Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On morality of speech: Cavell’s critique of Derrida

  • Published:
Continental Philosophy Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article tries to bring out the implication of Cavell’s critical comments on Derrida, clustered around Cavell’s charge that deconstruction entails a flight from the ordinary. Cavell’s and Derrida’s different readings of Austin’s ordinary language philosophy provide a common ground for elaborating their respective positions. Their writings are at once the closest but also the most divergent when addressing the moral implication of speech, or more precisely, when addressing their understanding of responsibility and voice. Employing Derrida’s so-called ‘double reading’ as a leitmotif will not only shed light on the moral dimension of deconstruction, but also bring the central target of Cavell’s critique into the open.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Cavell (1994, p. 117), Derrida (1988, p. 111).

  2. I believe Simon Critchley made this convincingly clear in Critchley (1999).

  3. Whereas losing and regaining the normative context of words is at the forefront in Cavell’s earlier writings, the loss and continual struggle for a more intelligible form of life is essential to his moral perfectionism, developed later. In this latter sense, the ordinary is therefore not a well-known habitat, but a process of becoming.

  4. Derrida (1997, p. 24), Cavell (1988, pp. 174–75).

  5. Cf. Michael Fisher (1989), Roger V. Bell (2004), and Gordon C. Bearn (1998, 2000). They all differ from my aim in different respects: Fisher wrote his book prior to Cavell’s most extended treatment of Derrida, which I must take into account; Bearn’s article is an explicit defense of Derrida, whereas Bell posits himself amidst Cavell and Derrida in an attempt to assess their respective claims.

  6. Critchley (1999, pp. 26–27).

  7. Derrida (1997, p. 158).

  8. Derrida (1988, p. 152).

  9. Derrida (1988, pp. 3–4); cf. Derrida (1997, pp. 6–10).

  10. Derrida (1988, p. 8).

  11. Derrida (1988, p. 7). Différance is a neologism that is designed to capture both difference (in the spatial sense) as constitutive for the identity of the sign, and deferral (in the temporal sense) implying that self-identity is never fulfilled as totally present; both work to preserve a trace of the non-identical, the impure, the incomplete in order to shake the metaphysical privileging of pure identity and presence. See Derrida (1992, pp. 129–30).

  12. Derrida (1988, p. 13), Cavell (1994, p. 81).

  13. Austin (1975, pp. 14–15).

  14. Indeed, infelicities and breakdown seem to play a privileged role in Austin’s methodology, see Austin (1961, pp. 127–28).

  15. Derrida (1988, p. 14).

  16. Austin (1975, p. 5).

  17. Derrida (1988, pp. 18–19). Such passages have led some to believe that Derrida wants to replace intentionality with différance, cf. Searle (1977, p. 207), Hammer (2002, p. 162). What Derrida is after, however, is a shift, where intention is no longer regarded as the constitutive factor—as such, it is “essentially absent”—but where it is displaced, inscribed into writing. Derrida (1988, pp. 18, 56, 121–22).

  18. Derrida (1988, p. 16).

  19. Derrida (1988, p. 20).

  20. Cavell (1985, p. 531); cf. Cavell (1988, pp. 134, 174).

  21. I have borrowed this setup from Bearn, who calls it “quantifier-shift interpretation” (Bearn 1998, p. 68).

  22. Derrida (1988, p. 114).

  23. Derrida (1988, pp. 115–122).

  24. Derrida (1988, p. 17).

  25. Cavell (1994, p. 82). To underscore the local character of first person singular present indicative active, targeted by Derrida, Cavell has pointed to a further region of intimate interchange that extends the range and importance of perlocutionary acts. Cavell (2005, pp. 155–91).

  26. Cavell (1976, p. 228).

  27. Derrida (1988, p. 18).

  28. Austin (1975, pp. 9–10).

  29. Cavell (2003, p. 241).

  30. Cavell (1994, p. 111).

  31. Cavell (1994, pp. 86, 91).

  32. Austin (1975, p. 21).

  33. A problem with Cavell’s reply, as Bell notes, is that those essays were not published at the time Austin wrote How to Do Things with Words. Bell (2004). However, it still highlights the fact that Derrida does not live up to his own demands for a careful and scholarly reading.

  34. Austin (1961, p. 124).

  35. Austin (1975, p. 21).

  36. Cavell (1979, pp. 45–46).

  37. Wittgenstein (2009 §47).

  38. Cavell (1979, p. 84, 1976, pp. 263, 265).

  39. Cavell (1994, p. 72).

  40. Wittgenstein (2009, § 107).

  41. Cavell (1995, p. 74).

  42. I am alluding to Cavell’s reading of Beckett’s “Endgame.” Cavell (1976).

  43. Cavell (2005, p. 121, 1990, p. xxxiv).

  44. Cavell (1988, p. 131).

  45. Derrida (1988, pp. 148–149).

  46. Cavell (1994, pp. 91–92).

  47. Cavell (1988, p. 136).

  48. Cavell (1988, p. 135).

  49. Cavell (1995, p. 74), Derrida (2002, pp. 71–72).

  50. Cavell (1988, p. 135).

  51. Cavell (1988, p. 135). Cavell also charges Paul de Man of having a similar attitude to differences. Cavell (1984, p. 42).

