Abstract
In this article I explore how cosmopolitanism can be a challenge for ordinary language philosophy. I also explore cosmopolitan aspects of Stanley Cavell’s ordinary language philosophy. Beginning by considering the moral aspects of cosmopolitanism and some examples of discussions of cosmopolitanism in philosophy of education, I turn to the scene of instruction in Wittgenstein and to Stanley Cavell’s emphasis on the role of autobiography in philosophy. The turn to the autobiographical dimension of ordinary language philosophy, especially its use of “I” and “We”, becomes a way to work on the tension between the particular and the universal claims of cosmopolitanism. I show that the autobiographical aspects of philosophy and the philosophical significance of autobiographical writing in ordinary language philosophy can be seen as a test of representativeness—a test of the ground upon which one stands when saying “I”, “We” and “You.”
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Notes
Quoted in Conant (2002, p. 89).
In Cavell’s case, as in most cases, which is made clear in his autobiography, things are clearly more complex than just saying that he writes from an American perspective and experience. He is also a secular Jew born of immigrant parents, he is a former musician, he is as much published and referred to in other contexts than philosophy as in philosophy, he is equally engaged in what may be called continental philosophy as with analytic philosophy, he is a father and son, a husband, and a university teacher among a range of other things.
The most expansive of Cavell’s discussions of the term acknowledgment is found in the final part of The Claim of Reason (1979) called “Between Acknowledgment and Avoidance”, but also in his earlier work particularly in the essays “Knowing and Acknowledging” and “The Avoidance of Love”, which form the conclusion of the book Must We Mean What We Say? (2002). However, the theme reoccurs in different forms throughout Cavell’s later work.
Although, I focus on the moral aspects here I think much of what is said about the cosmopolitan aspects of ordinary language philosophy applies to other forms of cosmopolitanism too. To show this is a task for another paper.
For Cavell’s discussion of Mill and Kant as exemplifying how they transcend their own principles see Cavell (2004, Ch. 5 and 7).
Another alternative approach to the “We” problem that Saito and Standish consider is different forms of patriotism. Given my aims in this article I avoid the discussion of patriotism at this stage.
Hansen’s examples are of teachers who are constantly both rooted in the local and open to the new (Hansen 2010, pp. 20–22), although I prefer using the notion “different” instead of “new”.
This is my caricature of Saul Kripke’s (1982) reading of this passage from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.
For further discussion see my Dissonant Voices (2013).
The idea that we need to recognise ourselves in Wittgenstein’s writings and the worry that we do not seems to have been a theme of his from his early writings in the Tractatus throughout all of his later writings (Klagge 2011, ch. 2–4).
For Cavell’s work on Hollywood films see Pursuits of Happiness (1981) and Contesting Tears (1996), and for readings of Ibsen and films see Cities of Words (2004). For readings of Shakespeare see relevant chapters of Must We Mean What We Say? (2002) and part IV of The Claim of Reason (1979) as well as in Disowning Knowledge (2003).
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Johansson, V. Questions from the Rough Ground: Teaching, Autobiography and the Cosmopolitan “I”. Stud Philos Educ 34, 441–458 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9446-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9446-z