Thinking: From Solitude to Dialogue and Contemplation

193 Pages·2006·1.08 MB·English

by  Adriaan Peperzak

Thinking
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adriaan t peperzak
.
Thinking
From Solitude to Dialogue and Contemplation
Fordham University Press
2006
New York
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I dedicate this report
to those of you who will
read the entire text
Copyright(cid:2)2006byFordhamUniversityPress
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin
aretrievalsystem,ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans—electronic,
mechanical,photocopy,recording,oranyother—exceptforbriefquotations
inprintedreviews,withoutthepriorpermissionofthepublisher.
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationDate
Peperzak,AdriaanTheodoor,1929–
Thinking:fromsolitudetodialogueancontemplation/by
AdriaanT.Peperzak.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-8232-2618-2(cloth:alk.paper)—ISBN0-8232-2619-0
(pbk.:alk.paper)
1.Thoughtandthinking—Philosophy. 2.Communication—
Philosophy. 3.Prayer—Christianity. 4.Philosophicaltheology. I.Title.
B105.T54P47 2006
190—dc22
2006002696
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
08 07 06 5 4 3 2 1
Firstedition
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contents
Preface vii
Introduction xi
1 1
. I Think
1
The Self-Conception of Modern Philosophy The Practice of Modern Philosophy
6 18 22
The Philosophical Republic From ‘‘I Think’’ to ‘‘We Speak’’
2 25
. Speaking
25 29 31
Speaking To/Speaking About You Speak to Me Responding Teacher and
37 41 45
Pupil Listening Is Learning Dialogue From Dialogue to Conversation
50 54
Hermeneutics and/or Conversation?
3 56
. Philosophy as Conversation
56 58 60
Sharing and Originality Issues The Thinker Individual Thinkers and
67 69 74
the Good The Community of Difference You and I Are Speaking
76 78
Speaking and Writing From Listening to Speaking in Philosophy Dialogue
87 90 93 97
Singularization of the Truth You The Audience Proximity and
103 105 109 112
Distance You and I Dear Reader System and Dialogue
115 118
Conversation and Universality Philosophy and Wisdom Truth and
122 124 125
Conversation Participation Contemplation or Colloquium
4 127
. From Thinking to Prayer
127 135
Philosophy andTheology TheRepublic of Philosophy BeingChristian and
136 137 140
Philosopher Free Thinking as a Right Faith versus Survey Faith and
v
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vi Contents
142 145 148 151
Adoration Trust—Gratitude—Hope Love A Faithful Life
153 154 156
Communion AnsweringtheWord PrayerandTheology TheUniverse
157 158 161
(Cosmotheology) Distance and Intimacy Faith and Dialogue
165
Notes
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preface
Philosophyentailsthinking. Andthinking entailsliving ahumanlife.
Philosophyalsoentailsthinkingaboutthinking—and aboutthelives
from which philosophies emerge.
For more than a century, numerous philosophers have drawn our
attention to the dependence of philosophy on common facts and
events that cannot be constructed or reconstructed, and even less
destructed, by thinking alone. Such facts are, for example, the indi-
vidual thinker’s unique birth and education, the tradition(s) and the
ethos of the surrounding society with its particular culture and
history, the language used, and the religion (with or without God)
in which each thinker is rooted. However, one basic, decisive, and
irreducible fact has not received sufficient attention: as emerging
from a lived life, thinking, including thinking about thinking, entails
speaking.
Philosophers speak—or, rather, philosophers listen to a speaking
that is already there and then respond to it, thus becoming speakers
in turn. All speaking is imitation and response: handing on what we
have heard, but transforming it through appropriation and donation.
This book focuses on the speaking aspect of philosophical
thought. It invites you, Reader, to listen and look into the to and
fro that structures philosophy as a peculiar kind of communication.
The central issue can be evoked through the word addressing: what
vii
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viii Thinking
distinguishes speech (or writing) from rumination is its being di-
rected or addressed by someone to someone. A text, for example, is
nothing, if it is not directed, addressed, dedicated, proposed, sent, or
delivered to someone, who, as recipient, is different from the writer.
To be involved in philosophy is being part of a history of messages
and responses through which thinkers offer their thoughts to listen-
ers as invitations to use them for new messages. As a history of
proposals and propositions, the practice of philosophy is an ongoing
tradition of responsive renewals without end—thanks to many turns
and returns in speaking.
1
After acritical sketchin chapter of themethodological paradigm
that is characteristic for the self-conception of modern philosophy,
the second chapter presents a succinct analysis of speaking, which
the third chapter transposes to the level of philosophy as dialogical
4
history. In chapter , the question is asked of whether philosophy
also must be understood as a form of listening and responding to
words of God.
In all chapters, the distinction between speaking (and thinking)
about and speaking to (and thinking toward) is considered to be deci-
sive for the practice and the definition of human life and the role of
thinking in it. If you press me to summarize these considerations in
a thesis, I would answer the following.
Philosophical speech or writing about neither honors nor reveals
the full truth of human persons (you, him, her, us, all of you, them,
and me), but it is necessary. We must redeem its irreverence by sub-
ordinating it, as a component, to a form of addressing (proposing,
offering, dedication) that respects the addressee as an ‘‘end in itself.’’
Thinking and speaking about God is even more deficient, but it
is not less necessary. Meditation about the archaic Word cannot
reach the Speaker unless it turns into prayer, or—as Descartes
wrote—into a contemplation that makes me ‘‘consider, admire, and
adore the beauty of God’s immense light, as much as the eyesight of
my blinded mind can tolerate.’’
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Preface ix
* * *
Several friends, many more than I can mention here, have assisted
me in the writing of this book; I am profoundly grateful to all of
them. Allow me to name and thank here particularly those who co-
operated most closely in the process: my wife Angela, who encour-
aged me to write these pages; Jason Barret and Mark McCreary, who
checked and corrected my English; Marjolein Oele and Joe Linn,
who took care of the computerized version; Jean Tan, who helped
meincomposing theindex;andMaryChristian,who editedthe final
text.
Chicago—Wilmette
3 2005
July ,
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