HU Credits: 1

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: The School of Philosophy and Religions

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Hent de Vries

Coordinator Email: hentdevries@jhu.edu

Coordinator Office Hours: Wednesday 15:00-16:00

Teaching Staff:

Course/Module description:
Starting out from Stanley Cavell’s programmatic title, Must We Mean What We Say?, this seminar will revisit his discussion of J.L. Austin, John Searle, Jacques Derrida, and Shoshana Felman, with special emphasis on these authors’ theories of intentionality and agency, seriousness and sincerity, and with reference to the ancient and modern concepts of tragedy on which they partly rely. In addition to the aforementioned thinkers’ relevant writings, readings will include brief selections from Euripides, Isaiah Berlin, Jean-Luc Marion, and Marianne Constable

Course/Module aims:
To analyze various theories of intentionality and agency, seriousness and sincerity, with reference to ancient and modern concepts of tragedy.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
To analyze and critically assess the philosophical assumptions of modern theorists.

Attendance requirements(%):
The course consists of 3 double meetings, and attendance is required

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: The course consists of 3 double meetings. This text- and discussion-based seminar depends up on student participation at every meeting. Each meeting will focus on the discussion of the assigned readings.

Course/Module Content:
Wednesday, December 24, 4.30 – 8 pm
General Introduction
Discussed Readings:
Stanley Cavell, “Counter-Philosophy and the Pawn of Voice”;
Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context”;
John Searle, “Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida”

Wednesday, December 31, 4.30 – 8 pm
Tragedy and Necessity
Discussed Readings:
J.L. Austin and Cavell on Euripides’ Hyppolytus,
Berlin on Austin

Wednesday, January 7, 4.30 – 8 pm
“My Word is My Bond”
Discussed Readings:
Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the Speaking Body;
Marianne Constable, Our Word Is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts

Required Reading:
Wednesday, December 24, 4.30 – 8 pm
General Introduction
Discussed Readings:
Stanley Cavell, “Counter-Philosophy and the Pawn of Voice”;
Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context”;
John Searle, “Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida”

Wednesday, December 31, 4.30 – 8 pm
Tragedy and Necessity
Discussed Readings:
J.L. Austin and Cavell on Euripides’ Hyppolytus,
Berlin on Austin

Wednesday, January 7, 4.30 – 8 pm
“My Word is My Bond”
Discussed Readings:
Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the Speaking Body;
Marianne Constable, Our Word Is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts

Additional Reading Material:
*J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1975).
Idem, “Other Minds,” in Philosophical Papers, ed. By J.O. Urmson and G.J. Warnock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 76-116.
*Isaiah Berlin, “Austin and the Early Beginnings of Oxford Philosophy,” in Isaiah Berlin e.a., eds., Essays on J.L. Austin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 1-16.
*Stanley Cavell, “Counter-Philosophy and the Pawn of Voice,” in idem A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 54-127.
Stanley Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, updated edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
*Stanley Cavell, “Foreword,” in Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J.L. Austin or Seduction in Two Languages, trans. Catherine Porter with a new Foreword by Stanley Cavell and Afterword by Judith Butler (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), xi-xxi.
Idem, “What Is the Scandal of Skepticism?,” in idem, Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2005), 132-154.
* Idem, “Performative and Passionate Utterance,” in idem, Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow, 155-191.
Idem, “The Wittgensteinian Event,” in idem, Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow, 192-212.
Marianne Constable, Our Word Is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014).
*Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context,” in Glyph I (1977), 172-197; idem, Margins of Philosophy, trans. with an introduction by Alan Bass (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 309-303.
*Idem, Limited Inc (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988).
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*Euripides, Children of Heracles, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, ed. and trans. By David Kovacs, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Euripides, Hippolytos, Ed. with an Introduction and Commentary by W.S. Barrett (Oxford: Clarendon Paperbacks, 1964).
*Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J.L. Austin or Seduction in Two Languages, trans. Catherine Porter with a new Foreword by Stanley Cavell and Afterword by Judith Butler (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003)
Simon Glendenning, ed., Arguing With Derrida (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2001).
Russell B. Goodman, ed., Contending With Cavell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Espen Hammer, Stanley Cavell: Skepticism, Subjectivity, and the Ordinary (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002).
*Jean-Luc Marion, “What Cannot Be Said: Apophasis and the Discourse of Love,” in idem, The Visible and the Revealed, trans. Christine Geschwandtner (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 101-118.
Richard Rorty, ed., The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method, With Two Retrospective Essays (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992).
Idem, “Cavell on Skepticism,” in: idem, Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 176-190.
*John R. Searle, “Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida,” in Glyph I (1977), 198-208.
*Idem, “The Word Turned Upside Down,” in New York Review of Books, 30 No. 16, October 27, 1983, 74-79.
Samuel C. Wheeler III, Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
Martin Stone, “Wittgenstein on Deconstruction,” in Alice Crary and Rupert Read, eds., The New Wittgenstein (London & New York: Routledge, 2000), 83-117.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 100 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: