Continuing Education with Stanley Cavell

Abstract

How many times in my life have I re-encountered my teacher, Stanley Cavell? The most memorable, the first encounter with him was in the winter of 1996 at Harvard—the image still vivid in my memory, the snow falling outside the window of his room, with me sitting in front of Stanley. At the suggestions of a teaching assistant of Hilary Putnam, who had read my term paper, I made an appointment with Stanley and introduced myself along with my abiding question regarding American philosophy. When I presented this as my being “torn” between Emerson and Dewey, Stanley reacted immediately and expressed his sense of sympathy with me. That was the beginning of a kind of continuing education for me and of the lifelong task I consider myself to have shared with him.