Table of Contents

Preface Introduction 1. Emerson 2. The Philadelphia Story 3. Locke 4. Adam's Rib 5. John Stuart Mill 6. Gaslight 7. Kant 8. It Happened One Night 9. Rawls 10. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 11. Nietzsche 12. Now, Voyager 13. Ibsen 14. Stella Dallas 15. Freud 16. The Lady Eve 17. Plato 18. His Girl Friday 19. Aristotle 20. The Awful Truth 21. Henry James and Max Ophuls 22. G. B. Shaw: Pygmalion and Pygmalion 23. Shakespeare and Rohmer: Two Tales of Winter Themes of Moral Perfectionism Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

Promotional Information

Perhaps more than any living philosopher in the English language Cavell has consistently and almost obsessively been at pains to carve out his own path. He is genuinely original. But more than this his life-long commitment to this project has been undertaken with a philosophical seriousness that is increasingly unusual. City of Words will, then, not only illuminate previous publications on Hollywood film of the 1930s and 1940s, but also enable careful readers to begin to understand how recurrent themes - the import and impact of skepticism and the necessity that we understand its challenge; the strangeness and richness of attending to the everyday; the interfaces between moral, theological and psychoanalytic thought; the common strands in ordinary language philosophy's articulation of key questions in the philosophy of mind and of language and those same questions in the European philosophical school, most especially in the work of Wittgenstein and Heidegger - link together and stretch across readings of the western philosophical tradition. Cities of Words will, then, help the considerable Cavellian oeuvre begin to make sense in a far more substantial, and perhaps unusual way than it has heretofore. It shows us how Cavell ticks. -- Peter de Bolla, author of Art Matters

About the Author

Stanley Cavell is Walter M. Cabot Professor, Emeritus, of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value, Harvard University.

Reviews

Perhaps more than any living philosopher in the English language Cavell has consistently and almost obsessively been at pains to carve out his own path. He is genuinely original. But more than this his life-long commitment to this project has been undertaken with a philosophical seriousness that is increasingly unusual. City of Words will, then, not only illuminate previous publications on Hollywood film of the 1930s and 1940s, but also enable careful readers to begin to understand how recurrent themes - the import and impact of skepticism and the necessity that we understand its challenge; the strangeness and richness of attending to the everyday; the interfaces between moral, theological and psychoanalytic thought; the common strands in ordinary language philosophy's articulation of key questions in the philosophy of mind and of language and those same questions in the European philosophical school, most especially in the work of Wittgenstein and Heidegger - link together and stretch across readings of the western philosophical tradition. Cities of Words will, then, help the considerable Cavellian oeuvre begin to make sense in a far more substantial, and perhaps unusual way than it has heretofore. It shows us how Cavell ticks.
*Peter de Bolla, author of Art Matters*

What does it mean to live a moral life? In his typically provocative fashion, Cavell answers this question by juxtaposing various philosophical responses with particular films that illuminate those responses...Cavell's 'letters' offer a ready and heady departure from the usual conversation on moral life, and his inventive use of film helps bring the philosophers he discusses to life.
*Library Journal*

A sober examination of an ethics of 'self-reliance,' Cavell's cinematic criticism is as entertaining as it is enlightening and exemplifies, once again, his uncanny ability to recover the deepest insights of modern life within the language of the ordinary.
*Publishers Weekly*

In Cities of Words, a knotty and enlightening book, chapters about philosophers are paired with chapters about films: Emerson and The Philadelphia Story, Locke and Adam's Rib, Nietzsche and Now, Voyager, Aristotle and The Awful Truth...Cavell shows that the spirit of moral quest has an unusual power, even in the restricted world of these films. For all their artifice, they suggest that characters really can change themselves, that they can form ideals of justice, while keeping in mind how much failure and imperfection will be met along the way. That's not a bad democratic vision, and it remains as potent now as it was when Katharine Hepburn rediscovered her love for Cary Grant.
*New York Times*

In the big parade of American writing about film, Stanley Cavell occupies a strange, outsider position. A Harvard professor of philosophy, he is not, by his own admission, either a film critic or a film scholar; yet he has written with persistent trenchancy and brilliance about movies...Now Cavell, in his late seventies, has given us a volume that synthesizes his life's work in philosophy and film, while adding a third leg to the triangle: teaching. Cities of Words is based on a celebrated course of lectures he gave several times before he retired from the classroom, which alternated discussions of philosophical or literary texts and films...In The World Viewed, Cavell wrote: 'It is generally true of the writing about film which has meant something to me that it has the power of the missing companion. Agee and Robert Warshow and André Bazin manage that mode of conversation all the time; and I have found it in, among others, Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, Parker Tyler, Andrew Sarris.' Alongside these names so companionable to film buffs, I would happily add another: Stanley Cavell.
*Film Comment*

Without genre or parallel, this book continues the interior dialogue of Cavell on the traditions of and prospects for moral perfectionism.
*Choice*

In Cities of Words, Cavell once again reminds us of the practical importance of philosophy. He not only offers insightful commentaries on the giants of moral philosophy but also prompts us to engage in the much-needed conversation about the good life.
*Times Higher Education Supplement*

