The Outsider and the Maverick

I 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 follow a rather indirect route. I dwell 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. Moreover, the problem of what types of philosophers Cavell and Williams represent, precisely because of the way it is discussed, that is, 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.