All hail the lowly aphorism

In one of his normal Friday reading roundups a few weeks ago, Massimo Pigliucci had a link to an Aeon piece about reading philosophy as aphoristic discourse first, systemic critiques second?

I agree with him on it being wrong. After all, even the pre-Socratics, quoted today for aphoristic insight like Heraclitus' "Nobody walks through the same river twice," were system-builders. Whether Socrates was himself or not is ultimately unknowable. But Plato was. Zeno was — the paradoxes, as a whole, were a system. The "other" Zeno was — rational detachment in light of the Logos is a system. Epicurus was. The Skeptics as a group were. Arguably, Diogenes was. Aristotle? One could make the argument that deductive reading was itself a system.

That said, we remember the pre-Socratics for aphoristic comment, as noted above. In modern times, Nietzsche, who arguably was NOT a system builder indeed, is certainly remembered as an aphorist.

However, on the flip side? None of the Empiricists are remembered that way. Nor  Comte, nor the logical positivists. Certainly not Kant.

But, per Massimo, it IS stimulating.

So, I offer a few of my own.

“Nobody reads the same philosophical system twice.” — The Socratic Gadfly, coming after Heraclitus, Plato and Whitehead.

“Nobody gets more than halfway through the same philosophical system once.” — The Socratic Gadfly, coming after Zeno of Elea.

“An aphorist is a deep thinker who knows the value of brevity and the price of wit.” — The SocraticGadfly, coming after Oscar Wilde.