A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises

by Stanley Cavell

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674669819
• ISBN13: 9780674669819
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

On the inheritance of philosophy

Stanley Cavell stands as one of the most acute interpreters of the human condition that America has ever produced. _A Pitch of Philosophy_ is part autobiography, part exegesis, and part philosophical reflection on selfhood and identity. Combining reflection on the course of his own life with philosophical work of the highest order, Cavell weaves a compelling tale of what it means to come to know oneself, and to come to know oneself as a philosopher. Against what can be seen as the existential sterility of modern Anglo-American analytic philosophy, Cavell awakens the reader to the intimate connection between philosophy and autobiography. Along the way he candidly reveals to the reader the ways in which his own life has been a gradual acceptance of the inheritance of American philosophy. Cavell's may be the most distinctive American voice in the chorus of modern philosophy to have yet been heard, and _A Pitch of Philosophy_ stands as the crown jewel of his life's work.