Stanley Cavell, with Time

Abstract

Let me start by saying how significant it is for me to take part in this conference commemorating and celebrating Stanley Cavell. I am grateful to Cathleen Cavell and Richard Moran for this opportunity, not only to speak, but mainly to listen to dear friends, friends whose companionship was indelibly marked by our common love for Stanley, by the admiration for his thinking, and by the inspiration and sustenance he provided for our own work.

What I will say will be inflected by the way Stanley touched my life and work. I must apologize therefore for having to speak, in the short and precious time I have, also a bit about myself. As I wrote these remarks I thought that I will most likely not be the only one to choose to speak of the ideal, the paradigm of the unity of person and thought that is Stanley Cavell. It is what was so striking to me when I first encountered him; it also became central to my dissertation project with him, and it remains to this day that through which I think of his continuous presence in my concerns with philosophy.