Description
Book SynopsisStephen Mulhall presents the first full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian literary criticism, and the confluence of psychoanalysis and literary theory. It is not properly appreciated that Cavell''s project originated in his interpretation of Austin''s and Wittgenstein''s philosophical interest in the criteria governing ordinary language, and is given unity by an abiding concern with the nature and the varying cultural manifestations of the sceptical impulse in modernity. This book elucidates the essentially philosophical roots and trajectory of Cavell''s work, traces its links with Romanticism and its recent turn towards a species of moral pefectionism associated with Thoreau and Emerson, and concludes with an assessment of its relations to liberal-democratic political theory, Christian religious thought, and feminist literary studies. It will be of interest to anyon
Trade ReviewDespite what his book's title might suggest, Stephen Mulhall's thorough explication of Stanley Cavell's philosophy is anything but ordinary. At the outset Mulhall makes it clear that he intends to address Cavell's exceptional formidability, and set himself `not to attempt to do what can and must only be done by Cavell's own prose, but to clear the space that is required for it to do so'....to Mulhall's credit...he has cleared the space for such a return. * Philosophy and Literature *
Table of ContentsPART I: PATTERNS, AGREEMENT, AND RATIONALITY ; PART II: CRITERIA, SCEPTICISM, AND ROMANTICISM ; PART III: COMMON THEMES, COMPETING PERSPECTIVES ; PART IV: PHILOSOPHY, PEFECTIONISM, AND RELIGION
