Stanley Cavell
Skepticism, Subjectivity, and the Ordinary
Key Contemporary Thinkers
1. Edition February 2002
216 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Stanley Cavell is a leading figure in American philosophy and one
of the most exhilarating and wide-ranging intellectuals of our
time. In this book Espen Hammer offers a lucid and thorough account
of the development of Cavell's work, from his early writings on
ordinary language philosophy and skepticism to his most recent
contributions to film studies, literary theory, romanticism,
ethics, and politics.
The book traces the many lines of skepticism occurring in
Cavell's work and shows how they amount to a rich and subtle
picture of human subjectivity. Hammer explores Cavell's passionate
engagement with Austin and Wittgenstein's visions of language, and
his uncovering of conceptions of the ordinary in Emerson and
Thoreau. Central sections of the book are devoted to the tragic and
the comic as these modes of existence come into play in Shakespeare
and Hollywood cinematic drama. In elaborating Cavell's responses to
thinkers such as Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida, the author
situates Cavell's writing within the wider context of contemporary
continental philosophy.
Hammer clearly reveals the existential dimensions of Cavell's
thought. He argues that his variant of ordinary language philosophy
is a vital stimulus to self-transformation in cognitive, aesthetic,
ethical, and political domains, contributing significantly to a
rethinking of issues such as responsibility and autonomy, and the
relationship between philosophy and literature.
A critical introduction to the thought of an inordinately
complex writer, this book will be of great interest to students and
scholars in philosophy, literary theory, cultural theory,
comparative literature, and media and cultural studies.
Abbreviations.
Preface.
Chapter 1 Ordinary Language Philosophy.
Chapter 2 Skepticism: Criteria and the External World.
Chapter 3 The Other.
Chapter 4 Art and Aesthetics.
Chapter 5 Ethics and Politics.
Chapter 6 Between Philosophy and Literature: Deconstruction and
Romanticism.
Epilogue.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index
Hammer has produced an immensely lucid and compelling overview of
the fundamental gestures of, arguably, the most distinctive and
original American philosopher now writing.' - Jay
Bernstein, The New School for Social Research, New York
'Epsen Hammer's lucid and engaging account of
Cavell's inheritance of Austin and Wittgenstein is
particularly successful in showing how it might make possible
genuinely productive encounters between the "analytic"
and the "Continental" philosophical traditions.'
- Stephen Mulhall, New College, University of
Oxford
