I and Thou

“The one primary word is the combination I—Thou. The other primary word is the combination I—It.”

Buber’s worldview is wholly conditioned by the preeminence of speech, and the two primary speech-acts are the I—It and the I—Thou couplets. The words that order human existence are our ability to encounter an object and say “It,” and the ability to encounter a subject and say “Thou.”

“The world has no part in the experience. It permits itself to be experienced, but has no concern in the matter. For it does nothing to the experience, and the experience does nothing to it.”

Human beings typically think of experience as the primary lens through which to view the world, but this is insufficient. The primary lens needs to be the lens of relation, which requires dialogic communication; this is something that nature (apart from other human beings) cannot do. The world (e.g., trees, fish, grass, the stars) cannot speak back and respond to human speech, and so this experience of the human is actually no experience at all for the world.

“THE SPHERES IN WHICH THE WORLD OF RELATION ARISES are three. First, our life with nature […] Second, our life with men […] Third, our life with spiritual beings.”

From the human perspective, there are three objects of the relation: nature, people, spirits. All three objects will be related to human beings in their own unique way: nature without the possibility of response; humans as the natural partners in dialogue; spirits as those which cannot be heard, but from which humans cannot avoid having a sense of being called.