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I And Thou

I And Thou

List Price: $11.00
Your Price: $8.25
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: wisest book written this century
Review: This is the wisest book written in the last hundred years. If religion is to survive in the next millenium, it will be because of books like I and Thou. While the Kaufmann translation is difficult (I prefer Gregor Smith's version) I can't imagine a better way to spend one's time than lovingly reading I and Thou.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Outstanding work, complemented by that of John Macmurray
Review: This outstanding book gives a vision of a human philosophy far from the dehumanising reductionism of most twentieth century Cartesian philosophy. While Buber uses poetic language, those interested in seeing an alternate, more philosophical rigorous working out of these ideas should look at the neglected work of the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray (1891-1976).

Macmurray firstly proposes action, and not thought, as the fundamental basis for understanding what it is to be human. When Descartes says "I think", he is then already divorced from the world. One can ONLY exist in interaction with others and other things, it is absurd to imagine a person as existing in a universe where there is nothing else whatsoever. Action is the full state of the human being, and thinking is a lesser, abstracted state. Action is a full concrete activity of the Self employing all our capacities whereas thought is constituted by the exclusion of some of our powers and a WITHDRAWAL into an activity which is less concrete and less complex... a theory of knowledge is derived from and included in a theory of action.

Secondly, Macmurray proposes another enormous paradigm shift for Western philosophy by saying that we cannot fully understand individuals in isolation, but only in relation to others. Relationship is constitutive of human living for Macmurray: 'We need one another to be ourselves. This complete and unlimited dependence of each of us upon the others is the central and crucial fact of personal existence.' The idea of an isolated agent is self-contradictory; any agent is necessarily in relationship with Others. Macmurray corresponded with Martin Buber, and his thought essentially extends Buber's vision.

These two central tenets are explicated respectively in Macmurray's two major works, "The Self as Agent" and "Persons in Relation" (also published together as "The Form of the Personal"). Macmurray's writing is crystal clear, and filled with other fascinating points, such as his distinction between intellectual and emotional representations, in chapter 9 of "The Self as Agent".

A great short introduction to Macmurray and his work can be found in David Creamer's book "Guides to the Journey".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Life-Changing
Review: This small book is obscure at times and difficult to grasp, yet it completely changed my life. I honestly think Buber wrote it poetically to encourage the reader to slow down and potentially I have a true encounter with the ideas. Most of Buber's later books seem to be developing the ideas expounded in I and Thou, so it might be helpful to read another Buber text, like Between Man and Man, alongside I and Thou. He becomes his own commentary. If you have the patience, I think you'll find this book opens a whole new perspective on relationships, our perspective on the world, and the potential for truly divine encounters.

Rating: 0 stars
Summary: "A revelation" -- Times Literary Supplement
Review: Today considered a landmark of twentieth-century intellectual history, I and Thou vies for the position of most important book of Western theology of the 20th century. In it, Martin Buber, heavily influenced by the writings of Frederich Nietzsche, unites the proto-Existentialist currents of modern German thought then being fleshed out by Husserl and Jaspers with the Judeo-Christian tradition, updating faith powerfully for modern times. Since its first appearance in German in 1923, this slender volume has become one of the epoch-making works of our time. Not only does it place within one cover the best thinking of one of the greatest Jewish minds in centuries, but also, more than any other single volume it has helped to mold approaches to reconciling God with the workings of the modern world and the consciousness of its inhabitants.

This work is the centerpiece of Buber's groundbreaking philosophy. It lays out a view of the world in which human beings can enter into relationships with their innermost and whole being to form true partnerships. These deep forms of rapport contrast with those that spring from the Industrial Revolution, namely the common but basically unethical treatment of others as objects for our use and the incorrect view of the universe as merely the object of our senses' experiences. Buber goes on to demonstrate how these inter-human meetings are only a reflection of the human meeting with God. The essence of biblical religion consists for Buber of the fact that -- regardless of the infinite abyss between them -- a dialogue between man and God is possible.

Ecumenical in its appeal, I and Thou, nevertheless reflects the profound Talmudic tradition from which its author emerged. For Judaism, Buber's writings have been of revolutionary importance. No other writer has so shaken Judaism from parochialism and applied it so relevantly to the problems and concerns of contemporary men. On the other hand, the fundamentalist Protestant movement in this country has appropriated Buber's "I and Thou encounter" as the implicit basis of its doctrine of immediate faith-based salvation. In this light, Martin Buber has been viewed as the Jewish counterpart to Paul Tillich.

This is the original English translation, available in America only in this hardcover edition, of I and Thou. Martin Buber himself considered Ronald Smith's the best of the English translations and it was prepared in the author's presence. The more poetic rendering, this translation can looked at as the "King James Version" of Buber's I and Thou.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Different Kind of Philosophical Writing
Review: Unlike the usual philosophical endeavor, this book does not build an argument or make a case about a particular interpretation of the world or some aspect of it. Rather, Buber's seminal work begins with a key insight into our way of being in the world and goes on to weave an intricate web of variations on this theme, creating, if you let it, a sense of his core insight in the reader's own mind. Reading this book is not about reading a philosophical argument or thesis but rather about giving oneself up to the man and his insight: that there are two fundamental ways for us to be in the world, as subjects relating to objects (in order to use them for ourselves) or as subjects relating to subjects (which recognize ourselves in that which meets us at the other end of the "relation"). For Buber this is what it is all about. And, he tells us, we cannot choose one or the other but must (and do) have both though it is easy for us to lose sight of the subjectness of others when we embrace their objectness. And so he bangs away at the need to see the subjectness, not only in other persons but in other aspects of the world as well, and, indeed, in the world itself, holding that to "see" the subjectness that is there, in the world as a whole (through relating in this manner to its parts), is to see God. And this is where it gets somewhat abstruse for he offers no proof of God in the ordinary sense but rather the assertion alone that we must have access to the subjective aspect of being in order to fully live our lives and that this assumes God. He has no proofs to offer but only an ongoing spiraling prose poem that builds the sense of the world as he has seen it, a realm of subject to subject that overarches and informs the more mundane reality of subject to object in which we are generally mired. If you are looking for a philosophical work that builds an argument with proofs and rational discourse, this is not the book for you. But if you are willing to immerse yourself in his sometimes ecstatic prose, then this offers an experience worth having. Not all philosophy is about building logical edifices or exposing one's thinking to rigorous analytical critiques. Sometimes it's just about insight and seeing the world in a new way. And that is what Buber gave us with this book. -- SWM

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Eye-opening work of great spiritual power
Review: You don't have to be Jewish or even to have studied Judaic theology to appreciate Buber's genius. This book is about forming a relationship with God but has applications to everday ones as well. Fantastic!


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