 In "Le Mirage linguistique" (1988), translated and expanded as "The Spell of Language" (2001), he argued that several major French thinkers (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault) used linguistic notions in a metaphorical rather than rigorous fashion.In the same vein, in "Inflexions de voix" ("Voice Inflexions") (1976), Pavel describes language as the privileged site of ideals and, at the same time, as the existential proof that humans can rarely fulfill them.Seeking to account, beyond narrative syntax, for the content of literary works, Pavel became interested in the logic of possible worlds, as well as in the philosophy of art and literature.