Stanley Cavell

Traditions of Pragmatism and the Myth of the Emersonian Democrat

by Randy Friedman

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 43, 1 (Winter 2007): 154 – 184.

Beginning with Emerson’s turn from his pulpit, many argue that American philosophy has rigorously held forth against... more Beginning with Emerson’s turn from his pulpit, many argue that American philosophy has rigorously held forth against supernaturalism and metaphysics. While most read self-reliance as a call for individualism, I argue that self-reliance is the application of the moral sentiment to the source of existence Emerson calls the Over-soul. Figures like George Kateb, Stanley Cavell, and Jeffrey Stout have presented a very different picture of American pragmatism. Stout, in particular, is responsible for building up what I call “the myth of the Emersonian democrat.” We find that a few philosophical positions generally constitute this myth. The Emersonian democrat is secular, sceptical, relativist, anti-realist, and anti-metaphysical. In
fact, on my reading of the strand of pragmatism running from Emerson through James to Dewey, the
pluralism of the Emersonian democrat depends on certain metaphysical commitments. The traditional
reading of Emerson as anti-religion, and by extension, anti-religious, impedes a better understanding of self-reliance and obfuscates some of the Emersonian inheritances in James and Dewey.

L'espace public à l'épreuve du rire: à la recherche de nos voix

by Marie Quévreux

draft
published in Implications Philosophiques, 1er july 2011
http://www.implications-philosophiques.org/

Acknowledgment and the Ordinary: (Theological) Anthropology in Karl Barth and Stanley Cavell

by KC Flynn

Presenting at the 2012 Southwest Commission on Religious Studies Conference in Dallas, TX, Philosophy of Religion and Theology Section: Karl Barth and Post-Modernity

John Henry Newman, the Illative Sense, and the Threat of Skepticism

by KC Flynn

Fall 2012, Baylor University Theology Colloquium
(Temporarily removed for editing)

"Une lecture des films d'horreur épidémique"

by Hugo Clémot

published in "Tracés. Revue de Sciences Humaines", 2011/21, p. 167-184.

The growing success of the epidemic horror films needs explanation. One answer is that the fans of the genre are ready... more The growing success of the epidemic horror films needs explanation. One answer is that the fans of the genre are ready to endure horror in order to see and know what horror the idea of epidemics can inspire them with. The horror epidemic films are variations and revisions on a story which shows characters forced by the epidemic threat to run away and to embrace skepticism. For fugitives, the only way to live with it is to be faithful to themselves. But the epidemic threat is a certainty which offers no other certainty : the skepticism it causes indeed works against self-knowledge. Horror is the emotion one feels when one begins to doubt of oneself and of one’s own faithfulness under the threat of contamination. The horror epidemic films may contaminate the spectators with skepticism but they also may reveal a way to overcome it.

The Thinking Body: Philosophy, Dance and Modernism

by Kristin Boyce

Work in Progress.

This paper takes up the philosophical problem of modernism as it arises with respect to dance. While the “of” in the... more This paper takes up the philosophical problem of modernism as it arises with respect to dance. While the “of” in the phrase “philosophy of dance” is most often construed as an objective genitive—philosophical which takes dance as its object—the “of” can also be construed as a subjective genitive: philosophical reflection that belongs to dance itself. The paper seeks to clarify the conditions for the possibility of this kind of approach. In the first half of the paper, I characterize a standard approach to philosophy of dance that I take to be implicit in and shared by several attempts to adapt conceptions of modernism, which were developed in the first instance to explain changes in the visual arts, to dance. Once we make the standard approach explicit, I argue, it becomes clear that this approach fails to clarify any sense in which philosophical reflection might genuinely belong to dance that is art. The approach shows only that philosophical reflection is in some sense present in the work of choreographers such as Merce Cunningham or Yvonne Rainer. To say of a form of philosophical reflection that it belongs to dance, I argue, is to make a stronger and a more compelling claim: that there is a necessary relation between the aesthetic and the philosophical achievement of the work. In the second half of the paper, drawing on the conception of modernism developed by Stanley Cavell and Michael Fried, I develop an alternative approach. Following them, I argue that modernism is the condition an art enters when it enters the condition of philosophy. I show that this approach is able to make sense of the following possibility: a reciprocal relation of mutual dependence obtains between the philosophical and aesthetic dimensions of some forms of dance. Through elaborating this idea, I show that the alternative approach affords a far more compelling point of departure for something deserving the title “philosophy of dance”.

LITERATURE, LOGIC AND THE LIBERATING WORD: THE ELUCIDATION OF CONFUSION IN HENRY JAMES

by Kristin Boyce

Published in Journal for Philosophical Research, Volume 35 (2010).

