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Chapter 1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

1.1 Introduction Man is a social being.1 He co-exists with other social beings like himself. This network of co-existence is called human society. A society is a network of various human relations. While people interact with other people within various forms of human relations, there exists a fundamental and primordial relationship which is given and not a product of human interaction. All human beings in so far as they are humans are primordially related. Human relations are governed by ethical principles. Martin Buber called this ethics as I-Thou relationship while Emmanuel Levinas named it I-Others relationship. Martin Buber, a twentieth century Jewish philosopher thought that a genuine human relationship is composed of the I and the Thou. Buber described the I-Thou relationship as the entering of a human being into a dialogue with his innermost and whole being with the thou.2 The I and the Thou, for Buber, are bound to an authentic, free, and open dialogue against the evil of monologue. Emmanuel Levinas, a twentieth century French philosopher believed that human beings are fundamentally ethical beings. He said that the ethical is born in the concrete level of person to person contact. For Levinas, responsibility is the fundamental ethical
1

Michael D. Moga, What Makes Man Truly Human? A Philosophy of Man and Society (Philippines: St. Pauls Society, 1995), 91.
2

Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (Great Britain: The Cromwell Press,

1958), 3.

2 link between the I and the Other. The I should live in such way that his first ethical priorities should be the other. In other words, there is no authentic sociality apart from ethics, and no authentic ethics apart from sociality.3 This research intends to make a comparative analysis of Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou and Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others relationship.

1.2 Statement of the Problem The primary objective of this study is to determine the similarities and differences between Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou and Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others relationship. Specifically, the researcher intends to answer the following questions: 1. What is Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou relationship? 2. What is Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others relationship? 3. What are the similarities and differences between Bubers concept of I-Thou and Levinas concept of I-Others relationship?

1.3 Significance of the Study Human life and existence is relational. No one exists outside the sphere of relationships. The researcher believes that this study will be a good resource material for professors and students of the humanities and social sciences and all philosophy students who want to know more about the ethical implications of Martin Buber I-Thou

Anthony F. Beavers, Introducing Levinas to Undergraduate Philosophers, [article online]; available from http://faculty.evansville.edu/tb2/PDFs/UndergradPhil.pdf; 18 June 2011.

3 and Emmanuel Levinas I-Others relationship. Individuals, who are interested about human relations especially those people who want to achieve profound understanding of human relations.

1.4 Scope and Limitation This study is primarily focused on the comparative analysis between Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou and Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others relationship. The researcher will rely mainly on Martin Bubers book I-Thou for the exposition of his concept I-Thou relationship. As well as Levinas books Ethics and Infinity, Totality and Infinity and other books written by Levinas for the exposition of his concept of I-Others relationship.

1.5 Definition of Terms The following terms are textually or operationally defined: Asymmetrical Relationship. It is a relationship of the self and the other, which is not identical. The other is prior or superior than the self. The other is a stranger than the self, other than himself.4 Being. It proceeds from what one is, the real person is presented, one who is acting who he really is.5

Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, trans. Alfhonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 215.
5

Martin Buber, The Knowledge of Man, trans. Maurice Friedman (New York: Humanity Books, 1998), 66.

4 Face. It is not a plastic form similar to a portrait but the very identity of a being; it manifests itself in it in terms of itself, with no concept.6 Genuine Dialogue. It refers to an encounter where each participant has in mind the others or theyre present and particular being and turn to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between himself and them.7 I. This can never be viewed separately from the concept of It and Thou.8 I-It. It is a relationship where the I treat the Other as an object to be use if the I desires. It is a subject-to-object relationship.9 Individualism. It is understand only a part of man, perceives man only in relation to himself.10 Infinite Responsibility. It is infinite because the responsibility of the self to the other is inherent present available. It is innate in the selfs identity.11 Inter-human Relationship. A type of a relationship where truth is found in a realm where men communicate themselves to one another as what they are.12

Emmanuel Levinas, On Thinking of the Other, trans. Michael Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 34.
7 8

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 53. Frank N. Magill, Masterpieces of World Philosophy (New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1990),

530.
9

Michael Zank, Martin http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/; 22 June 2011.


10

Buber,

[article

online];

available

from

Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (London: Routledge Classics, 2002), 64.
11

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 97. Buber, Between Man and Man, 11.

