
Thinking
From Solitude to Dialogue and Contemplation
Adriaan T. Peperzak(Author)
Fordham University Press
Published on 15. March 2006
Book
Hardback
186 pages
978-0-8232-2618-4 (ISBN)
Description
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
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
Reviews / Votes
"The temes that this book raises and examines are not entirely new developments in Peperzak's thought, which is precisely why these recently published discussions are particularly valuable, the mature fruit of years of study and reflection." -American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly "This seductive constructive philosophy belongs in most college collections. Recommended." -Choice "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 CollegeMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Cloth
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
440 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8232-2618-4 (9780823226184)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Adriaan T. Peperzak holds the Arthur J. Schmitt Chair of Philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago. Among his books are Platonic Transformations: With and After Hegel, Heidegger, and Levinas; Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas; Modern Freedom; The Quest for Meaning: Friends of Wisdom from Plato to Levinas (Fordham); and Thinking: From Solitude to Dialogue and Contemplation (Fordham).