The Ethics of Ethics and Literature

I justify the humanities by sketching four views of knowledge in which the idea of an academy or an integration of disciplines might be understood. I assume that every system of higher education inevitably appeals to concepts of knowledge. Such concepts cannot be isolated from political and civic dimensions of life as well as from personal cultivation and character. Nonetheless, older views based on these aspects are open to serious criticism. The four views considered are Aristotelian-Thomistic, Cartesian-positivist, Kantian, and "traditionalist" (in a liberal and hermeneutic sense). The paper describes key elements in each of these views and notes several objections, with a marked preference for Kantian and "traditionalist" views. Kant provides for rehabilitation of the humanities, especially ethics and literature (the moral and aesthetic), within a framework in which modern science displaces ancient teleological nature. "Tradition" is justified on practical grounds--by the need to appropriate for oneself the knowledge and experience of past generations (without which human life loses continuity and meaning). Further, the humanities save the great texts from oblivion to which "progress" would otherwise consign them. The humanities counteract the tendency of science to undermine the conditions of its own possibility, as well as the discipline, knowledge, and virtue required for its own origin.

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Endlessly Responsible: Ethics as First Philosophy in Stanley Cavell’s Invocation of Literature

Humanities ◽

10.3390/h8020114 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 114

Author(s):

Mette Blok

Keyword(s):

Emmanuel Levinas ◽

The Self ◽

The Other ◽

Early Writing ◽

Ethics And Literature ◽

Shakespearean Tragedy ◽

Two Sides ◽

Point Of Departure ◽

Epistemological Skepticism ◽

First Philosophy

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.

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Ethics and Literature

The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature ◽

10.1057/978-1-137-54794-1_28 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 601-621

Author(s):

Liesbeth Korthals Altes ◽

Hanna Meretoja

Keyword(s):

Ethics And Literature

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