End Times According to Stanley Cavell

Abstract

Unintelligibility. Madness. Death. These are strange and ominous words to lead any essay, but the words themselves are not so strange to philosophy, and certainly not to anyone with an ear for Stanley Cavell's voice. Then certainly philosophy uses them in a strange way, or, say, in unconventional ways. To assume these words mean what they "ordinarily" do (when reading Cavell) is to put on a presumption of drama that is not only uncalled for, but romantically irritating. When Cavell says unintelligibility, he doesn't really mean unintelligible; when he says madness, he cannot possibly mean madness; and when he says death, he cannot possibly mean death. So what is with philosophy's or Cavell's insistence on using these words outside of their ordinary habitat, particularly when Cavell is so obviously sympathetic to the Wittgensteinian plea to bring language back from holiday? Does Cavell wish to add extraordinary supplements to words like unintelligibility, madness, and death, or does he wish for us to read and understand these words in precisely their ordinary and natural setting? If the latter, how can this be?Put as bluntly and non-romantically as possible: no one would risk unintelligibility (i.e., actually speaking in tongues) for the sake of philosophy. No one would risk madness or losing one's grip on reality for philosophy. No one would risk death, or physical extinction, to do philosophy. In their ordinary contexts, these are very bad things indeed, so why should philosophy, in explicitly seeking to avoid charges of romanticism, insist on such macabre terms in the first place? But surely a title with the word redemption in it cannot help but echo romantic sentiment. But does Jackson