Language Lost and Found

Niklas Forsberg is Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Uppsala University, Sweden. He has previously written on Wittgenstein, Cavell, Murdoch, Austin and Derrida.

This fascinating book offers a valuable explication of Murdoch's relentless attempts to reveal what is missing in contemporary moral philosophy and culture. Greatly influenced by Kierkgaard, Wittgenstein, and Simone Weil, the complexity and messiness of ordinary life, and with one's deepest commitments-many of which cannot be accessed, or altered by means of arguments intended to defend philosophical "positions." Forsberg (Univ. of Uppsala, Sweden) makes excellent use of the work of Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, and Stephen Mulhall, who show how one might avoid the tendency of philosophers toward "deflection" from the "difficulties of reality." These are difficulties that people have when language fails in the face of experiences that refuse reduction to the abstraction of the clearly defined concepts sought after in philosophy--what Murdoch called its "dryness." Novelists like what it is like to struggle with the deeply confusing, distressing issues of the present without stepping aside from the emotional intensity of the encounters. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.--

• Acknowledgments ixIntroduction 1Chapter 1Apparent Paradoxes1.1 The Received View and its Complications 241.2 Approaching “The Black Prince” 361.3 Localizing Murdoch 521.4 A Fatty Pâté and a Plateful of Cherries: On Nussbaum (on Literature) 641.5. The Commonplaceness of the Approach 751.6 Preparatory Summary: The Appearance of Paradox 90Chapter 2How to Make a Mirror2.1 Murdoch on Art and Literature and Love 942.2 What is a Mirror? 1282.3 Wittgenstein and the Difficulty of Acknowledging Illusions of Sense 1352.4 Kierkegaard and Grammatical Illusions 1442.5 Mirroring Illusions: The Thought of the Indirect Communication 1522.6 Inheriting Wittgenstein (and Kierkegaard) 161Chapter 3Sensing a Sense Lost3.1 Loss of Concepts, Loss of Questions 1913.2 Contrasting Pictures of the Human 2153.3 Vision over Choice 2303.4 Making Pictures (Perfectionism and Vision) 235Chapter 4Reading The Black Prince4.1 “Murdoch’s Most Self-Consciously Platonic Kierkegaardian Love Story” 2574.2 In the Context of Bradley Pearson’s Form of Life 2694.3 Passing Verdict: Who did it? 3024.4 In Disagreement with Oneself: A Failure to Mean 310Chapter 5What is it Like to Be a Corpse? 5.1 Introduction: Running Out of Arguments? 3185.2 Costello’s Speechlessness and Diamond’s Concerns 3215.3 The Exemplary Bat 3345.4 Understanding Deflection 3435.5 Concluding Remarks 355Chapter 6Smashing Mirrors, Collecting the Pieces, Returning Our Words6.1 The Concept of a Concept and the Loss of Concepts 3586.2 Smashing Mirrors, Returning to the Ordinary 3716.3 Literature, Distance and the Return of Our Words 376Bibliography 389