%0 Journal Article
%T Endlessly Responsible: Ethics as First Philosophy in Stanley Cavell¡¯s Invocation of Literature
%J Humanities | An Open Access Journal from MDPI
%D 2019
%R https://doi.org/10.3390/h8020114
%X This essay aims to give an overview of the topic ethics and literature in Stanley Cavell¡¯s complete oeuvre. It argues that Cavell¡¯s preoccupation with literature is, from beginning to end, primarily ethical, even though he takes his point of departure in epistemological skepticism. Recent research on the affinities between Cavell¡¯s early writing on Shakespearean tragedy and the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas has helped to establish this but the question of how this part of Cavell¡¯s work is related to his later development of Emersonian perfectionism is rarely touched upon. Consequently, this essay further argues that skepticism and perfectionism in Cavell¡¯s thinking are two sides of one and the same ethics, which are bound together by the genre of romanticism. While Cavell¡¯s work on skepticism is primarily concerned with the other, his work on perfectionism is primarily concerned with the self. Finally, this essay marks the point where Cavell¡¯s and Levinas¡¯ overall thinking part ways due to the fact that Cavell embraces Emersonian perfectionism. View Full-Tex
%U https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/8/2/114