The Importance of Being Alive

Little did I know, when I arrived as a visiting student from the École Normale Supérieure de Paris at the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University in 1984, in order to study what was beginning to become known as “analytic philosophy” (I was writing my PhD on Quine) that I would end up translating most of Stanley Cavell’s work into French, and dedicating (as I realize since Stanley’s passing) most of my work and life to understanding, presenting, and discussing his work. And loving it.

I just happened to walk into one of his classes, to hear his voice, and that was it. I had never read Cavell’s work before, and in order to make the moment last, I went to Robbins Library and began to read The Claim of Reason, then Pursuits of Happiness. It was a turning point: and at this important moment of my life, Cavell’s work became the most important thing in my intellectual life, giving it its continuity and strength. So all these years of work, from the publication of my dissertation on Quine under the too-obviously-Cavellian title L’apprentissage de l’obvie [The Learning of the Obvious], until the translation of Little Did I Know, built up to creating a scene, and a background, a context, in France, for this voice.

Cite this book chapter: Laugier, S. "The Importance of Being Alive", dans David LaRocca (dir.), Inheriting Stanley Cavell: Memories, Dreams, Reflections, New York, Bloomsbury, 2020, pp. 231-242. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501358210.ch-016