powerpoint

1. ELEMENTS OF
THE INTERHUMAN
M A R T I N B U B E R

2. MARTIN BUBER
was an Austrian-Jewish and
Israeli philosopher best known for
his philosophy of dialogue, a form
of existentialism centered on the
distinction between the I–Thou
relationship and the I–It
relationship.

3. MARTIN BUBER
Born in Vienna, Buber came from
a family of observant Jews, but
broke with Jewish custom to
pursue secular studies in
philosophy. He produced writings
about Zionism and worked with
various bodies within the Zionist
movement extensively over a
nearly 50-year period spanning
his time in Europe and the Near
East. In 1923, Buber wrote his
famous essay on existence, Ich
und Du (later translated into
English as I and Thou)

4. The Social and the Interhuman
SOCIAL - group of people bound together characterized
by indifference and ignorance.
Each individual existence is enclosed and contained in
a group existence.
Leading elements in groups are inclined to suppress the
personal relation in favor of the purely collective
element.
Main concern is the work of the group

6. The Social and the Interhuman
INTERHUMAN - an “event” that happens between two
persons. Each one recognizes the other as a person.
For each of the two, the other happens as the
particular other, that each becomes aware of the
other; his partner in a living event.
The sphere of the interhuman is one in which a
person is confronted by the other. We call its
unfolding the dialogical.

7. I. Ways of Introducing/ Presenting
Seeming – proceeds from what one wishes to seem;
over satisfaction.
… presenting a false image of oneself to the other,
hiding one’s true self and pretending to be someone.

8. I. Ways of Introducing/ Presenting
Being - proceeds from what one really is.
… showing what one really is, is being true to
oneself.
In general, the two are found mixed together.

9. I. Ways of Introducing/ Presenting
Genuine Seeming
In this situation, nothing is false. The imitation and the part played is
genuine; the mask, too, is a mask.
But the lie takes place in relation to existence itself.
To yield to seeming is man’s essential cowardice, to resist it is his
essential courage.

10. I. Ways of Introducing/ Presenting
Q: Since many people practice
“seeming”, can we say that seeming
is natural?

11. I. Ways of Introducing/ Presenting
Q: What is the consequence of seeming?

12. Solution
Commitment
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One can struggle to come
to oneself – one should
communicate
themselves to one
another as what they are,
no more, no less.
(courage)

13. II. Personal Making Present
Speechifying = talking past one another. People don’t speak to one another
Chekov: the only use of family members being together is to talk past one
another.
Sartre: the walls between the partners in a conversation is simply
impassable.
Man’s only concern is himself; the inner existence of the other is his own
concern, not mine. “dedma”

14. II. Personal Making Present
In dialogue: each should make present the other as
the very one he is: awareness, acceptance,
confirmation
Awareness – to experience a thing as a whole w/o
reduction or abstraction
Only possible when he becomes present to me:
“personal making present

15. Perception of one’s fellowman
In our time, we have the following tendencies that makes dialogue difficult.
Analytical, reductive, deriving analytical – it treats the whole being that can be taken
apart. We break the person into parts.
reductive – it tries to contract the manifold person to some schematically surveyable and
recurrent structure. We reduce the richness of a person to a schema, structure, concept.
deriving – it supposes it can grasp what a man has become, or even is becoming. We
derive the person from a formula.
Intuition; ‘imagining the real’
it is not looking at the other, but a bold swinging into the life of the other.
If mutuality stirs, then the interhuman blossoms into genuine dialogue.

16. III. Ways of Influencing
IMPOSITION - influencing others by
means of force and manipulation.
e.g. PROPAGANDIST – not
concerned with the person whom
he desires to influence, as a person.
imposes himself on others, doesn’t
believe in his own cause.
Individual qualities are looked on as
burdens

17. III. Ways of Influencing
UNFOLDING – unfolds what is there and believes
in the primed powers. Finding in the other the
disposition toward what I myself recognized as
true, good and beautiful.
e.g. EDUCATOR – he sees each individual as in a
position to become a unique, single person; he
sees them in a process of actualization.
he is the helper of the actualizing forces.
influencing by letting the others realize truth
according to his own phase. Influencing
without using force or manipulation.

18. Genuine Dialogue
IN A DIALOGUE THERE ARE:
1) ACCEPTANCE – to make the other
present as a whole, a unique being;
receives him as his partner.
2) OPEN CONVERSATION – must be
willing on each occasion to say
what is really in his mind without
reduction or shifting his ground.
3) OVERCOMING SEMBLANCE –
dialogue must constitute
authenticity of being, or else must
damage it.

19. Genuine Dialogue
To turn to the other in all truth also
means imagining the real,
accepting the wholeness of the
other, including his real
potentialities and the truth of what
he cannot say.
To confirm the other does not
mean approval. Even if I disagree
with him, I can accept him as my
partner in genuine dialogue; I
affirm him as a person.

20. Genuine Dialogue
Further, for genuine dialogue to
arise, every participant must bring
himself to it. He must be willing to
say what is really in his mind about
the subject matter.
This is different from unreserved
speech, where I just talk and talk.
Genuine Dialogue cannot be
arranged beforehand, the course is
of the SPIRIT.

21. Silence can also be dialogue.
Words sometimes are the source
of misunderstanding. (ZEN
Buddhism)