12

5 I-Thou. A authentic relationship between persons where there is a genuine mutuality, each searching to give the other with his whole being and understanding and receiving from the other and neither seeking use the other as a means.13 Knotted Responsibility. It is a responsibility that one is tied to the other ethically. One is for the other, in saying Here I am.14 Man. Its existence is anthropological not in his isolation, but the completeness of the relation between man and man.15 Other/other. Other (with a capital letter O) is a word in French translated as Autrui which refers to the personal others or the other person.16 Meanwhile other (with a small letter o) is a word in French translated as Autre which refers to otherness in general to alterity.17 Relation. The second movement of human life that placed men into mutual relationship or the entering into relation.18 Responsibility. Is the essential, primary and fundamental structure of subjectivity, that the very mode is knotted in the ethical terms. It is a responsibility for the other. It is already existed in itself, before the ethical relationship.19

13 14

Robert E. Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 29.

Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, trans. Richard Cohen (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press, 1885), 97.
15

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 74. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 17. Ibid. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 61. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 95-96.

16

17

18

19

6 Self. It is the cause of human alienation and destruction of relationship, a relationship of being with the other. It is where egoistic nature is ruin.20 Sensibility. It performs the very separation of being separated and independent. It is sensible experience of the self with the others, which is beyond sensible things in this world.21 Smooth Interpersonal Relationship. Highly valued facility in interpersonal relation, and desirable immediate goal.22 Substitution. It is putting of oneself to the nature of the other. The self offers support to the other with its very own substance.23

1.6 Research Methodology This study is a descriptive philosophical research. The principal method employed in this research is analysis. As a comparative study, Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou and Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others relationship will be subjected to a comprehensive analysis for the purpose of determining key concepts that are similar, interrelated and consistent with those that are different.

20

Ibid., 96. Ibid., 135. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 80-81.

21 22

23

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 108.

7 Chapter 2 BIOGRAPHY, THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, AND REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Biographical Accounts 2.1.1 Martin Buber Martin Buber was born on February 8, 1878 in Vienna as a child of a Jewish family. He was first and foremost a religious existentialist, teacher, social philosopher and a Zionist leader.24 He was raised at the age of three to fourteen in his paternal grandparents house in Lemberg (now Lvov, Ukraine).25 His grandfather Solomon was a well-known Talmudic scholar, businessman and philanthropist from whom he absorbed the religious understanding of Hassidism.26 His inclination toward general culture was strengthened by his grammar-school education, which provided him with an excellent grounding in classics.27 From 1896-1900 he studied Philosophy, Art History, Psychiatry, National Economy, and Germanics at the Universities in Vienna, Leipzig, Berlin and Zurich. Meanwhile his grandmother Adele was a highly educated woman who initiated him to language, culture, and literature with an emphasis on German studies.28 Buber then studied in a Polish gymnasium in Lemberg where at the same time he became well acquainted with the life traditional, but especially Hasidic Jewish communities.29
24

Martin Buber, On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity, ed. S.N. Eisenstadt (Chicago: The University Press, 1992), 2.
25

Ibid.

26

A movement in Eastern Europe in response to a void felt by many average observant Jews of the day. For Buber Hassidism is a source of cultural renewal for Judaism.
27

Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. Buber, Martin.


28 29

Buber, On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity, 2. Ibid.

8 Buber was married to Paula Winkler in the late 1890s, and became closely involved in the Zionist movement,30 participating in the Zionist congresses and very active in various Zionist Circles. He was also an active opponent of Nazi nationalism in Germany. In 1901 he was appointed as editor of the Zionist journal Do Welt and instrumentally founding the publishing house Judischer Verlag in 1902. In 1916, he founded the monthly Der Jude, until it ceased publication in 1924. This became the most respected and literate of German Jewry.31 Sometime later, in 1938, Buber migrated to Palestine and taught at the Hebrew University in the years of 1924-1933. He was a professor of philosophy of the Jewish religion and ethics at Frankfrtam- Main University.32 From 1938 until his death in 1965, Buber lived in Jerusalem.33 He became the professor of Social Philosophy and was later the first chairman of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.34 He was a professor of such subjects as the Sociology of Religion, Ethics, Social Philosophy and History of Sociology.35 Bubers main interest as we know it from previous paragraph have throughout been broad and varied embracing philosophy, theology, biblical scholarship, psychology, education and social thought. His philosophical doctrine is encompassed in his two major works; the I-Thou in 1937 and Between Man and Man in 1955. Buber in

30

The national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, advocated, from its inception, tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions, left and right, religious and secular, joined to form the Zionist movement and worked together toward these goals.
31 32

Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. Buber, Martin. Collier Encyclopedia, 1968 ed., s.v. Buber, Martin, by Arthur A. Cohen.

33

Buber, On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity, 2.


34

Ibid.
35

Ibid.

