What Is A Fragment?

A Brief History of Fragmentation in Philosophy and Literature

Pascal is said to have written in a fragmentary style so as to underscore that total and complete knowledge is God’s, alone. Nietzsche wrote in a fragmentary style to underscore not the transcendence of God’s knowledge, but the perspectivalism of human knowledge—there is no “view from nowhere.” In the romantic period, Hölderlin, Schlegel, and others emu…