Rating: 
Summary: The Book That Taught Me How to Love
Review: Before I read "I and Thou" I was one person. After I read it, I was another.
I can't think of any other book that has changed my life in so drastic a way.
One actually only need read the first chapter to have their lives irrevocably altered, but I would suggest reading the entire work.
That will fill out the picture in greater detail.
Read this one slowly. Let every word and phrase enter you and transform you.
It is for you (or thou) that this book was written. And reading it, you will gain a you. Because you will learn how to say "you" (as in 'I love you') and actually mean "you".
Too often, Buber teaches, when we say "you", we really mean "he" or "she", which is really no more than an "it".
This "it-world" diminishes all involved. By shifting from an experiencing I-It world to a relating I-You world. . .we open the opportunity for a relationship beyond time and space.
What some people call Love.
Read it and learn to love. It's that simple.
Dave Beckwith
Charlotte Internet Society
Rating:
Summary: The Book That Taught Me How to Love
Review: Before I read "I and Thou" I was one person. After I read it, I was another.
I can't think of any other book that has changed my life in so drastic a way.
One actually only need read the first chapter to have their lives irrevocably altered, but I would suggest reading the entire work.
That will fill out the picture in greater detail.
Read this one slowly. Let every word and phrase enter you and transform you.
It is for you (or thou) that this book was written. And reading it, you will gain a you. Because you will learn how to say "you" (as in 'I love you') and actually mean "you".
Too often, Buber teaches, when we say "you", we really mean "he" or "she", which is really no more than an "it".
This "it-world" diminishes all involved. By shifting from an experiencing I-It world to a relating I-You world. . .we open the opportunity for a relationship beyond time and space.
What some people call Love.
Read it and learn to love. It's that simple.
Dave Beckwith
Charlotte Internet Society
Rating: 
Summary: the world of the You as mythopeotic
Review: Buber argues that there is a separate world, called the I-You, where humanity has the potential to live in relationships that are perfectly connected. Before individuals enter the I-You world, they must first reside in the I-It world where we see other people as objects for our own experience. Rather than knowing people in their entirety, we perceive specific aspects about them. In the I-It world humanity lives in time and space with a distinct border between each individual. The I in the I-It world is the I of the ego whose existence is defined by "setting themselves apart from other egos" by creating status differences among each other. In the I-You world, rather than experience each other, we have relation with each other. Buber defines relation as never dependency, but always reciprocity. In this perfect relationship both sides know everything about each other rather than just particular aspects. There are no borders between people. The I in the I-You world is a whole person. Buber is careful to distinguish the person from the ego: "The person says, 'I am'; the ego says, 'That is how I am.' 'Know thyself' means to the person: know yourself as being. To the ego it means: know your being-that-way." I do not think that the I-You world, as Buber defines it, exists. One problem to consider is that of knowledge. To assert that we can know a whole person is very problematic. Buber does not hedge his words in this matter: "for what, then, does one Know of the You? Only everything. For one no longer knows particulars." Forget, for a moment, the problems of knowledge in general. Buber is treating both the I and the You as unrealistically monolithic. We debate internally the meaning of our own person. On what side of that debate should the You take? Nor does Buber's work account for the barriers that we erect when we send out false images of ourselves to others. Who do we reciprocate relation with: another person's carefully crafted image of himself or his hidden, true self? There can be no distinction between the world of the It and the world of the You because of the problem of ends. Buber uses more favorable language to describe the world of the You while using pejorative language to describe the world of the It. In this way he indirectly implies that we should favor the You, but Buber never provides an argument that one is better than the other. Why would one want to live in the I-You world? The reader ought to pause for a moment and answer that. Whatever answer the reader comes up with is an end. That makes the world of the I-You a means toward that end or in Buber's lexicon: an object. Another characteristic of the world of the It that the You cannot escape is experience. Buber casts experience and relation as two mutually exclusive worlds. Only objects can be experienced, so the world of relationship is therefore forced beyond the realm of experience. The problem here is that all things that exist must also be experienced at some point, by someone. This is more than just the limits of Western empiricism. When people talk about matters of faith that exist beyond the confines of the test tube, they are not saying that such things can never be experienced, because they are not trying to turn the object of their faith into something other than an object. People of faith argue that the properties of their belief either cannot be experienced at this moment or cannot under present conditions. Once the time or conditions have changed, then faith is no longer required. The unstoppable force of economic growth sets up an inevitable social decline in the conditions that support Buber's fragile I-You relationships. He connects economic growth and the accumulation of wealth as an "increase of the It-world" and a threat to relation. After introducing this problem, Buber argues against pessimism from a cyclical understanding of history. Buber sees wealth accumulation as limited to what he calls sick times, implying a pendulum will eventually swing back to more healthy, frugal, and simple times. Buber clearly got this one wrong. While the global economy does experience a business cycle that punctuates leaps in growth with temporary retrenchment, the long-term reality is an ever growing expansion of the I-It world.
At the time, Buber was not a lone voice against the economic structure of society. Socialists, who wanted to see less of the same wealth accumulation that concerned Buber, were advocating public ownership of the means of production so that the coercive power of the state would enforce equality and relationship reciprocity in society. Buber opposed them. He found the inevitable growth in political power of a socialist state as an equal threat to the I-You world that simply replaced the "will to profit" with the "will to power." Either market forces or the technocrats who try to stop them will continue to grow and crowd out the world of the I-You even if such a world existed. The I-You world, as Buber defines it, does not exist because of the problem of knowing others, all relationships are means, all relationships are experiences, and economic growth will continue to crowd it out, but I do not want to say that Buber has nothing to offer. If we collapse the world of the I-You into the I-It, that does not mean that relationships become dirty. We need to stop looking at the world of the It as something bad. We need to begin accepting selfishness, and stop creating mythopoetic notions of altruism as a human ideal beyond the reach of the less enlightened. Then we will see that economic growth does not threaten relationships, it makes them more valuable. Satiated material desires will demand more challenges, and there is nothing more challenging than getting to know someone's true self.
Rating:
Summary: An important work: Antidote for a self-centered age
Review: Buber describes in detail the mechanism of what might be called Self (big 'S') and self (small 's'). It is with works like this that positive change can enter, and heal, the foundational relationships that shape human existence, and thus our world. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: How to be a human being, philosophically explained
Review: Buber's basic distinction is between the I- It, and the I- Thou relationship. In the I-It relationship we treat others as objects and make use of them for our own selfish purposes. In the I - Thou relationship we treat others with full respect, and seek to understand their inwardness as we understand our own. In the I- Thou relationship as Buber conceives it true dialogue and true relationship is possible. And in this kind of meaningful relationship between two understanding and empathetic human beings we come into a kind of holy relationship. And this kind of holy human relationship parallels the proper relationship we are to have with God.
While this single idea might seem too all encompassing to really analyze the complexity of our human relationships, I believe it is a basically right guiding concept.
Buber in this short work sets out his theoretical understanding of the concept. Buber is ordinarily a clear writer, and a remarkable storyteller as in his 'Tales of the Hasidism' work. But here the theoretical structure means that there is much abstraction often difficult to understand. Philosophy meets poetry here but not always in a readily comprehensible way.
But again this is the key concept of a major thinker, and a concept which illuminate the path for each of us to a better and more humanly fulfilling life.
Rating:
Summary: Theistic Personalism: the Classic Statement
Review: Buder's "I and Thou" proved to be years ahead of its time when written. Remarkably, it still is. It is the classic text for theistic personalism. Anyone who is embarking upon a spiritual path would be advised to read it. In an age when impersonalism in all its trendy forms permeates the religious universe of discourse, this small book might just save the spiritual seeker many years that would otherwise be squandered in pursuit of an illusory state of "liberation." The sole purpose of spiritual practice is to redirect one's yearning from frivolous material pursuits and distractions to the Divine Person --- to return home to Godhead. Walking the path is difficult; finding it beneath the accumulated rubble of impersonalist ideologies is an even more daunting task. With the help of Buber's insights, the honest God seeker will find it much easier. Having gotten a sense of direction, he has only to tune out the siren song of New-Age cant to avoid running aground on the shoals of Impersonalism. Justin Thacker
Rating: 
Summary: very good
Review: Fascinating, dynamic little book. Buber's perspective on spirituality is very non-dogmatic and refreshing.
