Cities of Words

Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life

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by Stanley Cavell

Harvard University Press

Due/Published May 2004, 512 pages, cloth

ISBN 0674013360

Since Socrates and his circle first tried to frame the Just City in words, discussion of a perfect communal life--a life of justice, reflection, and mutual respect--has had to come to terms with the distance between that idea and reality. Measuring this distance step by practical step is the philosophical project that Stanley Cavell has pursued on his exploratory path. Situated at the intersection of two of his longstanding interests--Emersonian philosophy and the Hollywood comedy of remarriage--Cavell's new work marks a significant advance in this project. The book--which presents a course of lectures Cavell presented several times toward the end of his teaching career at Harvard--links masterpieces of moral philosophy and classic Hollywood comedies to fashion a new way of looking at our lives and learning to live with ourselves.

This book offers philosophy in the key of life. Beginning with a rereading of Emerson's "Self-Reliance," Cavell traces the idea of perfectionism through works by Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, and Rawls, and by such artists as Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and Shakespeare. Cities of Words shows that this ever-evolving idea, brought to dramatic life in movies such as It Happened One Night, The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, and The Lady Eve, has the power to reorient the perception of Western philosophy. 

Contents

Preface
Introduction

1. Emerson
2. The Philadelphia Story
3. Locke
4. Adam's Rib
5. John Stuart Mill
6. Gaslight
7. Kant
8. It Happened One Night
9. Rawls
10. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
11. Nietzsche
12. Now, Voyager
13. Ibsen
14. Stella Dallas
15. Freud
16. The Lady Eve
17. Plato
18. His Girl Friday
19. Aristotle
20. The Awful Truth
21. Henry James and Max Ophuls
22. G. B. Shaw: Pygmalion and Pygmalion
23. Shakespeare and Rohmer: Two Tales of Winter
Themes of Moral Perfectionism

Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Review

In Stanley Cavell’s course “Moral Perfectionism,” given at various times at Harvard and the University of Chicago, Socrates and Aristotle rub shoulders with Ibsen and Emerson (a Cavell favorite). Shakespeare, Henry James, Freud, Kant, Locke, John Rawls, and other notable figures from Western philosophy and literature also made appearances. What's more, Cavell brought such figures as C.K. Dexter Heaven, Peter Warne, Longfellow Deeds, and Amanda Bonner into his discussions of moral perfectionism. The less familiar set of names represent characters from Hollywood films, and are perhaps better known by the actors who played them: Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Katherine Hepburn. Cities of Words includes Cavell's discussions of The Philadelphia Story, Lady Eve, Gaslight and other films that he terms “remarriage comedies.” Cavell considers these films in the context of his ongoing interest in moral perfectionism and our attempt to lead lives in a less-than-ideal world. The films Cavell selects “concern the difficulty of overcoming a certain moral cynicism, a giving up on the aspiration to a life more coherent and admirable than seems affordable after the obligations and compromises of adulthood begin to obscure the promise and dreams of youth and the rift between public demands and private desires come to seem unbridgeable. The issues the principal pair in these films confront each other are formulated [by] . . . the question of how they shall live their lives and what kind of persons they aspire to be.” Cavell brilliantly pairs each film under discussion with the works of a writer or philosopher. In doing so, Cavell illuminates how these thinkers grappled with how to lead a good, just life. Cities of Words offers creative and intelligent considerations of moral perfectionism via classic works of philosophy, literature, and Hollywood. Cavell rarely disappoints, and provides a lively and sophisticated work of philosophy and film criticism.