Abstract

This article highlights what is arguably the unitary focus of the thought of the distinguished Aristotelian Enrico Berti, who passed away in early 2022. Two of his essays, from 1965 and 1986, re-propose the Aristotelian way of writing the “history of philosophyµ: the dialectical discussion of current or possible theses on various topics aims to test their soundness and truthfulness, understood as resistance to refutation or incontrovertibility. This way of “rethinking the already thoughtµ not only overcomes the alternative between “historyµ and “theoretical reflectionµ in the teaching of philosophy itself, but also expands to become pure complexity, total enquiry, which can never be resolved at the level on which we humans experience it, but theoretically requires openness to a “classical metaphysicsµ. Through this dialectical way of doing philosophy it might still be possibile to counter the dulling of philosophical studies today.