I And Thou by Martin Buber Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of I And Thou
Book Review: a baffler
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is for intellectual heavy-hitters, and unfortunately I am not one of them, thus am forced to rely on others' interpretations for the answer to the question: What was Buber talking about? I have absolutely no idea - the text rambles on as if it were about something...but is very abstract. I could not find anything in it with which to identify or relate to my experience, except for a few comments about creative acts. This book is for readers accustomed to philosophical texts. It is not for the untrained or casual reader - it is for the academic reader. Book Review: Unending Bloom
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a difficult book that (purposefully) subverts all the standard modes of philosophical discourse in favor of metaphorical imagery. It does this because its subject matter, the spiritual happening that gives life its meaning, cannot be contained in static, philosophical concepts. The occurrence of the I/Thou, the event of meaningful relation, defies all notions of matter and logic. Matter and logic belong to the I/It world- the necessary but spiritually void public world. As the It world grows in strength, this book serves as a beautiful reminder of who we are and what we can be. And as philosophy again loses its soul and degenerates into mere technique, this little book can remind us what philosophy's true domain is- wisdom.
Book Review: .
Summary: 5 Stars
How can you describe such a book? Through his prose, Buber takes the reader to a place that is almost holy. I'd been waiting my entire life for this text. Book Review: About Authentic Meeting
Summary: 5 Stars
I find the notes of Walter Kaufmann very valuable and gives another way of understanding the Old Testament. If you get an edition of I AND THOU, I highly recommend getting one translated with notes by Walter Kaufmann. The main theme of Buber in this book is that there are two basic relationships with life I-Thou and I-It. When we meet life in I-Thou we enter the sacred and are truly authentic to each other. From this basic relationship comes a kind of Monotheism as well as the ethics of personal conscience and integrity and meeting another person in their fullness, rather than reducing them or life to a thing which can be manipulated or analyzed or even objectively known. I feel that Buber opened the heart and core of the Old Testament to me, beyond what my previously more Christian studies implied was there (making any message there inferior to what the New Testament gives). Before then all I could get was outmoded laws, grisly wars, strange folklore, and proverbial common sense with an occasionally wise statement which was a nugget of gold in the strange medley of books. But once I got what this kind of authentic relating was about, something seemed to unify for me about the Old Testament and the rest made sense. I still find a lot of what I used to find there, but with the key Buber gave, I could see something growing at the very heart of Judaism behind all those books about what it meant to meet each other authentically and to feel I divinity that says I AM.Book Review: Excellent Read Regarding Mystic-Philosophy
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed this book. This book transforms the relational world we live in; into a workable experience. People live in an I-You or an I-It world. This book offers incredible insight into how we live; and how we are human.