From “ghost in the machine” to “spiritual automaton”: Philosophical meditation in Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Levinas

This essay discusses Stanley Cavell’s remarkable interpretation of Emmanuel Levinas’s thought against the background of his own ongoing engagement with Wittgenstein, Austin, and the problem of other minds. This unlikely debate, the only extensive discussion of Levinas by Cavell in his long philosoph...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal for philosophy of religion
Main Author: Vries, Hent de 1958- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2006
In: International journal for philosophy of religion
Further subjects:B Spiritual automaton
B other minds
B Philosophical meditation
B Levinas
B Skepticism
B Cavell
B Wittgenstein
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Summary:This essay discusses Stanley Cavell’s remarkable interpretation of Emmanuel Levinas’s thought against the background of his own ongoing engagement with Wittgenstein, Austin, and the problem of other minds. This unlikely debate, the only extensive discussion of Levinas by Cavell in his long philosophical career sofar, focuses on their different reception of Descartes’s idea of the infinite. The essay proposes to read both thinkers against the background of Wittgenstein’s model of philosophical meditation and raises the question as to whether Cavell and Levinas do not indirectly shed light on the early modern motif of the spiritual automaton.
ISSN:1572-8684
Contains:Enthalten in: International journal for philosophy of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s11153-006-0011-8