  52. Cavell (1998, pp. 39–40). The concept ‘theatrical’ was first articulated by Michael Fried in his criticism of minimalist art, but Fried here draws on Cavell’s thought of the lost presentness in modernity. Fried (1998), Cavell (2003, p. 94.).

  53. Derrida (2002, p. 98).

  54. Derrida (2002, p. 64, 1995, p. 3).

  55. Cavell (1994, pp. 118, 126).

  56. Derrida (1988, p. 116).

  57. Derrida (2002, pp. 252–54).

  58. Cavell (1976, p. 52).

  59. Derrida (1995, p. 60).

  60. Derrida (1995, p. 78).

  61. Cf. Paul Ricoeur’s critique of Levinas. Ricoeur (1992, pp. 337).

  62. Cavell (1979, p. 470). Cavell has later commented on the crossing paths of his own thinking and that of Emmanuel Levinas’ on this juncture. Cavell (1995, pp. 143–44). It is interesting to note that Levinas might be taken to side with Cavell in regard to the ordinary, as he keeps insisting on the ordinariness of his philosophical point, captured in such simple gestures as holding the door for another person.

  63. Derrida (1988, p. 152).

  64. Cavell (1988, p. 177).

  65. Cavell (1976, p. 179).

  66. Cavell (1988, p. 171).

  67. Cavell (1984, p. 48).

  68. Derrida (1997, p. 39).

  69. Cavell (1994, p. 83).

  70. Cavell (1995, p. 62).

  71. Timothy Gould has gone through the shifting meanings of the voice in Cavell’s works. Gould (1998, Chap. 2–3).

  72. Cavell (1990, p. xxxi).

  73. Cavell (1988, pp. 131–32).

  74. Cavell (1994, p. 121).

  75. Cavell (1988, p. 133).

  76. “Authentic quotation” is Espen Hammer’s phrase. Hammer (2002, p. 157). The phrase captures the displaced sense of authenticity that is at work here.

  77. Cavell (1976, p. 71).

  78. Cavell (2005, p. 140).

  79. Cavell (1988, p. 133).

  80. Bearn argues that Wittgenstein’s view of language implies that peace is reached through violence: The scene of instruction is taken to depict initiation into language in the same manner as we learn animals do tricks. Bearn (1998, p. 85). This, however, cannot be taken seriously as Cavell’s view. Bearn himself refers to “the argument of the ordinary,” treated in an essay in which Cavell makes efforts to oppose what he takes as Saul Kripke’s violent and oppressive picture of initiation into language, and suggests the weak gesture Cavell finds portrayed in Wittgenstein’s teacher. Cavell (1990, pp. 69–78).

  81. Bearn (1998, p. 86).

References

  • Austin, John L. 1961. A plea for excuses. In Philosophical papers, 123–152. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Austin, John L. 1975. How to do things with words. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bearn, Gordon C.F. 1998. Sounding serious: Cavell and Derrida. Representations 63: 65–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bearn, Gordon C.F. 2000. Staging authenticity: A critique of Cavell’s Modernism. Philosophy and Literature 24: 294–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bell, Roger V. 2004. Sounding the abyss. Readings between Cavell and Derrida. Lanham: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1976. Must we mean what we say? A book of essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1979. The claim of reason. Wittgenstein, skepticism, morality, and tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1984. Themes out of school. San Francisco: North Point Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1985. Division of talents. Critical Inquiry 11/4: 519–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1988. In quest of the ordinary. Lines of skepticism and Romanticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1990. Condition handsome and unhandsome. The constitution of emersonian perfectionism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1994. A pitch of philosophy. Autobiographical exercises. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1995. Philosophical passages. Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 1998. Contesting tears. The hollywood drama of the unknown woman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 2003. Disowning knowledge in seven plays of Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, Stanley. 2005. Philosophy after tomorrow. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Critchley, Simon. 1999. Ethics of deconstruction. Derrida and Levinas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. 1988. Limited Inc. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. 1992. Différance. In Speech and phenomena and other essays on Husserl’s theory of signs, 129–160. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

  • Derrida, Jacques. 1995. Gift of death. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. 1997. Of grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. 2002. Acts of religion. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Michael. 1989. Cavell and literary Skepticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fried, Michael. 1998. Art and objecthood. In Art and objecthood. essays and reviews, 148–172. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  • Gould, Timothy. 1998. Hearing things. Voice and method in the writing of Stanley Cavell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammer, Espen. 2002. Stanley Cavell. Skepticism, subjectivity, and the ordinary. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, Paul. 1992. Oneself as another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, John R. 1977. Reiterating the differences. A reply to Derrida. In Glyph 1, ed. S. Webster, and H. Sussmann. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, Ludvig. 2009. Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Espen Dahl

Authors
  1. Espen Dahl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Espen Dahl.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Dahl, E. On morality of speech: Cavell’s critique of Derrida. Cont Philos Rev 44, 81–101 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-011-9169-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-011-9169-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation