Martin Buber’s Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy of Dialogue (First of Two Parts)

Abstract

In contemporary philosophy, philosophical anthropology focuses more on the human person and the value of a concrete individual subject. Amid consumerism, materialism, and technological advancement, more philosophers focus on the dignity and value of the human person. By studying the human person, what he is, his concerns, intentions, and relationships with the world, God, and others, we can fully understand his essence as a concrete individual and relational subject. One of those thinkers who focused on the human person as a relational subject is the Jewish religious existentialist philosopher, Martin Buber. This paper highlights Buber’s philosophical anthropology and philosophy of dialogue, based on an existential and relational or intersubjective character of human existence, man’s relation with God as the eternal Thou, the distinction between the two fundamental types of human relations (I–It and I–Thou), and the realm of the “between.” The main focus of this paper thus are Buber’s notions of man as a relational subject and thou, intersubjectivity that is anchored on his notion of dialogue, the distinction between the two types of relations and their primal movements, genuine dialogue, the interhuman and its elements, and also social relations.