Thinking: From Solitude to Dialogue And Contemplation

Philosophers speak--or, rather, they respond to various forms of speaking that are handed to them. This book by one of our most distinguished philosophers focuses on the communicative aspect of philosophical thought. Peperzak's central focus is "addressing" what distinguishes speaking or writing from rumination is their being directed by someone to someone. To be involved in philosophy is to be part of a tradition through which thinkers propose their findings to others, who respond by offering their own appropriations to their interlocutors.

After a critical sketch of the conception of modern philosophy, Peperzak presents a succinct analysis of speaking, insisting on the radical distinction between speaking about and speaking to. He enlarges this analysis to history and tries to answer the question whether philosophy also implies a certain form of listening and responding to words of God.

Since philosophical speech about persons can neither honor nor reveal their full truth, speaking and thinking about God is even more problematic. Meditation about the archaic Word cannot reach the Speaker unless it turns into prayer, or--as Descartes wrote--into a contemplation that makes the thinker "consider, admire, and adore the beauty of God's immense light, as much as the eyesight of my blinded mind can tolerate."

"Thinking is a work of genuine and original scholarship which responds to the tradition of philosophical thinking with a critique of its language, style, focus, and scope."--Catriona Hanley, Loyola College, Maryland

Adriaan T. Peperzak holds the Arthur J. Schmitt Chair of Philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago. Among his books are Platonic Transformations, with and after Heath; Heidegger and Levinas; Beyond: The Philosophy of Emanuel Levinas; The Quest for Meaning: Friends of Wisdom from Plato to Levinas (Fordham); and Thinking: From Solitude to Dialogue and Contemplation (Fordham).