Abstract
This chapter’s aim is to explore various views on the relation of the aphoristic and fragmentary form to philosophy: what philosophical purpose does this form serve? What is the philosophy behind the use of the aphoristic form (what specific content about the world, human psychology, and so on is communicated implicitly by the use of this form)? What is the meta-philosophy behind its use (what view about philosophy specifically informs the use of the aphoristic form)? Can aphorisms or fragments be organized to form an integrated philosophical whole? The chapter focuses on the exemplary case of Nietzsche’s use of fragments and aphorisms.
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Notes
- 1.
See Grant (2016, 6–9) for the connection between the aphorism and the oracular.
- 2.
I use the standard abbreviations for Nietzsche’s works, a glossary of which can be found in the References.
- 3.
See Moore (1969, 80–93) for a discussion of La Rochefoucauld’s maxim. See the Introduction to La Rochefoucauld’s Collected Maxims for a discussion of La Rochefoucauld’s terminology and his indebtedness to the biblical tradition.
- 4.
See Zöeller (1992) for an analysis of Lichtenberg’s relation to Kant that focuses on this aphorism.
- 5.
Compare with Jefferson Humphries’s view of La Rochefoucauld’s maxims as ‘original commonplaces’ that create a ‘sense in the reader of having always be true’ (quoted in Grant 2016, 17).
- 6.
Cioran: ‘Aphorisms…[belong] to discontinues thought’ (Cioran 1995, 1736).
- 7.
There are, of course, exceptions: Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, for example, though composed of what can be called extended, aphorisms (Nietzsche himself seems to refer to the sections comprising the Genealogy “aphorisms”, see GM P 8), follows a certain logical, if complex, order. The various aphorisms of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus lack justification too, in the sense that Wittgenstein does not offer arguments in their favor, though arguably the work as a whole could be read as one long reduction argument (see Nordmann for this interpretation). Further, though they could perhaps be read in a different order in which they were published, Wittgenstein marked the relative importance of the aphorisms by assigning numbers to them. As he puts it: ‘The decimal figures as numbers of the separate propositions indicate the logical importance of the propositions, the emphasis laid upon them in my exposition. The propositions n.1, n.2, n.3. etc., are comments on proposition No. n…’ (Wittgenstein 1990, footnote to first proposition).
- 8.
Quoted in Stern (1959, 194).
- 9.
Jean Starobinski, quoted in the Introduction to La Rochefoucauld (2007, xxvii).
- 10.
Compare W.H Auden and Louis Kronenberger (quoted in Grant 2016, 23): ‘Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts…’.
- 11.
See Grant (2016, esp. p. 10) on the relation between the history of the aphorism and the notion of authority.
- 12.
Quoted in Nordmann (2005, 102).
- 13.
The German word Nietzsche uses is Versucher, which is ambiguous between “attempters” and “seducers” or “tempters”.
- 14.
But see, on the other hand, Nietzsche’s wariness that an extreme adoption of the experimental mode where everyone becomes an “actor” is potentially harmful for the growth and sustenance of the future (GS 356).
- 15.
Quoted in Nordmann (2005, 26).
- 16.
The aphorism, on this view, cannot but fail, for its attempt to be true to the singular experience always crashes against the inevitable gap that time and language introduce between the experience itself and its recording in the aphorism. The aphorism always is ‘an eloquent emblem’ (Stern 1959, 218) of what the experience once was.
- 17.
Since I am not sure I understand Marsden’s claim regarding the aphorism’s effect on the “body” and its “organs” (Marsden 2006, 36), I cannot confidently assert that all innovative philosophy has these similar consequences.
- 18.
See Marion Faber’s discussion in her introduction to her translation of Human, All Too Human where she claims that Nietzsche is indebted not only to Lichtenberg but more centrally to La Rochefoucauld, though Nietzsche’s aphorisms differ from the latter’s in that they are for the most part less polished, longer, broader in scope in terms both of content and point of view (La Rochefoucauld focuses on contemporary ethics, but Nietzsche offers genealogies) and in that Nietzsche’s aphorisms, in contrast to the Frenchman’s, often also provide arguments. For a more comprehensive treatment of Nietzsche’s indebtedness to French literature and philosophy, see Williams (1952).