9 this works tries to turn particulars, to human actions and the mutual encounter in which the self meets the other in its whole being.36 In the last years of his life, he was the first President of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He promoted the idea of Israeli Kibbutz 37 member and councilor and centered his philosophical teachings around the concept of dialogue, namely the genuine relationship between man and man, dialogue between man and nature, and dialogue between man and God, which is the meeting point of other dialogues. There are many facets to the development of his influential thoughts but none is better regarded than what is popularly known as the I-Thou relationship.38 Martin Buber believed that dialogue with God is the center of Hebrew faith. He died on January 13, 1965 in Jerusalem.39

2.1.2 Emmanuel Levinas Emmanuel Levinas was born into a Jewish family in Kovno within Lithuania in 1906.40 When his parents saw their future belonging to the Russian language and literature rather than to the Lithuanian language, the young Emmanuel came to read
36

Buber, Between Man and Man, 11.

37

It is collective communities in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture, owned and administered communally by its members and on which children are takes care of collectively.
38

Collier Encyclopedia, 1968 ed., s.v. Buber, Martin, by Arthur A. Cohen.


39 40

Ibid. John Lechte, Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers (USA: Routledge Publisher, 1995), 115.

10 both Russian and Hebrew.41 Lithuania was, in the early twentieth century, a center of Talmudic studies, and this has also left its mark on Levinas oeuvre in the form of his own Talmudic readings and other writings in Jewish theology.42 As an avid reader of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin and Gogol, Levinas became absorbed by the ethical issues raised by these writers, particularly the issue of responsibility for the Other in Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky and the great Russian writers, were, to Levinas mind, a good preparation for reading Plato and Kant.43 In his reading of the Russian writers mentioned led Levinas, in 1923, to Strasbourg in France to study philosophy under Charles Blondel and Maurice Pradines.44 In 1928-1929, Levinas attended Husserls lectures in Freiburg, and he also read Heideggers Being and Time.45 During World War II, Levinas served as an interpreter in Russian and German until he was made a prisoner of war in 1940.46 Almost all of Levinas family remaining in Lithuania was killed by the Nazis.47 In captivity in Germany, Levinas began his book, Existence and Existents, which was published in 1947.48 When the war ended, Levinas became director of the Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale.49 In 1961, his doctoral thesis,
41

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 115-116.

42

43

44

Adriann Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1993), 2.
45

Ibid., 3. Lechte, Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers, 116. Ibid. Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, 5. Ibid.

46 47

48

49

11 Totalite et infini, was published and led to his appointment as professor of philosophy at the University of Poitiers.50 He was subsequently appointed to the University of ParisNanterre in 1967, and then to a chair in philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1976.51 Levinas died in Paris, on December 25, 1995.

2.2 Theoretical Framework 2.2.1 Martin Buber Martin Buber is a famous philosopher of the 20th century. He was definitely influenced by unusual questions about mans existence. Immanuel Kant was the primary philosopher who influenced him at the age of fourteen. From Kant he discovers the peculiarity between Philosophy in Scholastic sense and in universal sense. Therefore true Philosophy should be applicable in life, especially in interpersonal relationship.52 Kants cosmopolitan question could be posed by: 1) What can I know? 2) What may I do? 3) What may I hope for? 4) What is man? The first is answered by metaphysics, the second by ethics, the third by religion and the fourth by anthropology.53 Buber thought that he was as well influenced by Feuerbach in his youth.54 Because for Feuerbach man in relation to other man is the connection of the I and Thou,55 similar to Martin Bubers idea. Furthermore, man can grasp his essence if he involves himself in the community. However, Feuerbach did not continue this in his last
50

Lechte, Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers, 116. Ibid. Wayne Maythall and Timothy B. Maythall, On Buber (Ontario: Thomson Learning, 2004), 8. Ibid. Buber, Between Man and Man, 143.

51

52 53 54

55

Ibid., 142.

12 works. Yet, Feuerbach was capable to arrive at the discovery of the Thou. That is the reason why, Buber assumed that he was influenced by Feuerbach in his early days. Another late modern philosopher is Friedrich Nietzsche. He influenced Martin Buber because he made Buber believe that man is merely an animal-man which is completely a reverse to Bubers concept of Man. For Nietzsche, man is a problematic being.56 Man is a mysterious being. So, Nietzsches concept of man is a being which is unknown but something that is only becoming. Nietzsche expressed his idea in man in his Will to Power. He claimed that man is the real embryo of the real species of man, 57 yet the real coming of this species of man is not certain. Moreover, the existence of the animal man58 has no direction. For Nietzsche has also no answer to the continuous suffering of man. The only distinction between man and the animals is that man is a bridge towards the ideal man. Nevertheless, man can lift the situation of the society by doing the ethical and social study.59 According to Nietzsche, man must get rid of bad conscience and the bad salvation of his conscience.60 Consequently, he proposed the existence of ultimate man. That is how Buber was influenced by Nietzsches passionate anthropological concerns.61 Another philosopher who influenced Martin Buber was Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaards inwardness and subjectivity, is focused on ones uniqueness.
56 57

Ibid., 177. Ibid.

