This essay argues that the exploration of scepticism and its implications in the work of Stanley Cavell and David Hume bears more similarities than is commonly acknowledged, especially along the lines of what I wish to call “sceptical naturalism.” These lines of similarity are described through the way each philosopher relates the “natural” and “nature” to the universal, the necessary, and the conventional.

Having acknowledged the recurrent theme of education in Stanley Cavell's work, the discussion addresses the topic of scepticism, especially as this emerges in the interpretation of Wittgenstein. Questions concerning rule‐following, language and society are then turned towards political philosophy, specifically with regard to John Rawls. The discussion examines the idea of the social contract, the nature of moral reasoning and the possibility of our lives' being above reproach, as well as Rawls's criticisms of Nietzschean perfectionism. This lays the way for (...) the broaching of questions of race and America. The theme of the ordinary, which emerges variously in Cavell's reflections on Emerson, Wittgenstein and Austin, is taken up and extended into a consideration of Thoreau's ‘experiment in living’. The conversation closes with brief remarks about happiness. (shrink)

In ‘Aesthetics Problems of Modern Philosophy’ Stanley Cavell proposes, first, that Kant's characterization of judgments of beauty may be read as a Wittgensteinian grammatical characterization, and, second, that the philosophical appeal to ‘what we say and mean’ partakes of the grammar of judgment of beauty. I argue first that the expression of the dawning of an aspect partakes of the grammar of judgments of beauty as characterized by Kant, and may also be seen—on a prevailing way of thinking about concepts (...) and how they relate to their instances—to have the same kind of significance that judgments of beauty have according to Kant. And then I argue that there are good reasons for being suspicious of the prevailing conception of concepts, and therefore good reasons for being suspicious of the proposed understanding of the significance of aspect perception—an understanding that has attracted many readers of Wittgenstein's remarks on aspects. This leads me to suggest that it is actually the philosophical appeal to ordinary language that has the kind of significance that the Kantian picture attributes to judgments of beauty and to the seeing of aspects. In this way, I offer a way to vindicate Cavell's second proposal. (shrink)

What is the relation between works of fiction and the acquisition of knowledge?