A Pitch of Philosophy

A Pitch of Philosophy
Author: Stanley CAVELL
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0674029283

This book is an invitation to the life of philosophy in the United States, as Emerson once lived it and as Stanley Cavell now lives it--in all its topographical ambiguity. Cavell talks about his vocation in connection with what he calls voice--the tone of philosophy--and his right to take that tone, and to describe an anecdotal journey toward the discovery of his own voice.

Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow

Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow
Author: Stanley Cavell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2005
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780674022324

Seeking for philosophy the same spirit and assurance conveyed by artists like Fred Astaire, Cavell presents essays exploring the meaning of grace and gesture in film and on stage, in language and in life. Critical to the renaissance in American thought Cavell hopes to provoke is the recognition of the centrality of the “ordinary” to American life.

Knowing the Score

Knowing the Score
Author: David Papineau
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0465094945

In Knowing the Score, philosopher David Papineau uses sports to illuminate some of modern philosophy's most perplexing questions. As Papineau demonstrates, the study of sports clarifies, challenges, and sometimes confuses crucial issues in philosophy. The tactics of road bicycle racing shed new light on questions of altruism, while sporting family dynasties reorient the nature v. nurture debate. Why do sports competitors choke? Why do fans think God will favor their team over their rivals? How can it be moral to deceive the umpire by framing a pitch? From all of these questions, and many more, philosophy has a great deal to learn. An entertaining and erudite book that ranges far and wide through the sporting world, Knowing the Score is perfect reading for armchair philosophers and Monday morning quarterbacks alike.

Cities of Words

Cities of Words
Author: Stanley Cavell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2005-10-31
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780674018181

Since Socrates and his circle first tried to frame the Just City in words, discussion of a perfect communal life--a life of justice, reflection, and mutual respect--has had to come to terms with the distance between that idea and reality. Measuring this distance step by practical step is the philosophical project that Stanley Cavell has pursued on his exploratory path. Situated at the intersection of two of his longstanding interests--Emersonian philosophy and the Hollywood comedy of remarriage--Cavell's new work marks a significant advance in this project. The book--which presents a course of lectures Cavell presented several times toward the end of his teaching career at Harvard--links masterpieces of moral philosophy and classic Hollywood comedies to fashion a new way of looking at our lives and learning to live with ourselves. This book offers philosophy in the key of life. Beginning with a rereading of Emerson's "Self-Reliance," Cavell traces the idea of perfectionism through works by Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, and Rawls, and by such artists as Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and Shakespeare. Cities of Words shows that this ever-evolving idea, brought to dramatic life in movies such as It Happened One Night, The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, and The Lady Eve, has the power to reorient the perception of Western philosophy.

Stanley Cavell and the Claim of Literature

Stanley Cavell and the Claim of Literature
Author: David Rudrum
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1421410494

An analysis of the significance of literature in the work of one of America's most influential contemporary philosophers. Stanley Cavell is widely recognized as one of America's most important contemporary philosophers, and his legacy and writings continue to attract considerable attention among literary critics and theorists. Stanley Cavell and the Claim of Literature comprehensively addresses the importance of literature in Cavell's philosophy and, in turn, the potential effect of his philosophy on contemporary literary criticism. David Rudrum dedicates a chapter to each of the writers that principally occupy Cavell, including Shakespeare, Thoreau, Beckett, Wordsworth, Ibsen, and Poe, and incorporates chapters on tragedy, skepticism, ethics, and politics. Through detailed analysis of these works, Rudrum explores Cavell's ideas on the nature of reading; the relationships among literary language, ordinary language, and performative language; the status of authors and characters; the link between tragedy and ethics; and the nature of political conversation in a democracy.

Pursuits of Happiness

Pursuits of Happiness
Author: Stanley Cavell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 1981
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780674739062

Looks at seven classic romantic comedies of the thirties and forties, and compares what each film expresses about marriage, interdependence, equality, and sexual roles.

The World Viewed

The World Viewed
Author: Stanley Cavell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1979-01-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0674253353

Stanley Cavell looks closely at America's most popular art and our perceptions of it. His explorations of Hollywood's stars, directors, and most famous films—as well as his fresh look at Godard, Bergman, and other great European directors—will be of lasting interest to movie-viewers and intelligent people everywhere.

Infinite Baseball

Infinite Baseball
Author: Alva Noë
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2019-03-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0190928190

Baseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch -and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noë explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball - as in the law - we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score: a score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, Noe's observations are surprising and provocative. Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.

Mini Philosophy

Mini Philosophy
Author: Jonny Thomson
Publisher: Wildfire
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2021-08-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472282183

'Engaging, smart and wise, Mini-Philosophy is a diverse taster menu of ideas on life, the mind and the world. Nutritious, bite-sized portions of philosophy that whet the appetite for more' - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks Why do people enjoy watching scary movies? Should we bet on the existence of God? Why is pleasure better than pain? And when is a duck not a duck? Mini Philosophy is a fascinating journey into what some of the greatest minds of the last 2500 years have to say about the big questions in life, and why they are relevant to us today. Covering everything from Sun Tzu's strategy for winning at board games to Freud's insights into our 'death drive'; why De Beauvoir believed the mothering instinct is a myth to why Schopenhauer probably wasn't much fun at parties, these mini meditations will expand your mind (and bend it too).

Stanley Cavell's American Dream

Stanley Cavell's American Dream
Author: Lawrence F. Rhu
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2006
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780823225965

This book states that, after Cavell's celebrated reading of 'King Lear' turned into a nightmarish meditation on Vietnam, he found a more audible voice. Here, the poetry of ideas and presence of mind that animate Cavell's writing receive readings attuned to the spirit of their composition and its enlivening powers.