The Claim to Community

by Norris, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780804751322
• ISBN10: 0804751323
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-30
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Stanley Cavell's unique contributions to the study of epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, film, Shakespeare, and American philosophy have all received wide acclaim. But there has been relatively little recognition of the pertinence of Cavell's work to our understanding of political philosophy.The Claim to Communityfills this gap with essays from a wide range of prominent American, English, French, and Italian philosophers and political theorists, as well as a lengthy response to the essays by Cavell himself. The topics covered include Cavell's understanding of political community, philosophical anthropology, moral perfectionism, the positivist distinction between fact and value, political friendship, the differences between political and aesthetic disagreement, political romanticism, "the pursuit of happiness," tragedy, and race. There are also evaluations of the ways Cavell's positions on these and other matters compare with those of Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, Kant, John Stuart Mill, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Carl Schmitt, Peter Winch, Wittgenstein, and Fred Astaire. This volume will be of great interest to political theorists and political philosophers, as well as to students of literature and film.

Author Biography

Andrew Norris is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is editor of Politics, Metaphysics, and Death: Essays on Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer (2005).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	iii
1 Introduction: Stanley Cavell and the Claim to Community	1	(18)
Andrew Norris
2 Wittgenstein and Cavell: Anthropology, Skepticism, and Politics	19	(19)
Sandra Laugier
3 Bringing Truth Home: Mill, Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Moral Perfectionism	38	(20)
Piergiorgio Donatelli
4 Telling the Dancer from the Dance: On the Relevance of the Ordinary for Political Thought	58	(22)
Joseph Lima and Tracy B. Strong
5 Political Revisions: Stanley Cavell and Political Philosophy	80	(18)
Andrew Norris
6 Perfectionism Without Perfection: Cavell, Montaigne, and the Conditions of Morals and Politics	98	(30)
Richard Flathman
7 Perfectionism, Parrhesia, and the Care of the Self: Foucault and Cavell on Ethics and Politics	128	(28)
David Owen
8 Stanley Cavell and the Limits of Appreciation	156	(8)
Ted Cohen
9 Cavell and Political Romanticism	164	(22)
Espen Hammer
10 Stanley Cavell and the Pursuits of Happiness	186	(26)
Hans Sluga
11 Cordelia's Calculus: Love and Loneliness in Cavell's Reading of Lear	212	(24)
Thomas L. Dumm
12 Aesthetics and Receptivity: Kant, Nietzsche, Cavell, and Astaire	236	(27)
Robert Gooding-Williams
13 The Incessance and the Absence of the Political	263	(56)
Stanley Cavell
Notes	319	(56)
Contributors	375	(4)
Index	379