Style in Philosophy: Part I

Abstract

In this article, I attempt to restore the philosophical significance of that nonformalizable, noniterable, “singular’ element of natural language that I call “style.” I begin by critically addressing the exclusion of such instances of natural language by both semantics‐oriented logical analysis and a restricted variation of structuralist linguistics. Despite the obvious advantages – with regard to style – of ”pragmatic“approaches to language, such pragmatism merely returns to rule‐determination in the guise of “normativity.” Although style by definition resists any kind of rule‐determination – whether posed in terms of semantics or intersubjective regulations of speech‐acts – there can be no consideration of language that ignores the persistence of style in natural language. In terms of cognition, any discursive agent understands more than allowed by either semantics or speech‐act theory. I ascribe this element of excessive signification to the role of style. My principal thesis is twofold: (1) a hermeneutic approach (exemplified by Schleiermacher) to literature should reveal the heuristically decisive role played by style in philosophy; and, more radically still, (2) style, in fact, may be crucially determinative of philosophical discourse in general. I suggest that a closer scrutiny of the lesser‐known works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, conventionally regarded as having dreamt of a “philosophy without style,” may consolidate the restoration of style's philosophical import.