Henry James is an author who has on the one hand attracted the attention of many leading philosophical interpreters of... more Henry James is an author who has on the one hand attracted the attention of many leading philosophical interpreters of literature even while on the other hand he poses a certain kind of difficulty for a tradition which has tended to prioritize what is said while relegating how it is said to the margins: the philosophical gravity of James’s work seems clearly to lie in the manner in which James writes, especially in the difficult style which characterizes his late phase. Many of James’s philosophical interpreters have recognized this but they nevertheless characterize the philosophical interest of how James writes in such a way as to leave the emphasis, in the end, still on a philosophical “what”: what philosophical view his difficult style implies or corroborates. I develop an interpretation of the philosophical significance of James’s late style that does not reduce it in this way to a philosophical “what.” I argue that features of James’s late style—its compression and rigor—invite a comparison between his literary forms of representation and the logically perspicuous modes of representing thought developed by Gottlob Frege. One use to which Frege puts his Begriffsschrift is as a tool in the task of clarifying forms of philosophical confusion. I argue that what is most philosophically important about James’s literary forms of representation is that they can be used to represent a reader’s life, to the reader herself, in such a way as to make it possible for her to recognize her confusion.

Cavell contre Rawls contre Nietzsche : quel perfectionnisme dans "Schopenhauer Educateur"?

by Florian Cova

Draft only. Comments are mostly welcome.

Dans "Conditions Nobles et Ignobles", Cavell accuse Rawls d'avoir mal lu "Schopenhauer Educateur"... more Dans "Conditions Nobles et Ignobles", Cavell accuse Rawls d'avoir mal lu "Schopenhauer Educateur" de Nietzsche et de se tromper en faisant de Nietzsche le défenseur d'un perfectionnisme téléologique élitiste et anti-démocratique. À la place, Cavell propose une lecture démocratique de Nietzsche selon laquelle Nietzsche enjoint chacun à se perfectionner soi-même et non à se sacrifier pour le bien d'êtres suprérieurs. Dans cet article, je montre, contra Cavell, que la lecture de Rawls est bien plus fidèle au texte nietzschéen que la lecture partielle et biaisée de Cavell. J'en tire quelques leçons quant au perfectionnisme moral émersonien.

Pictures in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy

by David Egan

Pre-peer reviewed version available for viewing here, or follow the link for the published version.

The word “picture” occurs pervasively in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Not only does Wittgenstein often use literal... more The word “picture” occurs pervasively in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Not only does Wittgenstein often use literal pictures or the notion of mental pictures in his investigations, but he also frequently uses “picture” to speak about a way of conceiving of a matter (e.g. “A picture held us captive” at Philosophical Investigations§115). I argue that “picture” used in this conceptual sense is not a shorthand for an assumption or a set of propositions but is rather an expression of conceptual bedrock on the model of an organising myth. This reading builds primarily on work by Gordon Baker and Stanley Cavell.

Film As Philosophy

by Rupert Read

The Bechtel Room: A Guide to the Portraits

by Jason Pannone

2010; Revised July 2011.

This is a guide to the portraits in Emerson Hall 107 (The Bechtel Room), Department of Philosophy, Harvard University,... more This is a guide to the portraits in Emerson Hall 107 (The Bechtel Room), Department of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with an appendix of sources on the history of philosophy at Harvard and in the United States.

While it is, on one level, merely a guide to portraits, there is, on another level, a good deal of the history of philosophy at Harvard and in the United States during the 20th century contained herein.

Acknowledging a Hidden God: A Theological Critique of Stanley Cavell on Scepticism

by Judith Wolfe

In the Heythrop Journal XLVIII (2007)

In his early work, the philosopher Stanley Cavell offers a sustained engagement with
the threat of... more In his early work, the philosopher Stanley Cavell offers a sustained engagement with
the threat of epistemological scepticism, shaped by the intuition that although (as the
late Wittgenstein shows) ordinary language use is the practice within which alone
meaning is possible (and which can thus not be further analysed or rationalised), it is
also a basic human inclination to wish to escape the limitations of the ‘ordinary’. This,
for Cavell, is the root of scepticism. Scepticism, on this view, thus appears not
primarily as an epistemological but as an (injurious) moral stance, which cannot be
refuted but must be continually confronted and overcome. Vis-a` -vis scepticism,
‘acknowledgement’ is the practice-based recognition of the world and other people in
their continuing elusiveness, which ineluctably involves risk, but just so is the only
way of knowing that is appropriate to and honours the (finite) human condition. One
problematic aspect of this (very fertile) approach is that Cavell’s secular viewpoint
makes it difficult for him to say both why the desire for a ‘beyond’ arises in the first
place, and why its expression as denial is morally wrong (rather than merely
misguided). His approach thus invites a theological ‘supplementation’ which grounds
the human condition in an original and real relation to God that is meant to draw the
believer, through Christ, into the divine life itself. Such a reinterpretation both
elucidates the concepts of scepticism and acknowledgement, and makes these
concepts available for a theological outlook that is able to accommodate Cavell’s
profound insights into ‘the human’.

