From Private to Public

[a review essay of Andrew Norris’s 'Becoming Who We Are: Politics and Practical Philosophy in the Work of Stanley Cavell']

Abstract

The most impressive thing about Andrew Norris’ book is its unflinching and unequivocal ease in bringing us to what I have elsewhere called the  Cavellian precipice” through ordinary language philosophy and “external world” skepticism exclusively. That is, this book has a remarkable and fluid grasp of Cavell’s contribution to formal philosophical thought, which literary sorts like myself often eschew explaining precisely because the path to explaining skepticism, for us, feels far more pregnant and urgent when discussing objects of pleasure, namely film and literature.