Abstract

In this chapter, I 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, emphatically, “Stylistic Methods” 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 favor 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” (as Williams writes in “Philosophical as a Humanistic Discipline”). The problem of the stylistic methods thus emerges from the main criterion of Emersonian perfectionist writing: that is, from the fact that 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 can see why and how.