INTRODUCTION

Academic philosophy in the twentieth century has become comfortable with a compartmentalized conception of philosophy. Most members of philosophy departments in American universities consider themselves to be specialists in, for example, philosophy of language, or philosophy of mind, or philosophy of science or ethics or aesthetics, or in some period of the history of philosophy, and this is, mostly, a good thing. It permits a detailed mastery of a limited, often technical, body of work, to which one might reasonably aspire to make a small contribution in a sophisticated way. Given the proliferation of the philosophical literature in all fields, and given the need in many specialized areas to master some other academic field (contemporary physics, neuroscience, computer science, economics, art history), this all makes good sense. This is what Richard Rorty calls the conception of philosophy as a Fach – a specialized discipline that masters a particular body of knowledge. No wonder that it has been difficult for academic philosophy to assimilate the work of Stanley Cavell. On the one hand, Cavell is widely read, admired, and honored by the philosophical profession. He has received its highest marks of professional recognition: selection to deliver the Carus Lectures, the presidency of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, a MacArthur Fellowship. On the other hand, for many academic philosophers he represents a kind of stumbling block. They don't know how to fit him into the standard pictures of twentieth-century analytical and Continental philosophy.