A Pitch of Philosophy: autobiographical exercisesHarvard University Press, 2009 M06 30 - 214 pages Annotation What is the pitch of philosophy? Something thrown, for us to catch? A lurch, meant to unsettle us? The relative position of a tone on a scale? A speech designed to persuade? This book is an invitation to the life of philosophy in the United States, as Emerson once lived it and as Stanley Cavell now lives it - in all its topographical ambiguity. Cavell talks about his vocation in connection with what he calls voice - the tone of philosophy - and his right to take that tone, and to describe an anecdotal journey toward the discovery of his own voice. Cavell asks how the voice of philosophy can be heard amid the commerce of everyday life. His autobiographical exercises begin at home with his parents, his father an accidental pawnbroker and accomplished raconteur, his mother a trained and talented musician. In the course of showing us his certain steps in the discovery of his trade, he conveys the sense of what it means to learn to walk on one's own, with a Thoreauvian deliberateness. He pays suitableattention to a serious ally and antagonist to the task of philosophy as he understands it, namely, Jacques Derrida - yet Derrida has mounted a full-scale attack on "voice" and other concepts that Cavell has held open for much of a lifetime. The chapters are interwoven with intense family reminiscences in Cavell's discovery of J.L. Austin, his understanding of Wittgenstein, his raising of Emerson to the philosophical canon, his fascination with film (images of women in a medium for women), the revelation that film and opera are the media of otherness for women. And the voice at the end: hearing in himself the voice of his mother, which is music. Complex, sentimental, witty, A Pitch ofPhilosophy is for anyone who cares to take on philosophy, under whatever name it goes |
Contents
2 CounterPhilosophy and the Pawn of Voice | 53 |
3 Opera and the Lease of Voice | 129 |
Bibliography | 171 |
Acknowledgments | 179 |
191 | |
194 | |
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Common terms and phrases
American answer arrogation Austin autobiographical beginning Catherine Clément chapter cited Claim of Reason Clément comedy communication concept culture Debussy Derrida difference discussion Ecce Homo effect Emerson English National Opera esotericism essay example excuses existence experience expressed fact fantasy father film Harvard hence Hippolytus human Husserl idea intellectual interest interpretation intuition J. L. Austin Jerusalem Kabbalah knowledge lectures Maeterlinck's marriage Marx Brothers means meant Mélisande metaphysical mind moral mother narcissism Nietzsche Nietzsche's one's opening opera ordinary language ordinary language philosophy origin passage performative performative utterance perhaps philosophy picture play positivism possibility present promise question reading relation response Scholem seems Sense and Sensibilia seriousness Signature Event Context singing skepticism speak story tethering theory Things with Words Thoreau thought tion tradition tragedy trans turn understand University Press utterances voice Walden Wittgenstein Wittgenstein's Investigations woman women writing