- 19.
Nietzsche uses the word Sentenz which could mean either maxim or aphorism.
- 20.
Nietzsche gives the specific example of the belief in ‘so-called selfless behavior’ as one such error in moral psychology. Here he probably has Schopenhauer’s belief in the possibility of pure altruism in mind (see Schopenhauer 1995). For some discussion of Nietzsche’s argument against pure altruism, see Elgat (2015).
References
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1966a. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York, NY: Vintage. [BGE]
———. 1966b. The Wanderer and His Shadow. In Human, All Too Human, trans. R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [WS]
———. 1967. On the Genealogy of Morals. In On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, trans. W. Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. New York, NY: Vintage. [GM]
———. 1968. The Will to Power. Translated by W. Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. New York, NY: Vintage. [WP]
———. 1974. The Gay Science. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York, NY: Vintage. [GS]
———. 1984. Human, All Too Human. Translated by M. Faber. London: Penguin Books. [HH]
———. 1999. Kritische Studienausgabe. Compiled under the general editorship of G. Colli and M. Montinari. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. [KSA]
———. 2005. Twilight of the Idols. In The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols: And Other Writings, trans. J. Norman and A. Ridley and ed. J. Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [TI]
Works by Others
Cioran, Emil M. 1970. The Temptation to Exist. Translated by H. Richard. Chicago: Quadrangle.
———. 1995. Oeuvres. Paris: Quarto Gallimard.
Elgat, Guy. 2015. Nietzsche’s Critique of Pure Altruism—Developing an Argument from Human, All Too Human. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 58 (3): 308–326.
Faber, Marion. 1984. Introduction to Human, All Too Human. In Human, All Too Human, trans. M. Faber. London: Penguin Books.
Grant, Ben. 2016. The Aphorism and Other Short Forms. London: Routledge.
La Rochefoucauld, François. 2007. Collected Maxims and Other Reflections. Translated and introduction by E.H. Blackmore, A.M. Blackmore, and F. Giguère. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lichtenberg, Georg C. 1990. The Waste Books. Translated and introduction by R.J. Hollingdale. New York, NY: New York Review Books.
Marsden, Jill. 2006. Nietzsche and the Art of the Aphorism. In A Companion to Nietzsche, ed. K. Ansell Pearson. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Moore, Will G. 1969. La Rochefoucauld: His Mind and Art. Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press.
Morson, Gary S. 2012. The Long and the Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Nordmann, Alfred. 2005. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pascal, Blaise. 1973. Pensées. Translated and introduction by A.J. Krailsheimer. London: Penguin Classics.
Reginster, Bernard. 2006. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on the Overcoming of Nihilism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1995. On the Basis of Morality. Translated by E.F.J Payne. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Starobinski, Jean. 1966. La Rochefoucauld et les Morales Substitutives. Nouvelle Revue Française 28 (16–33): 211–229.
Stern, Joseph P. 1959. Lichtenberg: A Doctrine of Scattered Occasions—Reconstructed from his Aphorisms and Reflections. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Williams, W.D. 1952. Nietzsche and the French. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1990. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. New York, NY: Dover Publications.
Zöeller, Günter. 1992. Lichtenberg and Kant on the Subject of Thinking. Journal of the History of Philosophy 30 (3): 417–442.
For Further Reading
Cooper, Neil. 1995. Aphorisms in Philosophical Thinking. Bradley Studies 5 (2): 162–166.
Faber, Marion. 1986. The Metamorphosis of the French Aphorism: La Rochefoucauld and Nietzsche. Comparative Literature Studies 23 (3): 205–217.
Marton, Scarlett. 2011. Afternoon Thoughts. Nietzsche and the Dogmatism of Philosophical Writing. In Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, ed. J. Constâncio and M.J.M. Branco. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Morson, Gary S. 2003. The Aphorism: Fragments from the Breakdown of Reason. New Literary History 34 (3): 409–429.
Shapiro, Gary. 1984. Nietzschean Aphorism as Art and Act. Man and World 17 (3): 399–429.
Westerdale, Joel. 2013. Nietzsche’s Aphoristic Challenge. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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Elgat, G. (2018). Aphorisms and Fragments. In: Stocker, B., Mack, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54794-1_7
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