On thinking: Appearances and withdrawals

This article explores “thinking” both as a form of doing and as an activity that is performed. It asks how thinking appears in performance (and in writing) through a close reading of Arendt and Heidegger. The implications of the concepts of withdrawal and solitude proposed by the two philosophers are discussed in relation to task-based performance, but also in the context of the specific parameters of the project Syros, which invited a group of thinkers to spend time writing together, to co-operate while working mostly privately. Thinking as a solitary activity is put forward as a precondition for being with others, while the task of writing (or dancing or performing) becomes the very condition for doing thinking.