A Philosophy of the Essay: Scepticism, experience and style

Description

Erin Plunkett draws from both analytic and continental sources to argue for the philosophical relevance of style, making the case that the essay form is uniquely suited to address the sceptical problem. The authors examined here—Montaigne, Hume, the early German Romantics, Kierkegaard and Stanley Cavell—bring into relief the relationship between scepticism and ordinary life and situate the will to know within a broader frame of meaningful human activity. The formal features of the essay call attention to time, subjectivity, and language as the existential conditions of knowledge. In contrast to foundationalist approaches, which expect philosophy to reach empirical or rational certainty, Plunkett demonstrates through these writings the philosophical advantages of a fragmentary, non-dogmatic style of writing. A Philosophy of the Essay shows how this medium can help us come to terms with the contingency and uncertainty of life. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Introduction: Knowing and essaying What do we know? Getting reality right Language and world The essayistic mode Notes Chapter 2 Nostres Conditions in Montaigne’s essays Montaigne and ordinary language Montaigne and the Renaissance The shape of experience Narrating the self Challenging norms of authority Notes Chapter 3 Concepts in conversation in the Humean essay Hume and scepticism Writing therapeutically ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ The ethics of essaying Notes Chapter 4 Infinite approximation in the German romantic fragment Anti-foundationalism and thinking in circles Fragments of what? Systemlosigkeit, in ein System Notes Chapter 5 Possibility in Kierkegaard’s imaginative discourses Doubt and faith ‘Interested’ communication Plurality and irony A via negativa to faith The sublime in the everyday Notes Chapter 6 Scepticism and acknowledgement in Cavell’s essays The prize of the ordinary Language and others Reading and responsibility The task of philosophical writing Notes Conclusion Genre and form Scepticism Montaigne Hume German idealism and romanticism Kierkegaard Cavell Other cited works Bibliography Index