58

59 60

Ibid. Ibid., 144. Ibid.

61

Michael Zank, Martin http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/; 22 June 2011.

Buber,

[article

online];

available

from

13 Accordingly, Kierkegaards thought is somewhat similar to Hassidism which also influenced Martin Bubers formation of thought.62 As a consequence, the combination of the two affects Bubers conception of the individual and the society. Martin Bubers philosophy of dialogue has been also influenced by some thinkers life Karl Berth, Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebuhr.63 When he was in Leipzig and Berlin, Buber was inclined to the Ethno psychology of Wilhelm Wundt, the social philosophy of George Simmel, the psychiatry of Carl Stump, and the leben philosophische approach to the humanities of Wilhelm Dilthey.64

2.2.2 Emmanuel Levinas Emmanuel Levinas, French philosopher, who was young student of Strasbourg University in 1923, was deeply influenced by the professors of the similar school. He said, There were four professors to whom, in my spirit, I attach and incomparable prestige.65 Namely: Charles Blondell, a physician and philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Strasbourg University. Maurice Halbwatchs, a mathematician and philosopher. Henri Carteron, was a translator of Aristotles Physics and a philosopher.66

62

Maythall and Maythall, On Buber, 10-11. Buber, [article online]; available from

63

Michael Zank, Martin http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/; 22 June 2011.


64 65 66

Ibid. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 24. Ibid.

14 Durkheim, a sociologist that draws the interest of Levinas concerned on the sociological aspect life of man. Durkheims philosophy is about the idea of social activities as the very order of the spiritual and new plot of being above the animals and human psychism, the level of collective representations, as the vigor and opens the dimension of spirit in the individual life itself. Individual alone comes to recognized and even redeemed.67 Levinas caught his attention on Bergsons theory of Time and Free Will. Bergson introduced the theory of duration, as the destruction of the primacy of clock time, the idea of time as physics.68 Levinas transferred to Freibourg University in 1928-4929. He officially accumulates and met Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger his two great teachers. Levinas was glad and thankful to them because of their leading philosophies. Levinas came up to his own way of thinking particularly, Edmund Husserl in his phenomenology of intentionality. Later, he wrote his dissertation entitled, The Theory of Intuition of Husserls Phenomenology.69 Levinas has a great appreciation of Martin Heideggers book Sein und Zeit (Being and Time). He said that, Being and Time is the finest book in the history of philosophy. Among other four philosophers like Platos Phadrus, Kants Critique of Pure Reason, Hegels Phenomenology of Mind, and Bergsons Time and Freewill.70

67 68

Ibid., 27. Ibid. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 38.

69

70

15 Levinas draws inspiration from Platos notion of the good, which is beyond Being. In his little book, Existence and Existent published in 1978. It was Plato in which Levinas caught his attention and wrote his progressive philosophy in viewed of Platos notion of good, which is beyond being, above epistemological approached of the customary philosophy of the Western. Through Plato, Levinas adhered his ethical philosophy considering the other as the highest good, beyond understanding of Being. It is Otherwise than Being where Levinas stated in his later works. The scholarship of Levinas has influenced the progress of existential Phenomenology in France. In fact, Levinas translations on the secondary texts influenced the French Existentialism, such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. In the last few decades, Levinas has happened to be increasingly influential in continental philosophy. His influence became evident in Jacques Derridas very recent writings, where the latter increasingly emphasized a Levinasian ethics as being in the heart of deconstruction.71

2.4 Review of Related Literature This research used some primary and secondary sources that are important to this study. Here are some important books that can help or contribute to this study.

Robert Wood. et al. Martin Bubers Ontology. 1969. In this book, it speaks about the authentic relationship of human beings. The researcher finds a great value of information in this book. So as to enhance the knowledge of what is an authentic relationship among human beings, this lies in the participation of the individual and in genuine relation, understanding, cooperation and
71

Lechte, Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers, 116.

16 love. Also in giving value of the real existence in terms of the Authentic Human Relation and having a mutual relation towards God which is also needed to achieve the human togetherness.

S.N. Eisenstadt, ed. Martin Buber on Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity. 1992. This book introduces to each student a certain work of Martin Buber in the relationship between the social interaction or Intersubjectivity, and the process of the human creativity. It can help in my study about Martin Bubers work and understand his Intersubjectivity or social interaction. As well as its great works that was compiled in this book. Wayne Maythall and Timothy Maythall. On Buber. 2004. This book is related to this study because it utilizes Martin Bubers original texts into a comprehensive reading. These texts would include, The Life of Dialogue, I and Thou, Between Man and Man, Hassidism and the Modern Man. Furthermore, it tells who Martin Buber is. It also provides a good interpretation of Martin Bubers works.

Antanas Klimas, ed. Emmanuel Levinas: Some Basic Facts. 1987. This journal is related to this study because it gives the researcher information about the life and works of Levinas, who influence his philosophy and what he influences to the other philosopher. Moreover, it provides the information about his concept of our responsibility for the Others.

Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley. Re-reading Levinas. 1991.

17 This book is connected to this study since there is a part of the book talking about Immanuel Levinas concepts of self and responsibility to the Others. It gives and deepens Levinas idea of ethical responsibility. And also this book gives and explored the relationship between Levinas and the work of Derrida and Maurice Blanchot. It provokes new responses to the work of the eminent French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.

John Llwelyn. Emmanuel Levinas: The Genealogy of Ethics. 1995. This book is also related to this study because the author did not only provide in this book the profound study of Levinas ethical philosophy. But also provide how to read philosophy with care. This book is an education from which anyone could benefit. The book gives a broadly chronological and impressively manageable presentation of the whole sweep of Levinas work.

Peter Atterton and Matthew Calarco. On Levinas. 2005. This book is related to this work because it presents the work of Levinas excellently. It provides the works of Emmanuel Levinas in a concise, yet comprehensive, introduction to his important ideas. It introduces his ideas about the other which is the main character in his social philosophy. It can even give an idea how he really tackles our responsibility to the other.

18

Chapter 3 MARTIN BUBERS CONCEPT OF I-THOU RELATIONSHIP

This chapter presents a thorough discussion of Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou relationship. Buber believes that authentic human relationship happens in the sphere of an I-Thou relation. Within the framework of the I-Thou relationship, Buber purported his thoughts on the twofold principle of human life, the social and the interhuman, the self and the other, genuine dialogue, I-It relation, seeming, speechifying, and imposition and unfolding.

3.1 Twofold Principle of Human Life The twofold principle of human life are the primal setting at a distance and the entering into relation.72 Distance here is considered by Buber as an initial step to enter in a relation. Because for Buber,
72

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 50.

19 Man, as man, sets man at a distance and makes him independent; he lets the life of men like himself go on round about him, and so he, and he alone, is able to enter into relation, in his own individual status, with those like himself.73 Distance makes man see the individual existence of the other man. Then, it affirms the individual existence of a person and creates a room for him to build the relation. Thus, a relation can only be possible if man is fully aware of the distance between him and the other. It is the movement of the self towards the opposite that is the other, the act of seeing the independent other in its totality.74 But man can also be aware of the distance between himself and the other man and may not enter into a relation. Buber explains this act as Man can set a distance without coming into real relation with what has been set at a distance. He can fill the act of setting at a distance with the will to relation, relation having been made possible only by that act: he can accomplish the act of relation in the acknowledgement of the fundamental actuality of the distance.75 It does not mean when man creates a room for relation through distance, man can directly be in a relation. Relation can only begin if man is already in a mutual interaction with the other man. It requires a mutual confirmation in order to pass through from setting a distance then go towards mutual relation. Distancing oneself may create a form of isolation between yourself and the world.76 But this isolation can be rejected through meeting everything in its totality.
73 74

Ibid., 57. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 52. Ibid., 54. Mcneill, Bubers Philosophy of History, 94.

75

76

20 Being in a relation is establishing the world in a true basis through affirmation, acceptance and confirmation.77 As Buber would say, The basis of mans life with man is twofold, and it is one the wish of every man to be confirmed as hat he is, even as what he can become, by men; and the innate capacity in man to confirm his fellow men in this way.78 3.2 The Social and Interhuman In his understanding of the I-Thou relationship, Buber distinguished between the social and the interhuman. By social, Buber refers to a certain group of individual communicating with each other. Whereas interhuman is a type of a relationship where truth is found in a realm where men communicate themselves to one another as what they are.79 Human beings are bound up with the so called collective group of people relating to each other. Buber talks about this phenomenon which is happening among men in the social realm. He even expresses this phenomenon as the establishing of connections with other people and being bound up with them in a relation. Explaining the social Buber wrote, We may speak of social phenomena wherever the life of a number of men, lived with one another; bound up together, brings in its train shared experiences and reactions. But to be thus bound up together mean only that each individual existence is enclosed and contained in a group existence. It does not mean that between one member and another of the group there exists any kind of personal relation.80

77

Buber, I and Thou, 103. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 57-58. Buber, Between Man and Man, 11. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 62.

78 79

80

21 Buber talks that connection between men happens when they are bound up and belong to a collective group of individuals. But belonging to a group does not create an authentic relationship, it is only the source of security but the identity of each individual in a collective relation is lost.81 Buber further explains this by distinguishing the difference between being connected in a social realm and being in relation in an inter-human realm. By saying of being connected in a social realm is what Buber described as the life in a group wherein men are bounded up by common experiences and reactions of a group existence but has no individual existence.82 Existing in the social realm is purely a collective existence of personal relation in which men are carried by the collectivity of the social group they are unto which lifts them out of loneliness and fear of being alone and lost in the world. 83 It is a danger to an individual who enters into a collective existence to exist in authentically. Men feel themselves to be carried by the collectivity, which lifts them out of loneliness and fear of the world and lostness. When this happens the life between person and person seems to retreat more and more before the advance of the collective. The collective aims at holding in check the inclination to personal life.84

81

Robert E. Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology: An analysis of I and Thou (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 75. 82 Dy, The Philosophy of Human Being, 108.
83

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 63. Ibid.

84

22 On the contrary being in relation in the realm of inter-human was what Buber called as the life between persons. This life in between persons is the source of authentic humanity and of relation.85 Speaking of the interhuman, Buber states, The sphere of the inter-human I mean solely actual happenings between men, whether wholly mutual or tending to grow into mutual relations. For the participation of both partners is in principle indispensable. The sphere of the inter-human is one in which a person is confronted by the other. We call its unfolding the dialogical.86 The realm of inter-human goes far beyond that of sympathy.87 It is the act of becoming aware of the persons presence and being related to that person without the intention of using him as a means for attaining personal motivations.88 Buber considers the social as a dangerous element that could make the I exist not authentically whereas interhuman could make the person live in an authentic existence.

3.3 The Self and the Other Buber made distinction between the self and the other. He says that the self or the I is the one who is responsible to interact with the other whereas should confirm on this act of relating. The other has likewise the responsibility to reply on the act of relation. Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other. the

85 86

Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou, 77. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 65. Ibid., 64. Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou,79.

87 88

23 human person needs confirmation because man as man needs it.89 Buber says that the fundamental movement of a dialogue is the awareness of the self who enters to a relationship and makes the other completes the so-called relation. Between the self and the other is a process of exchange in which they turn towards one another and shares their being through a common activity as Buber explains, Two men bound together in dialogue must obviously be turned to one another and they must therefore. No matter with what measure of an activity or indeed of conscious activities has turned to one another.90 This turning point towards the other person is what Buber calls it as a mutual relation. A relation is an activity of associating with one another, helping one another and exiting in common.91 It is characterize as an act of cooperation. Buber would expound it as person turns towards each other it is an act of response to the presence of the other person. Meeting the other person is through the will and grace that they found as they encounter each other.92 Additionally, both the self and the other person are in possession of freedom to engage themselves with one another and to create a bond that binds them together.93 They have the responsibility towards the relationship they are into. For Buber there are two kinds of individual who enters into mutual relations namely; the Eigenwesen and a person. The Eigenwesen lives for himself in terms of the
89 90

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 61. Buber, Between Man and Man, 25. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 80-81. Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou, 60. William A. Sadler, Existence and Love (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1969), 103.

91

92

93

24 humanly woven of network of things outside and his feeling inside.94 The Eigenwesen living for himself fails and is incapable to listen and to respond. He sees the other and defines the things around him in relation to himself. A person on the other hand is one whose being is an open sharing with other in which enables him to his nature.95 A person responds only to what is real and indulges himself to an activity of sharing presences. Buber is on the view of man as a person which is not seen as an object and can be deduced into parts.96 As authentic requires a turn towards the other,97 mans being is a being moving towards others, being out there with others. The self-experience and meets others through the activity of perceiving, feeling, imagining, thinking and willing. Buber explains this, For the most growth of the self is not accomplished as people like to suppose today, in mans relation to himself, but in the relation between the one and the other, between man that is pre-eminently in the mutuality of the making present.98

3.4 Primary Words According to Buber, there were two primary words involved that are used in meeting others. He said, These words are not isolated words, but combined words.99 The I-Thou is the word of relation that sees the other as a person and not as thing. It
94

Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou, 81. Ibid., 82. Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou, 100. Sadler, Existence and Love, 102.

95

96 97

98

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 61. Buber, I and Thou, 15.

99

25 must be spoken from ones whole being in order to reach the other and reveals his being entirely. The other word is I-It. This word I-It is considered as a word of separation. Using this word was an approached of objectifying the world and the person.

3.4.1 I-Thou Relationship I-Thou relationship is a subject to subject relation. It is the awareness of the self who encounters the other man. Buber claimed that it is always the self that identifies himself in the matter of relation. It is through the words of individual that is spoken that he expresses himself and meets the world entirely. These words that man expresses would reveal the basic relation of man. As what Buber said, The primary word can only be spoken with the whole being. He who gives himself to it may withhold nothing of himself.100 Buber asserts that the primary word I-Thou can only happen if man enters into a mutual relationship with others and cannot be interfere by other circumstances. Because according to him, The relation to the Thou is direct. No system of ideas, no foreknowledge, and no fancy intervene between I and Thou. The memory itself is transformed, as it plunges out of its isolation into the unity of the whole. No aim, no lust and no anticipation intervene between I and Thou.101 The movement of man in meeting the world through the I-thou relation is characterize by a mutuality, directness, and intensity. Both the self and the other who are in relation to each other involve themselves in their whole being. For the words that they speak can only be done through the wholeness of their being.
100

Buber, I and Thou, 23. Buber, I and Thou, 25.

101

26 Through I-Thou relationship, the self meets and encounters the otherness of the other. They both enter into relation in which the whole being of the self meets the whole being of the other. The I emerges as a single element out of the primal experiences, out of the vital primal words Iaffecting Thou and ThouaffectingI, only after they have been split asunder and the participle has been given eminence as an object.102 It is therefore what Buber sees as the other becomes myself. It is a loving relation between the self and the other wherein the self finds the wholeness of being in a world with others that is homely and houselike.103 Buber claims that love is not a relation of subject-to-object relation.104 Rather love, as a relation between I and Thou, is a subject-to-subject relation. In I-Thou relation, subjects do not perceive each other as object, but perceive each others unity of being. Love is an I-Thou relation wherein subjects share this unity of being. Love, according to Buber, does not cling to I for it to have the Thou as its object but love is between themselves.105 Buber further describes love as, Love is responsibility of an I for a Thou. In this lies the likenessimpossible in any feeling whatsoeverof all who love, from the smallest to the greatest and from the blessedly protected man, whose life is rounded in that of a loved being, to him who is all his life nailed to the cross of the world, and who ventures to bring himself to the dreadful pointto love all men.106
102

Buber, I and Thou, 36-37. Sadler, Existence and Love, 102. Buber, I and Thou, 29. Buber, I and Thou, 28. Buber, I and Thou, 29.

103

104

105

106

27 Both the I and the Thou can only be considered to be in a real relation when both of them affect each other. The relation means being chosen and choosing, suffering and action in one through the wholeness of their being.107 No other things can direct the movement of I-Thou because this primary words when being spoken became the world to be in relation.108

3.4.2 I-It Relationship I-It relationship is a subject to object relation.109 I-It relation can never be spoken with whole being.110 It is the aspect where man experiences the world. As man experience the world, he sees the world as a set of appearances and would consider as a thing in itself. The primary connexion of man with the world of It is comprised in experiencing, which continually reconstitutes the world, and using, which leads the world to its manifold aim, the sustaining, relieving, and equipping of human life.111 The revelation of the other is not really expresses but rather as an object of ones use. It is then compared to the word of experiencing and using. This kind of relation only takes place between man and itself and not between himself and the other man in the world.

107

Buber, I and Thou, 24. Buber, I and Thou, 18. Buber, I and Thou, 15. Ibid., 16. Buber, I and Thou, 56.

108

109

110

111

28 Buber expresses the nature of I-It relation as too selfish and finds the world as a thing to be used and experienced. I perceive something. I am sensible of something. I imagine something. I will something. I feel something. I think something. The life of human beings does not consist of all this and the like alone. This and the like together establish the realm of It.112 The other here is considered not us being as a whole but an object of perception and being experience as a thing without any real relation. Thus, the word being spoken in an I-It relation is considered as inauthentic and would be a word of separation that creates the barrier between the subject and the object. I-It relationship also means that the person is in monologue instead of dialogue. Buber says that he who is living the life of monologue is never aware of the other as something that is absolutely not himself and at the same time something with which he nevertheless communicates.113 But the I-It relation should not at all times be seen as a negative aspect of relation. It has also some positive effects on man and his perspective of the world. The world in an I-It relation can also be seen as set in the context of space and time which moves man to look the world that must be live upon and which is comfortable to live who offers man activities, knowledge and insights.114 Man, in the world of I-It relation, is connected in the action of experiencing in which man uses other as well as the world in order to endure, relieve and equip human life.
112

Buber, I and Thou, 16. Friedman, Martin Buber; The Life of Dialogue, 89. Buber, I and Thou, 51.

