Thinking on Thinking

“In an associative sequence of chapters that is as rigorous as it is aesthetic, Robert Berchman explores numerous aspects of the psychological and mental theories of the ancient Greeks. Readers will especially gain illumination from this author’s courageous pursuit of the difficult text of disclosing genuine intertextual relations, rather than superficial parallels, between these ancient thinkers and their modern counterparts, from Descartes and Kant through to Heidegger, Gadamer, and Wittgenstein.”


—Stephen Gersh, Professor Emeritus, Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame





“Combining profound knowledge of the whole history of philosophy with intense engagement in present theoretical discourses, Robert Berchman creates a fascinating itinerary of reflection which, brilliantly integrating the perspectives of Plato, Aristotle, Origen, and Plotinus, performs thinking on thinking not as an addition to, but as precondition of experience. Questions which are essential for classical philosophy are thus made convincingly manifest in their timeless significance.”


—Salvatore Lavecchia, Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Udine, Italy





“Berchman’s able account of self-awareness in Western philosophy combines his broad command of philology, intellectual history, and philosophical reflection. Since Descartes, the human intellect is detached from its objects in an epistemological distinction between subject and object. Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus properly locate self-awareness in a larger field in which self-awareness embraces the perception of things included in that embrace. Plotinus offers us an aesthetic that may heal the fractured self.”


—Frederic M. Schroeder, Professor Emeritus, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada





“Thinking on Thinking argues cogently that ancient thought does not deal with consciousness in the Cartesian sense that requires private mental states, but rather with self-reflexivity in a broader and more open way that sees thinking as essentially the activity of a ‘We.’ Berchman provides a valuable critical guide to the thought of ancient figures in the context of major currents of modern thinking that may on the surface seem incompatible but should instead be in creative dialogue with deeper currents of ancient thought.”


—Kevin Corrigan, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Emory University