Problems of Style in Philosophy. Stanley Cavell and Bernard Williams

In the dissertation's four main chapters (Chapter Two, Three, Four and Five), I investigate three problems of style that emerge from the five criteria of Emersonian perfectionist writing discussed in Chapter One. These criteria are: 1. a prose in which the boundaries between literature and philosophy are blurred; 2. metaphorical and allegorical precision; 3. the revival of embodied figures of philosophical dialogue (such as the friend, or, at the opposite extreme, the scoundrel); 4. the restitution of our repressed thoughts; 5. the importance of — or, as Cavell occasionally expresses it, the emphasis on every single word. All these criteria (along with several others) are functional to Emerson’s main aspiration according to Stanley Cavell: the aspiration to represent the human. Emerson’s prose is thus charged with accounting for our human condition. It is the aim of the first chapter of the dissertation, called “Emersonian Perfectionist Writing in Philosophy”, to see if these criteria are instantiated in Stanley Cavell’s and Bernard Williams’s major works: The Claim of Reason (1979) and Ethics and the limits of Philosophy (1985). By “problems of style” I mean some questions that a philosopher may encounter in philosophical writing. One does not have to be an Emersonian perfectionist to run into stylistic problems in philosophy. In this sense, the problems of style that will be discussed in this dissertation will be much more general and widespread than those raised by Emersonian perfectionism in philosophy. However, to start off with the discussion of Emersonian perfectionism as a question of style (Introduction and Chapter One) reveals to be useful not just for the subsequent derivation of just any problems of style; it is mainly useful for the extraction of specific, and deep, problems of style. In fact, a philosopher could encounter many problems of style in one’s writing and there could be problems that are less deep, more superficial, than those raised by the discussion of Emersonian perfectionist writing in philosophy. For instance, one could encounter various practical problems of style if one would like to publish as much as possible, or if one would like to connect with a predefined audience. These are practical or institutional problems of style that do not concern the present dissertation (trivially, because both Cavell and Williams obtained a permanent job in philosophy very early, and did not have to think about those tiresome and more practical issues). So it is just fitting that the discussion begins with Stanley Cavell first and then continues with Bernard Williams. The former philosopher, in fact, carries with him a sense of seriousness and of depth, of emotional intensity, and, for an author like him, the fact that he tackled problems of style in the deep sense is clearer, and more predictable. In the case of Williams, however, though there are some declarations of him on the importance of style, just from reading his own writing one would not immediately think or expect an analogous intensity and reflection on deeper problems of style like those that could be inspired by an Emersonian perfectionist attitude. Even though the questions encountered are deep and not superficial, in this specified sense, I nevertheless call them “problems” because the name itself emphasises the fact that these difficulties require some kind of resolution. And, more importantly, that they can be solved. Like mathematical problems, which may admit different solutions, in style problems what matters is that a solution is found. Then that solution may be more or less effective, of course, but, as in the best existential problems, admitting that you have a problem is half the solution. Talking about problems, thus, will also make it easier to consider the various resistances that have been exercised to these stylistic difficulties. The way in which they have been ignored, avoided, or actively suppressed by some of Williams’s and Cavell’s contemporary analytical philosopher will, in fact, constitute a rather significant part of the dissertation: prominently, in Chapter Two, where Cavell’s and Williams’s polemical targets are criticised precisely because of their inattention to the problem of style posed by writing examples; more indirectly, but nonetheless present, in Chapter Three, when some possible resistances will be enumerated from considering the problem of style (i.e., that in philosophy every word matters) as really a problem. Finally, the concluding two chapters, and especially their introduction, will consider the doubts advanced by Cavell and Williams that, in contemporary times, only one type of philosopher is permitted, licit, and respectable in philosophy: the academic philosopher, guided by a professional, cautious, and serious super-ego. In response to this levelling of the figure of the philosopher, reduced to a single possible type, Cavell and Williams respond in a unique, personal, and idiosyncratic way (showing an idiomatic style): Cavell constructing himself as a figure outsider to the strictly philosophical sphere, but in dialogue with it, from a human point of view and with a spirit that is playful and adventurous, intimate and psychoanalytic; Williams constructing himself as a figure independent of those who would have him as a strictly academic and professional philosopher, reflective and cautious, but also as a figure independent of those who would have him instead as the exact opposite, the philosopher as a chaotic exceptional thinker, deep and inaccessible, emotional and contemptuous of any more institutional claims. The types of philosophers constructed by Cavell and Williams, moreover, thanks to the insights of Chapter Five, will be able to show how, in the final analysis, some problems of style have a strongly existential charge, in which at stake is not only the choice of a better or worse expedient, of a more or less and effective solution, but of an existence and a profession more or less worthy of being exercised or maintained. Having said that, let us go on to see, more