In this rich work, Gonya (Braemar College, Toronto) discusses Cavell's notion of the voice, in conversation with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche ... Summing Up: Recommended * CHOICE *
In philosophy, politics, and general culture, silent melancholy and vengeful narcissism are our primary contending cultural and individual moods. By following Stanley Cavell on the achievement of voice as a blend of assertiveness and receptivity, Adam Gonya traces a path out of this condition and toward the light of more authentic individuality and mutual intelligibility. His Cavellian elaboration of meaning-making is something of which we all stand in dire need. * Richard Eldridge, Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy, Swarthmore College, USA *
Adam Gonya's book provocatively and elegantly re-contextualizes and elaborates on Cavell's conception of how and why the human voice--and so, what its exercise makes possible, as well as what makes that exercise possible--is repressed and recovered in philosophy, the humanities, and human life more generally. * Stephen Mulhall, Fellow and Tutor of Philosophy, New College, University of Oxford, UK *
Adam Gonya's Stanley Cavell and the Potencies of the Voice is one of the best inquiries into the abiding conflict between philosophy which (mostly) makes words the obedient servants of concepts, and its unruly other of the literary imagination which more commonly grants words a commanding and revelatory life of their own. Gonya patiently explores the ways, forces, and liabilities of the two potencies of his title, and shows how Cavell has endeavored to subject himself to both and temper them with one another. The writing is clear, the argument rigorously conducted, and the voice unafraid to chance a telling metaphor when it seems called for. * Ed Duffy, Associate Professor, Emeritus, Marquette University, USA *
