Paper on form, style and influence

On my website, I just published a new research paper for my Fielding PhD on form, style, and influence. The objective of the paper was to reflect on the philosophical context in which I do my research, and to come up with practical applications to deal with the reflexivity of the subject of improvisation. To me it felt strange that a dissertation about improvisation should be written as an extended argument. So in this paper, building on findings from second generation cognitive science, I propose the restoration of the aphorism as a rigorous scholarly writing form. I believe the aphorism is especially suited for exploring new domains and generating research questions, while the argument is especially suited for answering research questions. So a dissertation that tries to embrace more of the research project than the answers only, could use the aphorism as a rigorous structure to expose the more ambiguous wanderings of the scholarly journey.

The paper provides an overview of aphoristic and argumentational forms, and provides examples from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Adam Smith. It ends with a reflection on the responsibility of scholarship that is aware of its potential influence through form.

Click here to access the paper.