Philosophy and Animal Life

Stanley Cavell is the Walter M. Cabot Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. His books include Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow, The Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage; and The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy.

Cora Diamond is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Philosophy and professor of law at the University of Virginia and the author of The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind.

John McDowell is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of Mind and World, Mind, Value, and Reality, and Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality.

Ian Hacking is University Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Toronto and held the Chair of philosophy and history of scientific concepts at the Collège de France. His books include The Social Construction of What?, Historical Ontology, and The Taming of Chance (Ideas in Context).

Cary Wolfe is Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English at Rice University. His books include Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory, and the edited collection Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal. He is the founding editor of the series Posthumanities at the University of Minnesota Press.

Introduction: Exposures, by Cary Wolfe
1. The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy, by Cora Diamond
2. Companionable Thinking, by Stanley Cavell
3. Comment on Stanley Cavell's "Companionable Thinking", by John McDowell
Conclusion: Deflections, by Ian Hacking