ABSTRACT
Stanley Cavell manifestly turns to Kant at central junctures of his writing. He inherits and transforms such Kantian matters as the notion of conditions, the idea of human finitude, the vision of the human as divided – living in two worlds, the figure of limits, as well as the nature of the metaphysical transgressive drive. In the present essay I take up the notion of exemplification, central to Cavell’s Moral Perfectionism, and traceable not only to Emerson and Nietzsche, but also to Kant’s Critique of Judgement. I begin by doing little more than listing and distinguishing several features of exemplification – which I draw from moments in Cavell’s writings where their Kantian resonance is clearest, thus providing an intuitive sketch of the dimensions of that idea. The main part of my paper consists then in deriving those features, showing their internal articulation, by providing a partial reading of Kant’s “Analytic of the Beautiful”. I do not wish to prejudge whether I make succinct the Kantian inspiration of Cavell’s writing or give a Cavellian reading of Kant, in part since the issue is best addressed by understanding the inner logic of exemplification.
