Cavell, Stanley. The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, And Tragedy. Oxford / New York, Clarendon Press / Oxford University Press, 1979. 16 cm x 23,5 cm. XXII, 511 pages. Original Hardcover with illustrated dustjacket in protective Mylar. Creasing, tearing to dustjacket, Slight wrinkling to pages, otherwise in Very good condition with only minor signs of wear. Rare and Out-of-Print! Includes for example: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Human Knowledge / Criteria and Judgment / What a Thing Is (Called) / Skepticism and the Existence of the World / The Quest of Traditional Epistemology: Opening / Knowledge and the Concept of Morality / The Autonomy of Morals / Skepticism and the Problem of Others / Between Acknowledgement and Avoidence etc.

The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy

Reference

Cavell, Stanley

Words, Language & Grammar

Oxford University Press

The first three parts of this book deal with the tension between ordinary language philosophy (as envisioned in the writings of J.L. Austin and the later Wittgenstein) and the 'tradition.' In the fourth part the author explores the problem of skepticism and takes a broad view of its consequences.

The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Oxford University Press)

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Stanley Cavell is a titan of the academic world; his work in aesthetics and philosophy has shaped both fields in the United States over the past forty years. In this brief yet enlightening collection of lectures, Cavell investigates the work of two of his most tried-and-true subjects: Emerson and Wittgenstein. Beginning with an introductory essay that places his own work in a philosophical and historical context, Cavell guides his reader through his thought process when composing and editing his lectures while making larger claims about the influence of institutions on philosophers, and the idea of progress within the discipline of philosophy. In “Declining Decline,” Cavell explains how language modifies human existence, looking specifically at the culture of Wittgenstein’s writings. He draws on Emerson, Thoreau, and many others to make his case that Wittgenstein can indeed be viewed as a “philosopher of culture.” In his final lecture, “Finding as Founding,” Cavell writes in response to Emerson’s “Experience,” and explores the tension between the philosopher and language—that he or she must embrace language as his or her “form of life,” while at the same time surpassing its restrictions. He compares finding new ideas to discovering a previously unknown land in an essay that unabashedly celebrates the power and joy of philosophical thought.

This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein (Carpenter Lectures)

University of Chicago Press

In the first essay of this book, Stanley Cavell characterizes philosophy as a "willingness to think not about something other than what ordinary human beings think about, but rather to learn to think undistractedly about things that ordinary human beings cannot help thinking about, or anyway cannot help having occur to them, sometimes in fantasy, sometimes as a flash across a landscape." Fantasies of film and television and literature, flashes across the landscape of literary theory, philosophical discourse, and French historiography give Cavell his starting points in these twelve essays. Here is philosophy in and out of "school," understood as a discipline in itself or thought through the works of Shakespeare, Molière, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Brecht, Makavejev, Bergman, Hitchcock, Astaire, and Keaton.

Themes out of School: Effects and Causes

History

Stanley Cavell, one of America's most distinguished philosophers, has written an invaluable companion volume to Walden, a seminal book in our cultural heritage. This expanded edition includes two essays on Emerson.

The Senses of Walden: An Expanded Edition

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

What is marriage? Can a relationship dedicated to equality, friendship, and mutual education flower in an atmosphere of romance? What are the paths between loving another and knowing another? Stanley Cavell identified a genre of classic American films that engaged these questions in his study of comedies of remarriage, Pursuits of Happiness. With Contesting Tears, Cavell demonstrates that a contrasting genre, which he calls "the melodrama of the unknown woman," shares a surprising number and weave of concerns with those comedies.Cavell provides close readings of four melodramas he finds definitive of the genre: Letter from an Unknown Woman, Gaslight, Now Voyager, and Stella Dallas. The women in these melodramas, like the women in the comedies, demand equality, shared education, and transfiguration, exemplifying for Cavell a moral perfectionism he identifies as Emersonian. But unlike the comedies, which portray a quest for a shared existence of expressiveness and joy, the melodramas trace instead the woman's recognition that in this quest she is isolated. Part of the melodrama concerns the various ways the men in the films (and the audiences of the films) interpret and desire to force the woman's consequent inaccessibility."Film is an interest of mine," Stanley Cavell has written, "or say a love, not separate from my interest in, or love of, philosophy." In Contesting Tears Cavell once again brilliantly unites his two loves, using detailed and perceptive musings on melodrama to reflect on philosophical problems of skepticism, psychoanalysis, and perfectionism. As he shows, the fascination and intelligence of such great stars as Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck illuminate, as they are illuminated by, the topics and events of these beloved and enduring films.

Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

What is marriage? Can a relationship dedicated to equality, friendship, and mutual education flower in an atmosphere of romance? What are the paths between loving another and knowing another? Stanley Cavell identified a genre of classic American films that engaged these questions in his study of comedies of remarriage, Pursuits of Happiness. With Contesting Tears, Cavell demonstrates that a contrasting genre, which he calls "the melodrama of the unknown woman," shares a surprising number and weave of concerns with those comedies. Cavell provides close readings of four melodramas he finds definitive of the genre: Letter from an Unknown Woman, Gaslight, Now Voyager, and Stella Dallas. The women in these melodramas, like the women in the comedies, demand equality, shared education, and transfiguration, exemplifying for Cavell a moral perfectionism he identifies as Emersonian. But unlike the comedies, which portray a quest for a shared existence of expressiveness and joy, the melodramas trace instead the woman's recognition that in this quest she is isolated. Part of the melodrama concerns the various ways the men in the films (and the audiences of the films) interpret and desire to force the woman's consequent inaccessibility. "Film is an interest of mine," Stanley Cavell has written, "or say a love, not separate from my interest in, or love of, philosophy." In Contesting Tears Cavell once again brilliantly unites his two loves, using detailed and perceptive musings on melodrama to reflect on philosophical problems of skepticism, psychoanalysis, and perfectionism. As he shows, the fascination and intelligence of such great stars as Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck illuminate, as they are illuminated by, the topics and events of these beloved and enduring films.

Biographies & Memoirs

These lectures by one of the most influential and original philosophers of the twentieth century constitute a sustained argument for the philosophical basis of romanticism, particularly in its American rendering. Through his examination of such authors as Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, Stanley Cavell shows that romanticism and American transcendentalism represent a serious philosophical response to the challenge of skepticism that underlies the writings of Wittgenstein and Austin on ordinary language.

In Quest of the Ordinary: Lines of Skepticism and Romanticism

History & Criticism

Univ of Chicago Pr

In these three lectures, Cavell situates Emerson at an intersection of three crossroads: a place where both philosophy and literature pass; where the two traditions of English and German philosophy shun one another; where the cultures of America and Europe unsettle one another."Cavell's 'readings' of Wittgenstein and Heidegger and Emerson and other thinkers surely deepen our understanding of them, but they do much more: they offer a vision of what life can be and what culture can mean. . . . These profound lectures are a wonderful place to make [Cavell's] acquaintance."—Hilary Putnam

Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism: The Carus Lectures, 1988

Essays & Correspondence

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cavell, Stanley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cavell, Stanley

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cavell, Stanley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy

The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Oxford University Press)

This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein (Carpenter Lectures)

Themes out of School: Effects and Causes

The Senses of Walden: An Expanded Edition

Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman

Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman

In Quest of the Ordinary: Lines of Skepticism and Romanticism

In Quest of the Ordinary: Lines of Skepticism and Romanticism

Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism: The Carus Lectures, 1988