Student Work for Philosophy 3387
American Philosophy

Notes on Cavell

Heidi K Bollich

Phil 3387

for: C. Freeland

This is a summary of Stephen Mulhall's reading of Cavell's Senses of Walden (from Chapter 10 of Mulhall's Stanley Cavell: Philosophy's Recounting of the Ordinary, Oxford: Clarendon, 1994).

For this reading it is necessary to define skepticism as a failure to acknowledge something.
-Cavell reads Thoreau as formulating a theory of language in order to overcome skepticism:there is a need for "renewal" and Thoreau's writing is the means for this.
-Thoreau points up America's failure to acknowledge language; that is, its specific criteria: it is autonomous due to its specific meaning, but it also depends on the particular way it is used and emphasized by the individual (i.e. language is also dependent).
-In recognizing language, one assesses its conditions and criteria; this reinvigorates speech and the community, for language is a means of connecting individuals. One condition of language as writing is that it is to be read; Cavell points up the practical position of the reader and that it is a choice(this involves the individual).
Cavell sees Thoreau as helping the reader overcome despair by causing the acknowledgement of both the autonomy of words and the specific meaning the author conveys; the reader is brought in by discerning the "spirit" of the writer (this allows distance for the reader -- the ability to assess and critique).
Thoreau places himself as disinterested to show the reader her "lost but recoverable autonomy " which is needed to see the poverty of our previous possession of common language and how rich it can be (Mulholl 255).
Thoreau does this by:
1. Emphasizing the name of something: "By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity"(Walden Ch.1).
2. Sentences whose meaning in context requires an emphasis other than the one their surface grammar suggests: "in eternity their is indeed SOMETHING true and sublime" (Walden Ch.2 [caps indicate Thoreau's italics]).
3.Continued and extraordinary use of the term interest. All of these serve to cause the reader to overcome skepticism by taking an interest in life (via reading and engaging) and reevaluating heretofore readily accepted notions.

© Copyright 1996 Heidi K Bollich

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