Stanley Cavell

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Stanley Cavell, 2015

Stanley Louis Cavell (born September 1, 1926 in Atlanta , Georgia , † June 19, 2018 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was an American philosopher . He was Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and General Value Theory at Harvard University , most recently retired.

Life

Born the son of Jewish immigrants, Cavell first received a musical education and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley in 1947 . During his studies at Harvard in 1954 he made the acquaintance of JL Austin , whose concept of " common language " started a revolution in his thinking, and whose pupil and defender he became. Most recently Cavell lived in Brookline , Massachusetts . He was temporarily chairman of the American Philosophical Association . In 1978 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Since 2005 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society .

Cavell was a regular writer on the London Review of Books .

In 1992 he was a MacArthur Fellow .

philosophy

Although Cavell's roots actually lie in Anglo-American analytical philosophy , Cavell often sought to talk to European tradition . That is why it is also counted among the current of post-analytical philosophy . His work Must we mean what we say? has advanced to become one of the most important works of recent philosophy of language in recent years.

In addition to classic philosophy topics, he has also repeatedly commented on areas of literature and film. The works Pursuits of Happiness (1981) and Contesting Tears: The Melodrama of the Unknown Women (1996) are philosophical confrontations with classic Hollywood cinema. In Pursuits of Happiness he interprets the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s as the happy experience of our everyday life, which can also have a significant impact on our lifestyle. So the protagonists of these films try to sound out the limits of everyday life and thereby also recognize it. As a viewer who can laugh at these films, one can also be brought into a position to recognize and realize one's own “pursuit of happiness” (pursuits of happiness). Ultimately, according to Cavell, “we do not find our happiness through argumentation or through norms, but rather we are guided by a happy life […]”. Cavell brings this to the concept of "moral perfectionism". In Contesting Tears, on the other hand, he describes melodramas as language crises that usually female characters in the films suffer. Only when they find their voice in society can they realize themselves.

Cavell came out with work on Martin Heidegger and especially on the late work of Ludwig Wittgenstein . He is considered one of the most prominent Wittgenstein exegetes of contemporary philosophy. His unusual approach to Wittgenstein is also known as the "new Wittgenstein". He also dealt with American transcendentalism and its main representatives Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson . The themes of these authors run through all of Cavell's writings. A central element of his philosophy is therefore also a philosophical investigation of the everyday and the ordinary.

Major works

Cavell's work has recently been systematically translated into German.

Must We Mean What We Say? (1969)

Cavell first attracted the attention of a larger audience with this collection of essays . Cavell deals with problems of language use , metaphor , skepticism , tragedy and literary interpretation , with constant regard to the philosophy of normal language , as the supporter and defender of which he presents himself.

The claim of reason ( The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy , 1979)

Cavell's most famous book, the sources of which go back to his dissertation . Cavell combines themes as diverse as Shakespeare's romantic comedies , epistemological skepticism , John Dewey , Friedrich Nietzsche , Ralph Waldo Emerson and Heinrich von Kleist . Cavell's particular endeavor is to try to achieve subterranean "harmonies" between seemingly incommensurable subject areas, such as philosophy and literature.

Cities of Words (2004)

Cities of Words is a story of the position of ethical perfectionism in Western philosophy and literature that Cavell had previously pinned to Thoreau and Emerson. This work is also one of the few Cavell film books that is fully available in German translation.

Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow (2005)

In this more recent collection of essays, Cavell claims that John Austin's concept of the performative speech act can only be justified by a concept of the "passionate speech act": a performative speech act is merely an offer of participation in a regular order, while a "passionate" speech act is an improvised one Innovation in the chaos of feelings, which order only presupposes. The book also deals with Friedrich Nietzsche, Jane Austen , George Eliot , Henry James , Fred Astaire and other important authors for Cavell, such as William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Heidegger.

The Senses of Walden (2014)

The early, now translated main work deals with Thoreau's Walden. Or life in the Woods . and the importance of Thoreau to us. The essay marks the beginning of Cavell's preoccupation with the American transcendentalists. In addition, Cavell's literary criticism is about "[...] determining how a philosophical text is stimulated by another, why the history of philosophy is a history of such stimuli, and what constitutes an original or initial text accordingly." Mark Greif's essay introduces Cavell as a thought leader and teacher to an entire generation of intellectuals.

See also

bibliography

Works by Cavell

German

  • According to philosophy. Essays . Second, expanded edition. With a new introduction published by Ludwig Nagl and Kurt Rudolf Fischer , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-05-003421-1 .
  • The eeriness of the ordinary. And other philosophical essays . S. Fischer, Frankfurt 2002
  • The other voice. Philosophy and autobiography . Diaphanes, Berlin 2002
  • The claim of reason . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2006
  • Cities of Words. A moral register in philosophy, film and literature . Chronos, Zurich 2010
  • The senses of Walden . Matthes & Seitz , Berlin 2014

English

  • Must We Mean What We Say? A book of essays. Scribner, New York 1969
  • The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film. Viking Press, New York 1971; 2nd enlarged edn. (1979)
  • The Senses of Walden . North Point Press, San Francisco 1972
  • The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy . Oxford University Press , 1979
  • Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage . Harvard University Press, 1981
  • Themes Out of School: Effects and Causes . North Point Press, San Francisco 1984
  • Disowning Knowledge: In Six Plays of Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press, 1987; 2nd edn .: Disowning Knowledge: In Seven Plays of Shakespeare 2003.
  • In Quest of the Ordinary: Lines of Skepticism and Romanticism . Chicago University Press, 1988.
  • This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein . Chicago University Press, 1988.
  • Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism University of Chicago Press , 1990
  • A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises . Harvard University Press , 1994
  • Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, JL Austin , Jacques Derrida Blackwell, 1995
  • Contesting Tears: The Melodrama of the Unknown Woman University of Chicago Press, 1996.
  • Emerson's Transcendental Etudes . Stanford University Press , 2003
  • Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life . Belknap Press, 2004
  • Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow . Belknap, 2005

Secondary literature

  • Elisabeth Bronfen : Stanley Cavell for an introduction . Junius, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88506-608-8
  • Joseph H. Smith, William Kerrigan (Eds.): Images in our souls: Cavell, psychoanalysis, and cinema . Johns Hopkins University Press , Baltimore
  • Stephen Mulhall (Ed.): The Cavell Reader . Blackwell, 1996
  • Herbert Schwaab: Experience of the Ordinary: Stanley Cavell's film philosophy as a theory of popular culture. Lit Verlag, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10985-9
  • Sandra Laugier: Une autre pensée politique américaine. La démocratie radicale d'Emerson à Stanley Cavell. Michel Houdiard, Paris 2004

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neil Genzlinger: Stanley Cavell, Prominent Harvard Philosopher, Dies at 91st The New York Times, June 20, 2018, accessed June 21, 2018 .
  2. ^ Member History: Stanley Cavell. American Philosophical Society, accessed June 1, 2018 (with a short biography).
  3. ↑ German: Walden. Or life in the woods
personal data
SURNAME Cavell, Stanley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cavell, Stanley Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Atlanta
DATE OF DEATH 19th June 2018
Place of death Boston