A Vida Virtual do Cinema

by Sérgio Dias Branco

Resumo (2010). Seminários em Volta de D.N. Rodowick: The Virtual Life of Film (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem - Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 27 Abr.

Should John Connor Save the World?

by Peter Fosl

In The Terminator and Philosophy, edited by Richard Brown (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2009), 218-35; ISBN 978-0470-44798-7.

Uses Stanley Cavell's account of the moral claims of language, principally in "The Claim of Reason" (1979),... more Uses Stanley Cavell's account of the moral claims of language, principally in "The Claim of Reason" (1979), to resolve the moral moment Terminator protagonist John Connor faces when he is asked to save the world.

Stanley Cavell: A Bibliography 1951-1995

by Peter Fosl

In The Cavell Reader, edited by Stephen Mulhall (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1996), 390-414. ISBN 978-0631-19743-0.

Earlier versions include: with Michael Payne, Stanley Cavell: A Bibliography, 1958-1994," in Stanley Cavell,... more Earlier versions include: with Michael Payne, Stanley Cavell: A Bibliography, 1958-1994," in Stanley Cavell, Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1995), 187-97. ISBN 978-0631-19271-8; "A Working Bibliography on Stanley Cavell," in The Senses of Stanley Cavell, edited by Richard Fleming and Michel Payne, Bucknell Review 32.1 (1989): 322-34. ISBN 978-0838751466.

Anti-Theodicy in Adorno and Levinas

by Carl Sachs

Forthcoming in "Philosophy and Social Criticism"

Rethinking Bazin: Ontology and Realist Aesthetics

by Daniel Morgan

Critical Inquiry 32 (2006)

Connoisseurship and the Stakes of Style

by Richard Neer

Critical Inquiry 32 (2005): 1–26

Terrence Malick's New World

by Richard Neer

Published in nonsite.org 2 (June, 2011).

Abstract: A discussion of Terrence Malick’s film, The New World (2004), and the director’s place in “post-Theory”... more Abstract: A discussion of Terrence Malick’s film, The New World (2004), and the director’s place in “post-Theory” philosophical film studies.  Against a tendency to treat Malick’s films as modern-day contes philosophiques, the essay emphasizes directorial style and the stakes thereof.  On screen and soundtrack, The New World stages internal relations and disjunctions while revealing them to be constitutive of a cinematic world.  Specifically, the film interleaves two ways of approaching a “new world”—the one exemplified in its narrative of exploration, the other in its distinctive look and sound.  Malick shows the political and historical import of this undertaking through pervasive allusions to Wagner’s Ring and to literary texts.  Yet the purpose of the film is precisely not to articulate a defensible thesis about “worldhood.”  It is to effect nothing less than a conversion of the gaze—a purpose inimical to an academic industry that takes positive knowledge as its goal.

Cavell and Deleuze

by Michael Gallope

Published in the Journal of Music Theory

This article attempts to elucidate the main characteristics of Stanley Cavell's philosophy of music by comparing it to... more This article attempts to elucidate the main characteristics of Stanley Cavell's philosophy of music by comparing it to the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. The analysis begins from the simple observation that both philosophers affirmed and supported the broad outlines of the modernist project while rejecting musical experiments that went too far in the direction of abstraction, opacity, or self-indulgence. From this point of agreement, differences emerge between Cavell and Deleuze over exactly how philosophy might prescribe a virtuous, sober, or ethical version of musical modernism. Cavell's commitment to intentions, his frustration with the preponderance of precompositional schema sustained by rationalized composition, and his preoccupation with the practice of criticism lead him to develop a humanist metaphysics built around the responsibility of third parties to determine a fraudulent or insincere musical effort. Through recourse to Cavell and Deleuze's writings on music as well as their respective philosophies of language, I demonstrate how Cavell's position stands in clear methodological disagreement to the broadly inhuman and metaphysical orientation espoused by Deleuze. In the end, I demonstrate how the differences between the two philosophies reveal structural problems both confront in using a metaphysical position to prescribe a concrete musical practice.