Autoconhecimento, ceticismo e linguagem na filosofia de Stanley Cavell

Abstract

The connections between Cavell's philosophy of ordinary language (OLP) and the themes of skepticism, the possibility of attributing meaning to language and self-knowledge are ways of thinking about the conditions for expressing situations of the mind (plights of mind) and the circumstances that allow an individual to communicate a specific human condition. In this sense, the most common and natural uses of ordinary language reveal a starting point for claiming mutual recognition of actions and words. In Cavell's OLP, the epistemic status of the Wittgensteinian notion of criterion implies a view of the relations between individuals and between them and the world are based on a critique of the skeptical claim for indubitable knowledge. This means that meaningful bonds between people seeking to communicate in concrete situations of intersubjective interaction depend on an acceptance of the fragile nature of agreements, on judgments that establish the criteria for meaningful uses of language. In this way, the ordinary language philosophy is linked to the possibilities of self-knowledge based on a claim to the other to recognize the criteria that guide subjective expressions, such as expressions of love, joy, pain, discontent, etc. as a way of communicating a human condition in a specific context of intersubjective interaction. In this thesis, I try to approach these themes based on interlocutions between Cavell, Kripke, Descartes, Shakespeare and Wittgenstein, in order to suggest OLP as a philosophical activity that aims to clarify the conditions of mutuality, in other words, the conditions for effective intersubjective communication, and which leads to self-knowledge.