This paper will focus on Cavell’s understanding of the connection between ordinary language philosophy and the political. It will be shown how this connection in turn relates political judgement to aesthetic judgement, and the implications of this for education will be considered. It also seeks to examine the nature of the evidence to which the ordinary language philosopher appeals, for this is evidence that is not empirically researchable in the way that this is commonly understood. Conversely, the suggestion will be made that an excessive preoccupation with evidential support of conventional kinds can itself smack of scepticism. These considerations open onto questions of voice in Cavell’s thought, and, on the strength of this, to his distinctive account of the proximity of philosophy to autobiography. In order further to reveal the resonance of his views, Cavell’s commitments in these respects will be related to Michael Foucault’s writings in his late lectures on parrhesia.