specifically, the three style problems that I will investigate in the dissertation's chapters. In Chapter Two, I will focus on the writing of examples by Cavell and Williams. In particular, I will do this through the analysis of two case studies, that is, two concrete cases in which these philosophers tried to solve this specific problem of style; and I will see how the use of examples is not a marginal or secondary aspect in both authors, but is central to their philosophical stance. In fact, the way in which the two philosophers wrote specific examples was built in open contrast to two philosophical outlooks of the time: the emotivism of Charles Leslie Stevenson and the utilitarianism of J. J. C. Smart. The problem of examples emerges directly from the first criterion of perfectionist writing, namely the blurred boundaries between literature and philosophy. In order to write examples that adhere to the complexity of moral life, in fact, both Cavell and Williams need a philosophical style somewhere between literature and philosophy. Only a compromise between the two registers allows them to adequately describe the moral issues at stake in philosophical reflection. In Chapter Three, I will focus on what I have called the stylistic methods of Cavell and Williams. I understand as a stylistic method a systematic use of a writing style for philosophical purposes. In this chapter, the philosophical purpose investigated in Cavell and Williams is maximal: namely, to show that style matters in philosophy. This is why, pleonastically, Chapter Three speaks of the problem of style (and not just of one problem among others). The stylistic methods found and cultivated by Cavell and Williams in their philosophical production constitute an argument in favour of stylistic awareness — against those analytical philosophers who believe that “in philosophy one has to get it right first, and then add the style afterwards” (B. Williams, “Philosophical as a Humanistic Discipline”, 2000). The problem of stylistic methods thus emerges from the main criterion: that is, from the fact that (in Emersonian perfectionist writing) every word matters in philosophy. If every word did not count, in fact, one could add style later and lose nothing of relevance within one’s philosophical production. Cavell and Williams both think that style cannot be added afterwards, and that every word counts, and in this chapter we shall see why and how. In Chapter Four, I will focus on the types of philosophers Cavell and Williams embodied in their work, that is, as the chapter title goes, “The Outsider and the Maverick”. However, to succeed in this difficult task I will follow a rather indirect route. In fact, I will focus on two different fictional accounts that both philosophers chose as representatives of their own philosophical style. In Cavell’s case, it is Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter; in Williams’s case, it is Denis Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew. I believe that, from this analysis, the differences between the philosophical styles of Cavell and Williams emerge well; such differences will be highlighted in particular in the Introduction to Chapters Four and Five. Moreover, the question of what types of philosophers Cavell and Williams represent, precisely because of the way it is discussed, i.e. through the analysis of two literary texts such as The Purloined Letter and Rameau’s Nephew, has links with the second and the third criteria of Emersonian perfectionist writing listed above: respectively, metaphorical and allegorical precision and the presence of embodied figures in the philosophical dialogue. Finally, Chapter Five is a quantitative chapter. I will take a closer look at the problem of the type of philosophers through a quantitative investigation. In Section 5.1, the investigation will focus on the use of parentheses in Stanley Cavell’s work: through the results of this investigation, it will be shown how the fabric of Cavell's writing, thanks to parentheses, is enriched with a multiplicity of voices and tones, without which his philosophy would not be recognisable and would be severely impoverished. In Section 5.2., the investigation will instead focus on the analysis of the authors cited by Williams in two corpora into which his work can be divided: a more academic corpus and a more cultural one. Here, in brief, it will be shown how in the academic corpus Williams brings cultural elements, and how in the cultural corpus Williams does not renounce the academic guise. In short, he always finds a way to enter into a dialectical relationship with each sphere. Interestingly, both parts of this final chapter will have a direct relation to one of the most elusive criteria of Emersonian perfectionist writing: namely, the fact that such a work gives us back our repressed thoughts. In the case of Section 5.1, we will see how Cavell uses the parenthetical space to insert voices that he would otherwise have repressed from the philosophical work (voices and tones that generally tend to be repressed by more academic philosophers). In the case of Section 5.2, we will see how Williams inserts cultural references into the academic work that risk being repressed by technicality and specialisation; and vice versa, how he approaches the cultural work in the — somewhat unexpected — guise of the academic philosopher, rich in references to the professional philosophy contemporary to him. These two parts (Section 5.1 and Section 5.2) will yield an ending up to the difficulty of the problems of style addressed in this dissertation. Both, in fact, show how crucial it is to combine quantification and interpretation in order to achieve interesting and comprehensive results regarding a philosopher’s style. Moreover, these last two parts will be able to show the continuity (along with the various inevitable slippages) in the formation of marked and self-conscious philosophical styles such as those of Cavell and Williams; especially in an intellectual world like that of anglo-american analytical philosophy, which rarely acknowledged the importance of style in philosophy.