ABOUT NO SUBJECT IS THERE LESS PHILOSOPHIZING THAN ABOUT PHILOSOPHY.
FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL (1772-1829).
The German historian and poet, Friedrich Schlegel, is generally credited with introducing the use of aphorisms (short, 
ambiguous sayings) into later modern philosophy.
In 1798 he observed that there was little philosophizing about philosophy (metaphilosophy), implying that we should question both how Western 
philosophy functions and its assumption that a linear type of argument is the best approach.
Schlegel disagrees with the approaches of Aristotle and Rene Descartes, saying they are wrong to assume that there are solid “first principles" that 
can form a starting point.
He also thinks that it is not possible to reach any final answers, because every conclusion of an argument can be endlessly perfected.
Describing his own approach, Schlegel says philosophy must always “start in the middle... it is a whole, 
and the path to recognizing it is no straight line but a circle."
Schlegel's holistic view—seeing philosophy as a whole—fits within the broader context of his Romantic theories about art and life.
These value individual human emotion above rational thought, in contrast to most Enlightenment thinking.
While his charge against earlier philosophy was not necessarily correct his contemporary, Georg Hegel, 
took up the cause for reflexivity—the modern name for applying philosophical methods to the subject of philosophy itself.
Philosophy is the art of thinking, and Schlegel points out that its methods affect the kind of answers it can find.
Western and Eastern philosophies use very different approaches.
IN CONTEXT,
BRANCH: Metaphilosophy,
APPROACH: Reflexivity.
BEFORE;
450 BCE Protagoras says that there are no first principles or absolute truths; “man is the measure of all things."
1641 Rene Descartes claims to have found a first principle on which to build beliefs about existence when he states that “I think, therefore I am."
AFTER;
1830 Georg Hegel says that “the whole of philosophy resembles a circle of circles."
1920s Martin Heidegger argues that philosophy is a matter of our relationship with our own existence.
1967 Jacques Derrida claims that philosophical analysis can only be made at the level of language and texts.
