This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein

by Stanley Cavell

The two essays in this book, first published in 1989, were delivered as two of the 1987 Carpenter Lectures at the University of Chicago. Wittgenstein and Emerson are major influences on and subjects of Cavell's thought, and here he thinks and rethinks of these two intellectual forebears. As the title shows, he finds an important crux for contemplation in Emerson's idea of America.

Genres: Philosophy

138 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 30, 1988

About the author

Stanley Cavell was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, and ordinary language philosophy. As an interpreter, he produced influential works on Wittgenstein, Austin, Emerson, Thoreau, and Heidegger. His work is characterized by its conversational tone and frequent literary references.

Reviews

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taking Nietzsche and Emerson as his philosophical avatars, in this book Stanley Cavell re-writes Wittgenstein's Investigations through the usage of the terminology of Martin Heidegger's What is Called Thinking? I feel this work suffers from failing to take a critical perspective that allows the reader to make the postmodern leap beyond the traditional modernist language-game and, consequently, I feel that Cavell's book should not be placed among the truly cutting edge of contemporary critics; however, it does provide some insights into the founding of philosophic discourse in early American literary voices. Three stars.

[Benjamin Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Finding as Founding” is arguably the most underrated Cavell essay.

[lcjfrc · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book comprises the two lectures Cavell gave in the 1980s on Wittgenstein (he sticks to the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein, therefore the later part of his work) and Emerson, yet Cavell also pieces together other authors' insights, including Spengler's, in whose embittered perspective on philosophy and culture he sees some correlation with that of Wittgenstein's. He also uses Nietzsche, Freud, Austin, etc. in his argumentation. Cavell's proposition is to read Wittgenstein as a theorist of culture. Similarly and in extension, when he speaks of Emerson, Cavell wants to explain how important his thought is for the understanding of the overall American intellectual context.

Cavell is very well-read but not always articulated. His texts aren't structured here, which still makes sense to a certain degree since spoken lectures are in question, but the two essays could've been less loose nevertheless. There are various directions Cavell takes in his analysis, trying to connect the intellectual tradition of Europe with that of the United States, while at the same time speaking of Wittgenstein's games as corresponding to Freud's fort/da phenomenon of children's play, the ordinariness of Wittgenstein's ordinary language which he also explains through Thoreau's concepts of the lost and found, etc. Much of it seems hardly plausible and rather just anecdotal. Basically, Cavell does what Wittgenstein would've strictly condemned, and that's historicizing and making connections where one should see the particular, contingent.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough, insider-y, and less approachable than some of his other writing. I should have known, I guess...