Thompson Clarke and Stanley Cavell on Philosophy and the Everyday: A Reply to Daniel Simons

In ‘Other minds: ‘Ordinary’ and ‘Sceptical doubt’, Daniel Simons presents an interpretation of what lies at the root of my disagreement with Cavell's claim that there is no strictly sceptical problem about other minds but only a worry that we are forced to live. His interpretation hangs on his introducing a distinction between ‘ordinary’ and ‘sceptical’ doubt, which he elaborates by appeal to the work of Thompson Clarke. I argue that the aim of Clarke's paper, ‘The Legacy of Skepticism’, is actually to problematize, and ultimately reject, the traditional conception of the philosophical and its understanding of the relation between philosophy and our everyday practice, which Simons presupposes. My interpretation of Clarke brings to light the way in which Simons misinterprets Cavell on certain key points and makes my disagreement with him appear much greater than it is. The misinterpretation is, I believe, natural for someone who wants to take Cavell's use of the ‘sceptical’ epithet seriously. It raises the question of how Cavell's idea of ‘living our scepticism’ is to be interpreted. I argue that Simons’ interpretation ends by committing Cavell to views he clearly rejects.