Cities Of Words

by Cavell, Stanley

• ISBN13: 9780674018181
• ISBN10: 0674018184
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-31
• Publisher: Belknap Pr

Summary

Since Socrates and his circle first tried to frame the Just City in words, discussion of a perfect communal life--a life of justice, reflection, and mutual respect--has had to come to terms with the distance between that idea and reality. Measuring this distance step by practical step is the philosophical project that Stanley Cavell has pursued on his exploratory path. Situated at the intersection of two of his longstanding interests--Emersonian philosophy and the Hollywood comedy of remarriage--Cavell's new work marks a significant advance in this project. The book--which presents a course of lectures Cavell presented several times toward the end of his teaching career at Harvard--links masterpieces of moral philosophy and classic Hollywood comedies to fashion a new way of looking at our lives and learning to live with ourselves. This book offers philosophy in the key of life. Beginning with a rereading of Emerson's "Self-Reliance," Cavell traces the idea of perfectionism through works by Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, and Rawls, and by such artists as Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and Shakespeare. Cities of Words shows that this ever-evolving idea, brought to dramatic life in movies such as It Happened One Night, The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, and The Lady Eve, has the power to reorient the perception of Western philosophy.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(18)
Emerson	19	(16)
The Philadelphia Story	35	(14)
Locke	49	(21)
Adam's Rib	70	(12)
John Stuart Mill	82	(20)
Gaslight	102	(17)
Kant	119	(26)
It Happened One Night	145	(19)
Rawls	164	(26)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town	190	(18)
Nietzsche	208	(19)
Now, Voyager	227	(20)
Ibsen	247	(18)
Stella Dallas	265	(17)
Freud	282	(19)
The Lady Eve	301	(12)
Plato	313	(27)
His Girl Friday	340	(12)
Aristotle	352	(21)
The Awful Truth	373	(11)
Henry James and Max Ophuls	384	(25)
G. B. Shaw: Pygmalion and Pygmalion	409	(12)
Shakespeare and Rohmer: Two Tales of Winter	421	(24)
Themes of Moral Perfectionism in Plato's Republic	445	(4)
Acknowledgments	449	(4)
Index	453