Reviews for Cities of words

The average rating for Cities of words based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-03-12 00:00:00 Kathryn Whaling Cavell is a genius at summarizing films. Many I would no doubt find quite campy and he makes them sound profound (I want to watch Now, Voyager even though some find it over-acted and sappy () based on Cavell's description. Rather, it sounds a profound coming of age). It's definitely something about his ellipticism, it makes each moment sound rich. The overview of famous philosophers/philosophy was also quite helpful to me as something of a n00b in the area. The book is, however, quite rambly (by admission, even) and largely lacks a central thesis. Mostly, he seems to want to discuss random films and philsophers he likes--makes sense since this is a college course turned into a book. Still, this leads to some shortcomings. Many of the attacks on utilitarianism seem to me (a utilitarian) unfair. We don't prosecute innocent people simply for PR purposes because that is impossible (the victim would know they were innocent) and it makes sense to organize society by basic, understandable principles. Perfectionism seems to have at least as many gaps--how should I know what is my "unattained but attainable self"? How can I know who I want to be when considering moral actions? Overall, the book is quite fun and often poignant, but I wish the philosophical aspect had been developed with a different goal in mind.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-30 00:00:00 Dean Sunarya This book changed my life, but mostly for the movies in it. Drop everything you're doing and watch the Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Adam's Rib, His Girl Friday, the Lady Eve, Now Voyager, Stella Dallas, The Awful Truth (and any other Preston Sturges movie), and Pygmalion. Cavell's thoughts on historical philosophical figures are insane but usually interesting. His theory of perfectionism is not terribly interesting to me, since I'm a pragmatist and not stuck between Utilitarianism and Kantianism. Sorry, Emerson doesn't really do it for me. I think the movies do illuminate what moral discourse should look like as well as the kind of moral life that philosophers often ignore. The idea of a 'remarriage comedy' is also a fruitful one. I understand the book to have been taken from lecture notes, but I can't imagine what taking this class must have been like. It took me years to get through this book. I put it down in grad school almost 10 years ago and picked it up again last year. Reading it alongside these movies certainly made me appreciate them and think about them holistically.