devoted themselves to more mundane questions, starting with alcohol. Can we drink? How much? Why do we prefer a glass of Priorat [Catalan wine] to a glass of Rioja [a wine produced in northern Spain]? And more generally, does it make sense for a philosopher to be involved in a cocktail?
We sometimes forget that at the beginning of philosophy was wine: Plato's Symposium is the conversation between Socrates and some of his friends during a dinner where this drink plays a prominent role. This book also reminds us that philosophy is a more social activity than it seems, where conversation and the exchange of ideas play a fundamental role.
It is logical that, among the founding texts of Western philosophy, there is one that devotes a few lines to wine, at least if we are to believe what the American-Canadian philosopher Edward Slingerland writes in Drunkenness: How We Drank, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization [FYP, 2023]: alcohol helped us build civilization because it promotes
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