Book contents
- Cavell’s Must We Mean What We Say? at 50
- Cambridge Philosophical Anniversaries
- Cavell’s Must We Mean What We Say? at 50
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations for Cavell’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Ordinary Language and Its Philosophy
- Part II Aesthetics and the Modern
- Part III Tragedy and the Self
- 9 Philosophy as Autobiography
- 10 The Finer Weapon
- 11 On Cavell’s “Kierkegaard’s On Authority and Revelation” – with Constant Reference to Austen
- 12 Tragic Implication
- 13 Gored States and Theatrical Guises
- Bibliography
- Index of Names and Subjects
- Index of References to Cavell’s Works
10 - The Finer Weapon
Cavell, Philosophy, and Praise
from Part III - Tragedy and the Self
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2022
- Cavell’s Must We Mean What We Say? at 50
- Cambridge Philosophical Anniversaries
- Cavell’s Must We Mean What We Say? at 50
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations for Cavell’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Ordinary Language and Its Philosophy
- Part II Aesthetics and the Modern
- Part III Tragedy and the Self
- 9 Philosophy as Autobiography
- 10 The Finer Weapon
- 11 On Cavell’s “Kierkegaard’s On Authority and Revelation” – with Constant Reference to Austen
- 12 Tragic Implication
- 13 Gored States and Theatrical Guises
- Bibliography
- Index of Names and Subjects
- Index of References to Cavell’s Works
Summary
Instead of taking the impossibility of certain knowledge in experience as an intellectual problem, Cavell understands it as an existential condition. Philosophers have traditionally disavowed that condition by turning skepticism into an intellectual problem. The pathology behind that disavowal becomes the center of what Krebs calls Cavell’s “clinical turn.” The philosophical criticism resulting from that turn involves a radical change in attitude, where thinking is – as Cavell puts it – a mode of praise. This essay argues that thinking as praise makes receptiveness paramount, and requires a reconnection with feeling and passion that brings the body back into philosophy.
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- Cavell's Must We Mean What We Say? at 50 , pp. 167 - 178Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022