Must We Mean What We Say?

Must We Mean What We Say?, Stanley Cavell's first book, has been recently rereleased with a new preface by the author. The book is a collection of essays spanning a twelve-year period, ranging in topic from the ‘ordinary language’ procedures of Austin and Wittgenstein to interpretations of literary works by Beckett and Shakespeare. It was originally published in 1969, yet it contains much that is still relevant for contemporary philosophy. Indeed, it could be argued that there is as much to learn from it today as there was thirty years ago.