This is a political book, not simply because of Cavell's readings of political philosophy, which intersperse his discussion of the films and are, as usual, probing and original, but because of its overt pedagogical aim: to educate his readers and to show us how we educate each other.
*Philosophers' Magazine*

Perhaps more than any living philosopher in the English language Cavell has consistently and almost obsessively been at pains to carve out his own path. He is genuinely original. But more than this his life-long commitment to this project has been undertaken with a philosophical seriousness that is increasingly unusual. City of Words will, then, not only illuminate previous publications on Hollywood film of the 1930s and 1940s, but also enable careful readers to begin to understand how recurrent themes - the import and impact of skepticism and the necessity that we understand its challenge; the strangeness and richness of attending to the everyday; the interfaces between moral, theological and psychoanalytic thought; the common strands in ordinary language philosophy's articulation of key questions in the philosophy of mind and of language and those same questions in the European philosophical school, most especially in the work of Wittgenstein and Heidegger - link together and stretch across readings of the western philosophical tradition. Cities of Words will, then, help the considerable Cavellian oeuvre begin to make sense in a far more substantial, and perhaps unusual way than it has heretofore. It shows us how Cavell ticks. -- Peter de Bolla, author of Art Matters
What does it mean to live a moral life? In his typically provocative fashion, Cavell answers this question by juxtaposing various philosophical responses with particular films that illuminate those responses...Cavell's 'letters' offer a ready and heady departure from the usual conversation on moral life, and his inventive use of film helps bring the philosophers he discusses to life. -- Henry I. Carrigan Jr. * Library Journal *
A sober examination of an ethics of 'self-reliance,' Cavell's cinematic criticism is as entertaining as it is enlightening and exemplifies, once again, his uncanny ability to recover the deepest insights of modern life within the language of the ordinary. * Publishers Weekly *
In Cities of Words, a knotty and enlightening book, chapters about philosophers are paired with chapters about films: Emerson and The Philadelphia Story, Locke and Adam's Rib, Nietzsche and Now, Voyager, Aristotle and The Awful Truth...Cavell shows that the spirit of moral quest has an unusual power, even in the restricted world of these films. For all their artifice, they suggest that characters really can change themselves, that they can form ideals of justice, while keeping in mind how much failure and imperfection will be met along the way. That's not a bad democratic vision, and it remains as potent now as it was when Katharine Hepburn rediscovered her love for Cary Grant. -- Edward Rothstein * New York Times *
In the big parade of American writing about film, Stanley Cavell occupies a strange, outsider position. A Harvard professor of philosophy, he is not, by his own admission, either a film critic or a film scholar; yet he has written with persistent trenchancy and brilliance about movies...Now Cavell, in his late seventies, has given us a volume that synthesizes his life's work in philosophy and film, while adding a third leg to the triangle: teaching. Cities of Words is based on a celebrated course of lectures he gave several times before he retired from the classroom, which alternated discussions of philosophical or literary texts and films...In The World Viewed, Cavell wrote: 'It is generally true of the writing about film which has meant something to me that it has the power of the missing companion. Agee and Robert Warshow and Andre Bazin manage that mode of conversation all the time; and I have found it in, among others, Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, Parker Tyler, Andrew Sarris.' Alongside these names so companionable to film buffs, I would happily add another: Stanley Cavell. -- Phillip Lopate * Film Comment *
Without genre or parallel, this book continues the interior dialogue of Cavell on the traditions of and prospects for moral perfectionism. -- D. W. Sullivan * Choice *
In Cities of Words, Cavell once again reminds us of the practical importance of philosophy. He not only offers insightful commentaries on the giants of moral philosophy but also prompts us to engage in the much-needed conversation about the good life. -- Mariana Ortega * Times Higher Education Supplement *
This is a political book, not simply because of Cavell's readings of political philosophy, which intersperse his discussion of the films and are, as usual, probing and original, but because of its overt pedagogical aim: to educate his readers and to show us how we educate each other. -- Katerina Deligiorgi * Philosophers' Magazine *

What does it mean to live a moral life? In his typically provocative fashion, Cavell (Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics & the General Theory of Value Emeritus, Harvard) answers this question by juxtaposing various philosophical responses with particular films that illuminate those responses. Cavell argues that living a moral life cannot be regulated merely by attention to rules or to consequences of actions. Instead, using Plato and Emerson as his major guides, he contends that the key to living a moral life resides in asking how one's life should be lived and in how one aspires to live one's life. For example, Cavell pairs Emerson with George Cukor's The Philadelphia Story to demonstrate that moral perfectionism consists in making oneself intelligible to others and to oneself. Cavell discusses a wide range of philosophers, from Kant to John Rawls, and the films he discusses range from It Happened One Night to Now, Voyager to Stella Dallas. Cavell's "letters" offer a ready and heady departure from the usual conversations on moral life, and his inventive use of film helps bring the philosophers he discusses to life. Recommended for its innovation and insight into moral theory and practice, this book will be most useful to libraries that serve academic communities and large public libraries.-Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.