Rating:
Summary: Rambling, Random Comments
Review: I am actually going to try and do something novel and comment on the product. - I think the way to do that is to comment on Walter Kaufmann's Introduction and Buber's actual thought. There are other translations available, but I think they're out of print. - The attraction of Buber is his universality, and it is this that Kaufmann plays down from the start. Kaufmann emphasizes that Buber is a "Judaic thinker," and while that is certainly true, it is clear that Kaufmann is more concerned with issues of Buber's Jewish identity and his not being a Gentile more than Buber's thought. I find Kaufmann's tendency is in line with Ruth Wisse to a degree - I remember her saying that "Jews want to be left alone" or some such thing in The Modern Jewish Canon. ... Buber himself probably would agree with Malamud's maxim "All men are Jews, though few men know it." There is something universal about Judaism itself, of course, and it is not simply a matter of identity. It is simply a matter of being human, knowing God, and knowing one's community and one's family. And I know Buber would agree with what I'm saying in this paragraph, because it was through reading Buber I learned these things. I want to end these comments by saying that this is a book I recommend to everyone I meet; I just wanted you to take Kaufmann's comments with a grain of salt, and maybe earn Buber a disciple before you even read the book.
Rating:
Summary: That is quite a book...
Review: I don't know if I've ever seen (much less attempted to read) anything that obscure. I'm not sure this book isn't a hoax. Compared to it the proceedings of the 26 Congress of CPSU were a straight-forward, tight and logical document <g>. Good luck reading...
Rating:
Summary: An alternative reading
Review: I think many people misread this book. Of course it is also possible that their interpretations are valid, but I think they miss what is for me the central and most interesting part of Buber's book.
There are at least two strata of the contents of <>. The deeper one is the metaphysical framework on which the upper one, like Buber's conclusions in the field of ethics, theology &c. is based. Now this superficial part is the part of the contents that many readers exclusively notice. They are taken away by the poetic language and think that this book is some light and soft "life philosophy" or "mystical literature". Many people do not realize the rigorous and exact metaphysical system behind these spectacular "poetic prose" items. Why Buber uses poetic language is because it is well nigh impossible to talk about his topics in a clear everyday language. Because our everyday language lacks the cathegories necessary for the elucidation of such a theory on the structure of being as that of Buber, the user of the language has to revert to writing some sort of myth or metaphors in the hope that some readers may see through. If Buber had used geometrical metaphors instead of "poetic" language, then his book would have become less popular but may have been taken more seriously, for example, by pro-"analytic" readers of philosophy. Instead, because of the difficult language (Buber's language IS difficult, because it is hard to see through the emotional and poetic tone the underlying logical structure), Buber is often discarded as 'obscure' or hailed as 'writing beautiful poetic text'. In some sense both evaluations are true but from another viewpoint neither one is important.
I'm not going to outline the system of this book, I think anyone will find it if he re-reads the book more carefully. The metaphysical doctrine of Buber is unusual and offers interesting features like the possibility of rethinking (or eliminating?) such relations like 'subject vs. object' or 'matter vs. mind' and rethinking the concept of 'being', that of 'individual objects' &c.
When a thinker tries to subvert the traditional set of ontological concepts, he very likely begins to use 'obscure language' (like Buber did) or resorts to invent words (this was Heidegger's method). We, readers, often find such works obscure or we misread them because we already do have the 'everyday' scheme of concepts in our minds, which does not conform to the one used by the writer of the book.
The already mentioned subversion of the traditional concept-scheme is revolutionary in philospohy in the sense that when traditional concept-patterns are disrupted, then many of the traditional problems are revealed as pseudo-problems or they can be solved and newer ones are found. That is why, for example, Heidegger is important, for he has once again set philosophy in motion with his radical new stance on the world. Buber, together with thinkers like Jaspers, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty etc. is one of the revolutionary philosophers of the 20th century. I don't mean that Buber is among the most important, but his work may be worth a reading because of its originality.
And besides, it is still really beautiful a book and may be life-changing for many.
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