Becoming Who We Are

This book provides an introduction not only to the political and practical dimensions of Cavell's thought, but also to the oldest and deepest layers of his philosophy as a whole, found in the essays he published in Must We Mean What We Say? (1969), and in the first three parts of The Claim of Reason (1979) ... this is a deeply researched, clearly written, engaging and provocative book. There are insights on every page, and Norris is especially good at recovering the early California Cavell of Mates, Clarke, and Austin, integrating Rousseau's version of the social contract with ordinary language philosophy, and articulating and defending Cavell's Emersonian Perfectionism. * Russell B. Goodman, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
Andrew Norris, a political theorist with deep philosophical training, has written a brilliant book based on extensive scholarship that is clear in its exposition, comprehensive in its scope, and philosophically useful. If you have resisted Cavell, this book should lead you to reconsider; if you have been attracted to Cavell, this book will help you on your way; if you have not known Cavell, this is where to start. * Tracy Strong, Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy, University of Southampton *
We live politically within individual antagonisms and factional oppositions. Values are reduced to preferences, and unequal economic and political power decides whose preferences are unequally satisfied. In his passionate, patient, and acutely insightful study of Stanley Cavell's political thinking—the first systematic work of its kind—Andrew Norris tracks Cavell's efforts to move us beyond this condition and "toward the light or instinct of freedom." There is no better place to look for an account of the possibility of democratic political hope. * Richard Eldridge, Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy, Swarthmore College *
Andrew Norris is an ideal reader of Cavell—a philosopher for whom reading texts, art, and people, and being read, in turn, by them are central concerns. Cavell's philosophy aims to recover the human voice, most especially one's own voice, from its "skeptical" denial in traditional skepticism and constructive metaphysics. Norris's originality lies in his sense of the intimacy of the connection between self-denial and self-recovery and in being alert to the ethical and political implications of the idea that Cavell traces in the writings of Wittgenstein, Emerson and Thoreau, namely, that in order to find ourselves we must first lose ourselves. * David Macarthur, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The University of Sydney *