Hunger

The Art of Living (Routledge)

by Raymond Tallis

Understanding hunger is the key to understanding ourselves. While they seem the most obvious things about us, our hungers are also deeply mysterious, arising out of, and casting light on, the unique character of human consciousness. In humans, physiological need is transformed into a multitude of needs that are remote from organic necessity. In Hunger , Ray Tallis takes us through the different levels of our hunger. Out of our primary appetites arise a myriad of pleasures and tastes that are elaborated in second-level hedonistic hungers creating new values. The art of living is the art of managing our hungers.

Genres: Philosophy

176 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Professor Raymond Tallis is a philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic and was until recently a physician and clinical scientist. In the Economist's Intelligent Life Magazine (Autumn 2009) he was listed as one of the top living polymaths in the world.

Born in Liverpool in 1946, one of five children, he trained as a doctor at Oxford University and at St Thomas' in London before going on to become Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and a consultant physician in Health Care of the Elderly in Salford. Professor Tallis retired from medicine in 2006 to become a full-time writer, though he remained Visiting Professor at St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London until 2008.

Prior to his retirement from medicine to devote himself to writing, Raymond Tallis had responsibility for acute and rehabilitation patients and took part in the on-call rota for acute medical emergencies. He also ran a unique specialist epilepsy service for older people. Amongst his 200 or so medical publications are two major textbooks - The Clinical Neurology of Old Age (Wiley, 1988) and the comprehensive Brocklehurst's Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology (Harcourt Brace, co-edited with Howard Fillitt, 6th edition, 2003). Most of his research publications were in the field of neurology of old age and neurological rehabilitation. He has published original articles in Nature Medicine, Lancet and other leading journals. Two of his papers were the subject of leading articles in Lancet. In 2000 Raymond Tallis was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in recognition of his contribution to medical research; in 2002 he was awarded the Dhole Eddlestone Prize for his contribution to the medical literature on elderly people; and in 2006 he received the Founders Medal of the British Geriatrics Society. In July 2007, he received the Lord Cohen Gold Medal for Research into Ageing, and in November 2011 he was honoured with the International League Against Epilepsy's Special Excellence in Epilepsy Award. He is a Patron of Dignity in Dying.

Over the last 20 years Raymond Tallis has published fiction, three volumes of poetry, and 23 books on the philosophy of mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art and cultural criticism. Together with over two hundred articles in Prospect, Times Literary Supplement and many other outlets, these books offer a critique of current predominant intellectual trends and an alternative understanding of human consciousness, the nature of language and of what it is to be a human being. For this work, Professor Tallis has been awarded three honorary degrees: DLitt (Hon. Causa) from the University of Hull in 1997; LittD (Hon. Causa) at the University of Manchester 2002 and Doc (Med) SC, St George's Hospital 2015. He was Visiting Professor of English at the University of Liverpool until 2013.

Raymond Tallis makes regular appearances at Hay, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and other book festivals, and lectures widely.

Raymond Tallis's national roles have included: Consultant Advisor in Health Care of the Elderly to the Chief Medical Officer; a key part in developing National Service Framework for Older People, in particular the recommendations of developing services for people with strokes; membership of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence Appraisal Committee; Chairmanship of the Royal College of Physicians Committee on Ethics in Medicine; Chairman of the committee reviewing ethics support for front-line clinicians; and membership of the Working Party producing a seminal report Doctors in Society, Medical Professionalism in a Changing World (2005). From July 2011 to October 2014 he was the elected Chair, Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying (HPAD).

In 2012 he was a member of the judges' panel for the Samuel Johnson Prize.

In 2015 he judged the Notting Hill Essay prize.

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written, but terrible content. It was not purely philosophy, but made assertions of the natural world that were outright wrong, especially those of ethology and anthropology.

[Madeline · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is far more about wanting than it is about hunger. I was also greatly disappointed to read a book written by a person supposedly trained in science and medicine state that science doesn't give meaning to our lives (totally subjective, it sure as hell does to mine). Unsurprisingly, despite the book touching on multiple scientific topics, this is not a scientific book. For instance, the author clearly does not understand and evidently did not bother to research recent or even (at the time) 20+ year-old knowledge on the physiology of hunger signaling in the body as it is summed up in one passage stating that 'no one can agree' on what blood-based signals communicate hunger to the brain.

Instead, this is mostly the author voicing his thoughts on dualism - humans, because of our ability to think, have no equal and are superior to everything in the animal kingdom and even the universe itself because it can't think. Humans are supposedly at this time in our history somehow mostly divorced from our biology, even though we are biological organisms. (Apparently, culture is not biological even though it is the product of said biological organisms.) I'm not surprised a man of his age peppered this book with some outmoded socio-political notions, but I was disappointed to see a nasty jab at neurodivergent people in which it's kind of suggested people with neuro/social deficits (e.g. picky eaters) are rejecting other humans and it's okay to look down on them, maybe even wonder if they're really human. Also, he ends the book with a plea for us all to be sensitive to and help impoverished nations living in starvation conditions all whilst associating people living in such conditions with dumb, inferior animals the entire book.

[Jackie (Farm Lane Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a bit too dry and academic for my taste. I admired the quality of the research, which was well referenced, but it wasn't compelling enough for the casual reader.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Affluent societies whose members are eaten up with ambition, competition, jealousy, unrequited longing for recognition, love, or sexual conquest, may be deaf to the basic hungers of the wretched of the earth, even if they accept their own role in making them wretched."

"That is why we should be aware of the extent to which deliberately, accidentally, or even unconsciously, we fuel the hungers of others."

(141)

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using hunger as a paradigm, Tallis explores how physical appetites in humans become elaborated and transformed almost beyond recognition as they become mediated through concepts and culture. Tallis explores how desire and satisfaction play themselves out in everyday life, and this book is filled with interesting, enriching observations.