Renowned scholar Veena Das reads the quotidian in the light of philosophical writings of Wittgenstein and Cavell Veena Das | February 17, 2021 Textures of the Ordinary: Doing Anthropology After Wittgenstein By Veena Das Orient BlackSwan, 410 pages, Rs 1,350 Veena Das, a well-known theorist, has launched a fascinating project: studying moral philosophy of ordinary people in their ordinary day-to-day lives, in the light of the writings of select philosophers – especially Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell. What is unique here is the bottoms-up approach: instead of extracting generalities in tune with philosophical theories, Das does philosophy in field work itself. ‘Textures of the Ordinary’, then, is an amalgamation, explorations of both the barely noticed events around us as well as some of the recent chapters in ethical theories. Here is an extract from the new work: