‘Mutual render’: I and Thou in the Sonnets

My aim is to prove that Hermann Cohen was not only a philosopher of dialogue but has played an exceedingly important role in the history of that current of thought. His books Ethics of Pure Will (1904) and Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (1919) offer a detailed analysis of the relationships between I and Thou, I and It, I and We. In the first book these relationships are considered from the ethical-legal point of view and in the second from the viewpoint of religious anthropology. However, Cohen considers the problem of inter-personal relationships not in isolation, but as an important component of his entire philosophical system. Deduction of the concept of personality in Ethics of Pure Will is based on Cohen’s logic of the origin expounded in the first part of his system in The Logic of Pure Cognition. Cohen explains that the origin of the self-consciousness of I as a personality is not the external world, but another person, i.e. Thou. In turn, the partnership relationships between I and Thou create the community We which forms the basis of the law-governed state. The process of artistic creation in the framework of inter-personal relationship is explored in Aesthetics of Pure Feeling. Finally, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism formulates the conception of religion as the most complete realisation of inter-personal relationship. Thus, dialogism became an important dimension of Cohen’s entire philosophical system, a fact noted by Martin Buber. Franz Rosenzweig, in unfolding dialogical thinking, expressly appeals to all the elements of Cohen’s system. There are signs of his influence on Bakhtin’s doctrine. Thus, examining Cohen’s doctrine as part of the philosophy of dialogue gives insights into this entire trend as a coherent whole.

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Becoming by Returning Home in The Wondrous Woo

Inquiry@Queen's Undergraduate Research Conference Proceedings ◽

10.24908/iqurcp.13370 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Yiwen Tao

Keyword(s):

Chinese Immigrant ◽

Social Forces ◽

The Novel ◽

Truth Telling ◽

1.5 Generation ◽

I And Thou ◽

Chinese Immigrant Families ◽

Returning Home ◽

Formula Of Humanity ◽

Social Empowerment

In Carrianne K. Y. Leung’s novel The Wondrous Woo, the 1.5 generation – those who were born elsewhere but came to Canada at an early age – represent the challenge of becoming through returning “home.” The uneasy marriage of becoming and homecoming that runs through the novel is decisively realistic. Woo blends elements of magic with realism only to reject romanticized rhetoric and advocate for the urgency of truth-telling and social empowerment. By juxtaposing different stories of becoming with various forms of homeward struggles, the novel gives expression to the transgenerational traumas and challenges that beset the 1.5 generation in the depths of their “homelessness.” In part, this challenge surrounding their becoming is a social one. Through its themes of homelessness, self-parenting, and mental illness, the novel details the struggles of Chinese immigrant families as they are handicapped by a lack of social knowledge. Unfolding around the efforts of the Woo children to transcend their immigrant backgrounds and negotiate empowerment and flourishing away from hostile social forces, the novel ends on a note of hope, suggesting that the hardships that the 1.5 generation endure can lead to a rich and fulfilling life. I will discuss the notions of home and belonging in the novel by bringing Martin Buber’s I and Thou and Kantian ethics in tandem, arguing that wherever an I-Thou bond develops, the formula of humanity is guarded, and home becomes possible.

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Between I and Thou — On the Dialogical Nature of Love

Love and Its Objects ◽

10.1057/9781137383310_2 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 7-24 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Angelika Krebs

Keyword(s):

I And Thou

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Rosenzweig, Franz (1886–1929)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-j041-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Myriam Bienenstock

Keyword(s):

Political Philosophy ◽

Personal Identity ◽

Common Ground ◽

German Idealism ◽

The Other ◽

Human Being ◽

Franz Rosenzweig ◽

Standard Work ◽

I And Thou ◽

New Thinking

An outstanding Hegel scholar – his Hegel und der Staat (Hegel and the State) (1920) remains a standard work on Hegel’s political philosophy – Franz Rosenzweig elaborated, in Der Stern der Erlösung (The Star of Redemption) (1921) and several articles – notably, his 1925 article ‘Das neue Denken’ (’The New Thinking’) – a philosophy of revelation that breaks with the systematic and rationalistic premises of German Idealism. The nisus of Rosenzweig’s New Thinking was formulated as early as 1917, in a letter containing the germ (Urzelle) of Der Stern: ‘after reason, ‘‘philosophical reason’’, has absorbed everything in itself’, Rosenzweig writes, ‘after it has proclaimed its sole existence, man suddenly discovers that he is still here, although he was digested long ago…. I am still here, I – plain, private subject, with first and last name, I – dust and ashes…. Individuum ineffabile triumphans’. How can this be? The human being, Rosenzweig explains, can acquire personal identity as an individual only through the call, that is, the revelation of the Other: God – but also, some other human being. Dialogue, communication in language, comes to the fore in this philosophy, developed around the same time as Martin Buber’s Ich und Du (I and Thou) (1923). Often treated as a common ground and basis for understanding between Jews and Christians, Der Stern der Erlösung is a major source of inspiration for such contemporary philosophers as Lévinas and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Jewish philosophy.

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Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas (1804–72)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-dc027-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Hans-Martin Sass

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Religious Orientation ◽

Great Influence ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Karl Barth ◽

Radical Critique ◽

I And Thou ◽

God's Love ◽

The Future ◽

Moral System

Ludwig Feuerbach, one of the critical Young Hegelian intellectuals of the nineteenth century, has become famous for his radical critique of religious belief. In Das Wesen des Christentums (Essence of Christianity) (1841) he develops the idea that God does not exist in reality but as a human projection only, and that the Christian principles of love and solidarity should be applied directly to fellow humans rather than being regarded as an indirect reflection of God’s love. In religion, the believer ‘projects his being into objectivity, and then again makes himself an object of an object, another being than himself’. Religious orientation is an illusion and is unhealthy, as it deprives and alienates the believer from true autonomy, virtue and community, ‘for even love, in itself the deepest, truest emotion, becomes by means of religiousness merely ostensible, illusory, since religious love gives itself to man only for God’s sake, so that it is given only in appearance to man, but in reality to God’ (Feuerbach 1841: 44, 48). In Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (Principles of the Philosophy of the Future) (1843) he extends his criticism to all forms of metaphysics and religion: ‘True Dialectics is not the Monologue of the sole Thinker, rather the Dialogue between I and Thou’, he writes in paragraph 62 (1846–66 II: 345), criticizing in particular his former teacher Hegel. The philosophy of the future has to be both sensual and communal, equally based on theory and practice and among individuals. In an anonymous encyclopedia article (1847) he defines his position: ‘the principle from which Feuerbach derives everything and towards which he targets everything is "the human being on the ground and foundation of nature"’, a principle which ‘bases truth on sensuous experience and thus replaces previous particular and abstract philosophical and religious principles’ (1964– III: 331). Feuerbach’s sensualism and communalism had great influence on the young Karl Marx’s development of an anthropological humanism, and on his contemporaries in providing a cultural and moral system of reference for humanism outside of religious orientation and rationalistic psychology. In the twentieth century, Feuerbach influenced existential theology (Martin Buber, Karl Barth) as well as existentialist and phenomenological thought.

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I and Thou

Encyclopedia of Communication Theory ◽

10.4135/9781412959384.n180 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Rob Anderson ◽

Kenneth N. Cissna

Keyword(s):

I And Thou

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The Natural Complexes of Encounters

Idealistic Studies ◽

10.5840/idstudies2019115106 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 49 (2) ◽

pp. 103-121

Author(s):

Michael P. Berman ◽

Keyword(s):

Common Ground ◽

Phenomenological Approach ◽

Martin Buber ◽

Moral Understanding ◽

Seminal Work ◽

I And Thou ◽

General Ontology

The totalizing and absolutizing tendencies of metaphysics can undermine our essential ethical relationality. Is there a metaphysics that is robust enough and conducive to preserving this intuition? In answer, this paper will draw upon Martin Buber and Justus Buchler. Buber’s seminal work, I and Thou (1923), explores the nature of the ethical encounter. Buchler’s Metaphysics of Natural Complexes (1966) develops a general ontology, which can be described as an ordinal metaphysics. Encounters are thoroughly relational for Buber. Buchler’s metaphysics is also thoroughly relational. A phenomenological approach to relationality establishes the medium for this dialogue and provides a common ground for these texts. Not only is there a way to account for Buber’s encounter, but there is also an inherent moral understanding in Buchler’s metaphysics that preserves and is conducive to ethical relationality. Buchler’s metaphysics avoids the totalizing and absolutizing tendencies derided by Buber, while simultaneously promotes a version of the encounter.

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