Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life

by Stanley Cavell

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.

Genres: Philosophy, Film, Nonfiction, Criticism

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

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

[Isaac Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

To the degree that a book can make you think about *everything* - this one does it grandly and in style.

[XXX · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cavell is a genius at summarizing films. Many I would no doubt find quite campy and he makes them sound profound (I want to watch Now, Voyager even though some find it over-acted and sappy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now,_Voy...) based on Cavell's description. Rather, it sounds a profound coming of age). It's definitely something about his ellipticism, it makes each moment sound rich.

The overview of famous philosophers/philosophy was also quite helpful to me as something of a n00b in the area.

The book is, however, quite rambly (by admission, even) and largely lacks a central thesis. Mostly, he seems to want to discuss random films and philsophers he likes--makes sense since this is a college course turned into a book. Still, this leads to some shortcomings. Many of the attacks on utilitarianism seem to me (a utilitarian) unfair. We don't prosecute innocent people simply for PR purposes because that is impossible (the victim would know they were innocent) and it makes sense to organize society by basic, understandable principles. Perfectionism seems to have at least as many gaps--how should I know what is my "unattained but attainable self"? How can I know who I want to be when considering moral actions?

Overall, the book is quite fun and often poignant, but I wish the philosophical aspect had been developed with a different goal in mind.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book changed my life, but mostly for the movies in it. Drop everything you're doing and watch the Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Adam's Rib, His Girl Friday, the Lady Eve, Now Voyager, Stella Dallas, The Awful Truth (and any other Preston Sturges movie), and Pygmalion.

Cavell's thoughts on historical philosophical figures are insane but usually interesting. His theory of perfectionism is not terribly interesting to me, since I'm a pragmatist and not stuck between Utilitarianism and Kantianism. Sorry, Emerson doesn't really do it for me. I think the movies do illuminate what moral discourse should look like as well as the kind of moral life that philosophers often ignore. The idea of a 'remarriage comedy' is also a fruitful one.

I understand the book to have been taken from lecture notes, but I can't imagine what taking this class must have been like. It took me years to get through this book. I put it down in grad school almost 10 years ago and picked it up again last year. Reading it alongside these movies certainly made me appreciate them and think about them holistically.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this, and watched the accompanying classic films, for a political science class my senior year. It kept me thinking and colored my perspective on *everything* well after I turned in my final paper for the class. Reading this properly would be a fairly big project, but I certainly recommend it if you have the time - it's essentially an articulation of morality as you've probably never thought about it before. Also introduced me to "His Girl Friday," which is now one of my favorite films.

[Richard Deming · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of Cavell's work in that the text is a series of lectures he prepared for a course at UChicago. It distills Cavell's ideas on "straight philosophy" (Emerson, Hume, Kant, Mill, et al) and film-as-philosophy all in terms of his ideas of moral perfectionism.

[Hyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have taken this course (Hum 5) and should have read this in college. It's not as hard as I was expecting, and he writes well for a philosopher. But I'm still not exactly sure what he's getting at with moral perfectionism, and the movie chapters are boring and pretentious.

[Robert Wechsler]

I was not convinced by Cavell’s theories, nor taken with his film descriptions and the way he pushed the mixture.

But I liked his idea of moral perfectionism, and ethics as conversation with a friend who helps you question yourself and grow.

[Megan]

It's a bummer because I was getting really into this book and then I had finals etc, etc. Have to take it back to the library before my fines are too big and will hopefully get it again soon.