Philosophy and Autobiography: Reflections on Truth, Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Others

The aim of this book is to explore the relation between philosophy and autobiography, using the work of Stanley Cavell as the point of departure. Cavell claims that philosophy and autobiography are dimensions of each other, but this view is repudiated by most philosophers, since philosophy seeks to construe itself as a discipline in which the concepts of objectivity and universal voice leave no place for the autobiographical. Cavell in his philosophical practice seeks to show the limits of this claim, largely through an exploration of the idea of the finding of a voice in philosophy, a process which precisely puts into question preconceived conceptions of philosophy and autobiography and of their stability as organizational concepts. I explore these ideas of Cavell's, but then seek to deepen and enrich his approach by exploring the issue of the relation between philosophy and autobiography from the side of autobiography, including autobiographical texts by non-philosophers, in which autobiography questions itself and also questions philosophy.