The Claim of Reason (new edition)

Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy

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by Stanley Cavell

Oxford University Press

Due/Published April 1999, 544 pages, paper

ISBN 019513107X

This reissue of an American philosophical classic includes a new preface by Cavell, in which he discusses the work's reception and influence. The work fosters a fascinating relationship between philosophy and literature both by augmenting his philosophical discussions with examples fromliterature and by applying philosophical theories to literary texts. Cavell also succeeds in drawing some very important parallels between the British analytic tradition and the continental tradition, by comparing skepticism as understood in Descartes, Hume, and Kant with philosophy of language as practiced by Wittgenstein and Austin.

"An altogether remarkable work of American philosophy . . . that occupies the buffer zone between poetry and philosophy in a unique--and perhaps uniquely American way."--Critical Inquiry.