Stanley Cavell and the Potencies of the Voice

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Stanley Cavell was one of the most influential American philosophers of the past several decades. Yet because he is often read in connection with Wittgenstein, there has been little consideration of his work against the background of the larger German philosophical tradition. Stanley Cavell and the Potencies of the Voice brings Cavell into dialogue with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on the question of how we make ourselves intelligible, opening up a new way of looking at central themes in Cavell's philosophy.

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In this rich work, Gonya (Braemar College, Toronto) discusses Cavells notion of the voice, in conversation with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche Summing Up: Recommended * CHOICE *
In philosophy, politics, and general culture, silent melancholy and vengeful narcissism are our primary contending cultural and individual moods. By following Stanley Cavell on the achievement of voice as a blend of assertiveness and receptivity, Adam Gonya traces a path out of this condition and toward the light of more authentic individuality and mutual intelligibility. His Cavellian elaboration of meaning-making is something of which we all stand in dire need. * Richard Eldridge, Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy, Swarthmore College, USA *
Adam Gonyas book provocatively and elegantly re-contextualizes and elaborates on Cavells conception of how and why the human voice--and so, what its exercise makes possible, as well as what makes that exercise possible--is repressed and recovered in philosophy, the humanities, and human life more generally. * Stephen Mulhall, Fellow and Tutor of Philosophy, New College, University of Oxford, UK *
Adam Gonyas Stanley Cavell and the Potencies of the Voice is one of the best inquiries into the abiding conflict between philosophy which (mostly) makes words the obedient servants of concepts, and its unruly other of the literary imagination which more commonly grants words a commanding and revelatory life of their own. Gonya patiently explores the ways, forces, and liabilities of the two potencies of his title, and shows how Cavell has endeavored to subject himself to both and temper them with one another. The writing is clear, the argument rigorously conducted, and the voice unafraid to chance a telling metaphor when it seems called for. * Ed Duffy, Associate Professor, Emeritus, Marquette University, USA *

Author Bio

Adam Gonya completed his PhD at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, and has for many years worked in the field of international education.