In my own studies in philosophy, both undergraduate and graduate, I never encountered the philosophy of personalism. I wonder if my professors did. I first came upon personalism in courses I took in theology, but once I started reading about it, I was drawn to it. Thinkers such as Emmanuel Mounier, John Macmurray, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Buber immediately appealed to me, and I wanted to know more about their philosophy.
Eventually, Martin Buber (1878-1965) became my favorite philosopher. Some books characterize Buber as an existentialist, but I think he does not at all resemble an existentialist such as the atheist Jean-Paul Sartre. In fact, I think it is easier to contrast their philosophies rather than compare them.
Buber referred to his philosophy as the narrow ridge. In trying to describe his philosophy, he wrote the following: “I wanted by this to express that I did not rest on the broad upland of a system that includes a series of sure statements about the absolute, but on a narrow rocky ridge between the gulfs where there is no sureness of expressible knowledge but the certainty of meeting what remains undisclosed.”
When I first read that, I was drawn by Buber’s sense of mystery. When I read Buber’s masterpiece, “I and Thou,” my sense of mystery increased, and I believe that sense of mystery deepened and broadened as I became more and more familiar with Buber’s thought. In trying to describe my reading of Buber and my efforts at understanding his philosophical vision, I would use the word “chiaroscuro,” which means a mixture of light and darkness.
As I see more deeply into Buber’s thought, I am simultaneously aware of light and darkness. As I see more deeply, I am simultaneously aware of how little I know. The increase in knowledge is accompanied by an awareness of my ignorance.
Two relationships that are at the center of Buber’s philosophy are what he calls an I-It relationship and an I-Thou relationship.
In an I-It relationship, I am using the other, relating to the other as someone or some reality that I can use for my benefit. If I approach someone as an it and I ask that person, “Who are you?” what I mean is how can I use you, what function can you play in my life. Buber was concerned that I-It relationships were increasing and I-Thou relationships were on the decline. As I-It relationships increase in a person’s life, it may become more difficult for that person to have I-Thou relationships.
By an I-Thou relationship, Buber means relating to the unique other as a person, as a mysterious presence. Probably the easiest way to reflect on what Buber meant by an I-Thou relationship is to focus on the five characteristics that Buber attributed to an I-Thou relationship.
The five characteristics are: ineffability, intensity, directness, presentness, and mutuality.
Ineffability means that no one, including Buber, can understand an I-Thou relationship. How could Buber write an entire book about some relationship that he admitted no one could understand completely? What I think Buber is saying in his book is that something great has happened in his life, and he is asking the reader if he or she has had a similar experience in his or her life.
If the person reading the book has never had an I-Thou relationship (which I think is impossible if the person is able to read the book), that person would have no idea what Buber is referring to.
The reason I suggest that anyone who has lived long enough to be able to read the book, that person must have had some I-Thou relationships, is because babies who are washed and clothed and fed but not loved, die. By intensity, Buber meant that the I-Thou relationship was not casual or superficial.
An I-Thou experience could change a person’s life.
I suspect that all conversions involve I-Thou experiences. By directness, Buber meant that each person in the relationship is focusing on the center of the other and not on some superficial aspect of the other. By presentness, Buber meant that each is there for the other. In effect, each person’s way of relating is saying to the other, “I am for you.”
The fifth characteristic, mutuality, is the most interesting and perhaps the most difficult. An I-Thou relation requires two. One person cannot force the other into an I-Thou relationship. No individual can make an I-Thou happen.
For an I-Thou to happen, each person must depend on the other. An I-Thou relation reveals the richness of each person, but it also reveals the poverty of each person. Everyone needs others.
The more I reflect on Buber’s philosophy, the more attractive it is to me, but also how demanding it is.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.