Must We Mean What We Say?: A Book of Essays

by Stanley Cavell

Book Overview

Reissued with an additional preface to sit alongside the volume on Stanley Cavell in Contemporary Philosophy in Focus this famous collection of essays covers a remarkably wide range of philosophical... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521290481
• ISBN13: 9780521290487
• Release Date: March 1976
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 396 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Stanley Cavell's Place in History

I've never met Professor Stanley Cavell, and though I've emailed him he has obviously been too busy to respond. Nevertheless, in my view, his books will be read long after many philosophers of the twentieth century are buried and forgotten. The reason can be summed up in a single word: insight. Rarely has there been a more perspicuous observer of motion pictures than Professor Cavell. To read his commentary on movies is to enhance one's movie-viewing experience. He sees things that no one else sees, he sees relations that are missed by others. My enjoyment of films has been substantially augmented by my reading of Professor Cavell's essays. He has opened a new dimension for me. I am less impressed by his infatuation with performatives in his book "Must We Mean What We Say?" but, to the extent that performatives opened for him a door to performances, it was an intellectual journey well worth undertaking. We are all his beneficiaries and all in his eternal debt.