Cavell Stanley - Stanley Cavell, religion, and continental philosophy

STANLEY CAVELL, RELIGION,
AND
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

I NDIANA S ERIES IN THE P HILOSOPHY OF R ELIGION
Merold Westphal, editor

ESPEN DAHL

Indiana University Press
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I am grateful for instructive comments and responses to drafts of various chapters in this book. My thanks go to Stephen Mulhall, Stle Finke, Jan Olav Henriksen, Elisabeth Lvlie, Marius Mjaaland, Stine Holte, and Jonas Jakobsen. The writing of major parts of the book was made possible thanks to the funding of the Ethics Programme at the University of Oslo, where I also profited from participating in colloquial groups. The Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo as well as the Department of History and Religious Studies at the University of Troms have provided me with good working conditions while writing the book.

Several chapters grew out of previously published articles, and I would like to thank the respective publishers for permission to draw on that material: : Finitude and Original Sin: Cavells Contribution to Theology, Modern Theology 27 (2011): 497515; permission granted by Wiley-Blackwell.

Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God? Terry Eagleton asks, referring to the return of religion among intellectuals, in affirmation as well as criticism of it.

Given only a superficial impression of the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual breadth of his enterprise, it would in fact be more unlikely were Cavell among those who have nothing to say concerning religion. But since his approach to religion is far from straightforward, the question remains: Exactly why does Cavell continue to invoke religious tropes and topics? This book is my attempt not only to answer that question but also to show how the wider philosophical context of the ordinary, finitude, skepticism, acknowledgment, modernism, and other of Cavells principal occupations can shed light on the significance of the explicit religious tropes and topics. Moreover, the philosophical context, worked out in Cavells rich and profound analyses and readings, carry religious implications of their own, which will be equally significant here. Starting out as a proponent of a highly original extension of ordinary language philosophy in the aftermath of J. L. Austin and the late Wittgenstein, Cavell has carved out the implications of his thinking in numerous contexts and on numerous topics, including music, film, Shakespeare, American transcendentalism, and romantic poetry. Despite his uncontested interest in religious themes along with his occasionally expressed unwillingness to subscribe to religious faith, Cavell has not worked out his complicated relation to religion in any detail. Nevertheless, he refers frequently to the Bible, Augustine, Luther, Pascal, Milton, Kierkegaard, and, more recently, Benjamin and Levinas, suggesting that he has an affirmative relation to religious topics; in regard to Cavells critical or rival take on religion, Nietzsche and Emerson play prevalent roles. Apart from their particular usage by Cavell, one does not have to be a theologian to perceive that his key concepts, such as confession, return, conversation, transfiguration, redemption, and praise, indicate a profound affinity to Christianity.