A Map – Cavell’s An Emerson Mood
Philosopher of Direction
…I embrace the
common, I explore
and sit at the feet of
the familiar, the low...”
(142) (from Emerson)
Naturalism/RE
“What the ordinary
language philosopher
is feeling …is that our
relation to the world’s
existence is somehow
closer than the ideas
of believing and
knowing are made to
convey.” (145)
Nativism
“…this American
scholar is also calling
upon American
scholars to give over
their imitations of
Europe, to stop turning
away from their own
inspiration…”(148)
“It is a matter of
taking back to
yourself an authority
for yourself you
have been
compelled to invest
elsewhere. So the
matter of authority is
as much one of
hearing as it is one
of uttering…” (159 –
160)
Authority
“Philosophical thinking is
not something that a
normal human being can
submit to all the
time…Philosophical
questions…I should like to
speak in this connection of
the mood of philosophy… “
(151)
“Will this priority of a
certain whim (to
departure) over a
certain obligation (to
remain) not make a
person rootless, and
nowadays for nothing
more the selfish
reasons, which you may
call religious but which
religion is not likely to
teach?”(157)
.
Cavell’s Challenge: #1
“To speak of
Emerson’s essays as
the contents of new
mezuzahs is to imply
that he has written on
the lintels …Whim and
the knowledge that his
genius has called him,
for the essays are the
fruits by which his
prophetic whim is to
be known.” (156)
Emerson’s Whim
“So it is in obedience
to Emerson’s genius
that he speaks of it
wherever he is,
showing that it speaks
everywhere to him; not
to acknowledge it
would be not to keep
faith with it.’ (156)
Emerson’s Genius
His difference from
other philosophical
writing is, I think, that it
asks the philosophical
mood so purely, so
incessantly…”(152)
Emerson’s Mood
Mood
Conclusion
“We, who have already failed
to obey the heart; and he, who
has already succeeded, are to
meet at a common
origin…“Follow in yourself what
I follow in mine and you will be
saved,” you merely have to be
sure you are following yourself.
This frightens and cheers me.”
(160)
“…I am suggesting
that our foreignness
as philosophers to
these writers…may
itself be a sign of an
impoverished idea of
philosophy, or a
remoteness from
philosophy’s origins,
from what is native to
it…” (148)
Reconstruction
“…I found myself recurring to
the most famous address,
and I suppose the best, ever
given by an American thinker
on a scholar’s day, I mean
Emerson’s “The American
scholar,” delivered at Harvard
the year Thoreau graduated
there…” (141)
Ordinary Language