The Question of the New

Wittgenstein, Kuhn, Cavell

Abstract

The editors of this special issue of Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies invited contributors to write on Stanley Cavell and Thomas Kuhn. Unfortunately, this paper will end with Kuhn. The reason is simple: I found that I couldn’t begin writing anything on Cavell and the new before I had set up the literary and historical framework for the project, and before I had discussed Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work on aspect-seeing and Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). These are the parts of my work in progress that I’ll share here.