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Title: I And Thou by Martin Buber ISBN: 0-684-71725-5 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1971 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (25 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Life-Changing
Comment: 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: 5
Summary: A must read for all who deal with humans
Comment: I Thou is truly one of the books that changed the way people think. I Thou is a book that has changed the world, and that is not an exaggeration. Buber's influence on counseling and psycho therapy is undenieable. Carl Rogers revised his thinking after his encounter with Buber and I Thou. I Thou teaches fundamental truths about interaction, interpersonal relationships, and true dialog. Martin Buber will long stand as the seminal work for dialog and interpersonal interactions. But, don't take my word for it, read the book.
Rating: 5
Summary: An alternative reading
Comment: 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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Title: Good and Evil by Martin Buber ISBN: 0023162805 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 01 December, 1980 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Between Man and Man (Routledge Classics) by Martin Buber, Ronald Gregor-Smith, Maurice Friedman ISBN: 0415278279 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 03 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Way of Man: According to the Teaching of Hasidism by Martin Buber ISBN: 0806500247 Publisher: Lyle Stuart Hardcover Pub. Date: May, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich, Peter J. Gomes ISBN: 0300084714 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: God in Search of Man : A Philosophy of Judaism by Abraham Joshua Heschel ISBN: 0374513317 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1976 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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