In ancient Sparta, a traditionally austere way of life gave rise to a sparse mode of speech. When the sophist Hecataeus was criticised for his silence at a dinner, Archidamidas spoke in his defence: "He who knows how to speak, knows also when." The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates was the first to use the term aphorism for these short, disarming phrases. In his aphorisms, he observes: "Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience misleading, judgement difficult."
Later, in France, Pascal established himself as an aphorist. And Nietzsche, writing in the middle of his career, employed an aphoristic style to avoid the constraints of constructing a philosophical system. A scholar and admirer of Nietzsche, Simon May reignites the genre in Thinking Aloud.
Through the interplay of themes such as love, escape, cynicism, stoicism, joy, suffering and the living of a fulfilling life, May distils the essence of familiar concepts and distinctions, and lays bare common character traits that might otherwise have gone undetected.
Thinking Aloud
Simon May
Alma Books, 120pp, £9.99
