About this title: Originally written in 1923, I AND THOU is Martin Buber's classic text on theology that offers an existential analysis of man's relationship with himself and with God.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Free Press
Date Published: 1971
ISBN-13:9780684717258ISBN:0684717255
Description: Good. Used item may show library stamps, stickers and marks. Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Collier Books
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780684182544ISBN:0684182548
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Highlighting/underlining. Text in English, German. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. Scribner Classic, 1. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: 2nd Edition
Binding: Softbound
Publisher: Scribner's Sons, New York
Date Published: 1958
Description: Fair. An acceptable cover but extensive underlining, marginalia. Someone got lots out of this book so maybe that can be passed on rather then throwing the book. read more
Description: Good. 1971-Paperback-Cover shows minor shelf wear. ---Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Free Press
Date Published: 1971
ISBN-13:9780684717258ISBN:0684717255
Description: Very Good. Minor shelf wear with pages appear to be FREE of markings. GoodwillnyBooks is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service. You may return new items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. read more
Description: Good cond., book is VG, but minor underlinin, and some faint yellow highlighting. Trade paperback, a new translation with prologue and notes by Walter Kaufmann. Acclaimed Classic by Martin Buber read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner, New York
Date Published: 1958
Description: Fair/Wraps. … Trade paperback, fair condition, w. ltly rubbed wraps, sme lt marks. Sme lt tanning and soil. Ltly bumped sp ends, corners. Ltly tanned p. edges, sme lt soil. Ltly tanned ins wraps, sme pp. A few lt markings. Ins fr hinge split. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Free Press
Date Published: 1971
ISBN-13:9780684717258ISBN:0684717255
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Highlighting/underlining. Text in English, German. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 192 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, NY
Date Published: 1958
Description: Good. [S] Previous owner inked initials to page edges at head. Edge and corner wear to wraps. Reading crease to upper wraps near spine edge. Unmarked interior. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner, New York
Date Published: 1970
ISBN-13:9780684717258ISBN:0684717255
Description: Good/Wraps. . Trade paperback, good condition, w. ltly rubbed wraps, sme lt marks. ltly tanned r. wrap. Smwht slanted sp, v. ltly bumped corners. Ltly tanned p. edges, ins wraps. A few lt stains ins. O/w cln, tight, unmarked. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Free Pr
Date Published: 1970
ISBN-13:9780684717258ISBN:0684717255
Description: Pages lightly faded. No folds, marks; bright, fresh copy. 185 pp. Buber revived the" I and Thou" of Hasidism, a Jewish mystical movement of the nineteenth century in Europe. read more
"I read this classic as a frosh in college. i just picked it out from the shelf. It is a lovely meditation and thoughful approach to how one relates to the world around as not a person to other persons and inanimate objects, but as two sacred positions in the chain of being, the I and the Thou. i began to look at sculpture in a new way, also."
"I saw a reference to this in another book and was intrigued. When I picked up a copy I wound up carrying it with me all summer and talking to everyone about it. I even used a quote from it in my teaching portfolio. Buber's words show so clearly how important it is to treat others as being whole and compelte within themselves - having worth and meaning completely independent of their ties to us."
""The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude," begins Buber, translated by Walter Kaufmann. The twofold attitude to the world, I-You and I-It, is elaborated and contrasted at length in the First Part of this three-part treatise. The world as experience and use belongs to I-It, whereas I-You establishes the world of relation. When I encounter the Other (nature, human being, or spiritual being) as my You, he is not a thing among things nor does he consist of things. As You, he fills the firmament, "not as if there were nothing but he; but everything else lives in his light" (p. 59).
The Second Part explains the history of the human race as an unfortunate increase of the It-world, and calls for a return to I-You. The Third Part argues that, whereas all other I-You's must lapse into I-It, the only eternal I-You is that which inheres in our relationship with God, the eternal You. Relation, and not union, with God.
I am glad I read Buber's text before Kaufmann's Prologue. In doing so, I experienced something of the spell Buber must have cast on his first readers. Primed to receive a word of wisdom and authority, I heard Buber as the You he describes. For a period of two days, I saw everything else in his light, and the light was melancholic, ecstatic and humbling. It was the light as voice, as language, attenuated as it was in translation.
Yet Kaufmann insists that Buber's most significant ideas are not tied to his extraordinary language. In summarizing his ideas--the sacred is here and now; God is no object of discourse, knowledge, or even experience; God cannot be spoken of, but he can be spoken to--Kaufman breaks the spell. He puts Buber in context, which means Buber becomes a thing among things, and so is subject to analysis, judgment and use. How necessary It is, and splendid is I-It.
Key to his qualified admiration of Buber is Kaufmann's contention that "Man's world is manifold, and his attitudes are manifold," and not twofold as Buber states. In attitudes without a You, Kaufmann differentiates between I-I, It-It, We-We and Us-Them, apart from I-It. Even I-You comes in different modes. We like to be told, however, there are two worlds and two ways because that scheme is so tidy and comforting. And philosophers and prophets oblige us with different versions of twofoldedness. Freud's Das Ich und das Es came out in the same year as I and Thou, and its thinking too is deeply dualistic.
Kaufmann has also interesting things to say about how much closer Buber is to Judaism than to Christianity, despite his adoption by Protestant theologians. In Buber's call for a return to God, the same return in the Book of Jonah read every year on Yom Kippur, there is no need for a sacrifice like Jesus's on the cross. To return, for Buber, is to re-encounter in the every day "the countenance of God.""
"Buber has his moments. A few profound points sparkle amidst this mostly murky, mystical text. That the I-It and I-You are themselves postulates, not givens, means that Buber's more lengthy passages are impenetrable, perhaps meaningless. Buber has an eye for poetry, not precision; and I believe this is true not only for his language, but also for his thought itself."
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