Food from Thought

Traditional theories have separated life from nature, mind from organic life, and thereby created mysteries. Restore the connection, and the problem of how a mind can know an external world or even that there is such a thing, is like the problem of how an animal eats things external to itself.¹

(LW1:212)

In a numerous interesting places, including this epigraph, John Dewey draws an analogy between eating and food, subject and object, knower and the known. We propose taking this analogy literally for three related reasons. First, we believe that eating provides transparent and easy to follow illustrations of Dewey's transactional theory of inquiry. In this regard, we hope with this article to serve useful pedagogical purposes for those faced with the task of introducing Dewey to the uninitiated. Second, the paper helps arbitrate a dispute over the status of Dewey's collaboration with Arthur F. Bentley in constructing a philosophy of "trans-action." Finally, we just want to have some fun, which will account for one or two bad puns along the way.

Many Deweyan scholars, such as T.  Z. Lavine, have suggested that Bentley hoodwinked Dewey. In her introduction to the reissue of Knowing and the Known, Lavine seeks to dismiss the collaboration as a mistake by Dewey. According to Lavine, Bentley's views actually "undermine Dewey's biologically based naturalism," among other things.² In the first of two illuminating and original papers, Frank X. Ryan argues that Lavine is mistaken (1997a). In a second paper, Ryan declares: "Dewey's late friendship and collaboration with Arthur F. Bentley may well be the last frontier of Deweyan scholarship" and sets about exploring this frontier in exciting ways (1997b, 1003).

By following Dewey's analogies between eating food and knowing the known, it is possible to locate transactional thinking in earlier Deweyan work that is consistent with the stance taken in Knowing and the Known. Specifically, we will show that Dewey's collaboration with Bentley does not undermine Dewey's biologically based naturalism.

This article focuses on natural events (pork, cashew nuts, and puffer fish) that are poisonous to the human beings who transact with them without proper intervening inquiry involving tools, skilled operations, and techniques. For Dewey, foods, like all other objects, are the product of inquiry. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "food" as "what is taken into the system to maintain life and growth, and to supply the waste of tissues." Under this characterization, much of what we commonly call "food" only exists potentially; that is, few foods can be "taken into the system" without considerable alteration. Thus, food is the artifact of processes involving tools and skilled techniques, in much the same way as facts (data) and objects of knowledge are products in Dewey's instrumental theory of inquiry.

In industrialized societies, the technological operations that transform organic material into food occur before it is sent to market: meat comes wrapped in styrofoam and cellophane; milk comes in plastic jugs, pasteurized and homogenized; and nuts come shelled, roasted, and salted. However, food preparation is ancient; even protohumans used tools and skilled processes in the cultivation and preparation of foods. The earliest recovered tools include artifacts for hunting as well as food preservation and preparation, while the earliest instances of linguistic signs (e.g., cave art) record the production of food.

That most foods require skilled operations involving tools in order to provide nourishment becomes particularly evident when we consider potentially poisonous foods. Rather than providing nourishment, most putative foods have the capacity to kill or injure their consumers because of bacterial contamination, parasitic infestation, or their own native poisons. We will first show how human use of techniques and tools transform these killers into materials that can "maintain life and growth."

Transforming Poison into Nutritious Food: Pork

Pork is the most popular meat in the world.³ Pigs are, however, susceptible to trichinella spiralis, a parasite that...