113

114

29 3.5 Genuine Dialogue Genuine dialogue can only happen when man enters to an I-Thou relationship. According to Buber, genuine dialogue is the encounter of the self and the other who intend to establish a mutual relation between them. When the encounter takes place mans simple relationship to the world is an expression of his being.115 It is the word IThou that man establishes a connection and reference to the other. As Buber further says, The word arises in a substantial way between men who have been seized in their depths and opened out by the dynamic of an elemental togetherness. The interhuman opens out what otherwise remains unopened.116 Man enters into genuine dialogue when he establishes the relationship in all truth.117 Truth, for Buber, means, Whatever the meaning of the word truth may be in other realms, in the interhuman realm it means that men communicate themselves to one another as what they are.118 The words that man expresses does not remain with him, it goes out and reaches a hearer who also becomes a speaker afterwards. When the primary word I-Thou is spoken, the speaker reveals himself and establish a connection with others. As Buber further explains, The speaker does not merely perceive the one who is present to him in this way; he receives him as hi partner,

115

Wood, Martin Bubers Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou, 36. Buber, Knowledge of Man, 76. Buber, Knowledge of Man, 75. Buber, Knowledge of Man, 67.

116

117

118

30 and that means that he confirms this other being, so far as it is for him to confirm.119 When man speaks the word I-Thou with his whole being, he enters into a genuine relationship with others. This movement of turning towards others to the word I-Thou makes man connected and confirm with the other. It is an act of acceptance of both speaker and hearer as beings. The act of acceptance in a genuine dialogue would also mean an affirmation to the side of the other. As Buber would state, The true turning of his person to the other includes this confirmation, this acceptance. Of course, such confirmation does not mean approval; but no matter in what I am against the other, by accepting him as my partner in genuine dialogue I have affirmed him as a person.120 Buber further explains genuine dialogue. According to him, No one, of course, can know in advance what it is that he has to say; genuine dialogue cannot be arranged beforehand. It has indeed its basic order in itself from the beginning, but nothing can be determined, the course is of the spirit, and some discover what they have to say only when they catch the call of the spirit.121

3.6 Hindrances of Genuine Dialogue It is not easy to build directly a genuine dialogue with others when there are some hindrances that would hinder the growth of an authentic relationship. These hindrances would lead someone to be in authentic with his relationship with others.

119

Buber, Knowledge of Man, 75. Buber, Knowledge of Man, 76. Buber, Knowledge of Man, 77.

120

121

31 Buber provides some of these, namely, seeming, speechifying, Imposition and Unfolding.

3.6.1 Seeming It is in reality that men are sometimes troubled because of some impressions he makes towards others.122 It makes man inauthentic in his dealings with the other person in the relation. Buber says that, We may distinguish between two different types of human existence. The one proceeds from what one really is, the other from what one wishes to seem.123 Seeming for Buber becomes an essential problem of an interhuman relation because it affects mans personal dealings with one another. A seeming individual is describe by Buber as, Man is concerned with the image which his appearance and especially his look or glance, produces in the other, he makes this look. With the help of the capacity, in greater or lesser degree peculiar to man, to make a definite element of his being appear in his look, he produces a look which is meant to have, and often enough does have, the effect of a spontaneous utterance.124 Seeming therefore is considered to be as a threat to the interhuman relation, since it leaves the individual existence of a person. To seem is an act of lying towards real existence. The seeming individual looks like an artificial image. Genuine interhuman then requires an authentic being which proceeds from what one really is. The I in the genuine dialogue is authentic without any reservation as it
122

Buber, Knowledge of Man, 65. Buber, Knowledge of Man, 65-66. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 66.

123

124

32 meets the Thou. Buber further explains that to exist in reality is the grounds for authenticity in the realm of interhuman in order to communicate in the truthfulness of their being.

3.6.2 Speechifying According to Buber, conversation among men in the world plays a greater part in building a genuine dialogue.125 The exchanging of words is one of the many factors in entering in a life of dialogue. Buber states, That man turned to the other, really speaks to a fictitious court of appeal whose life consists of nothing but listening to him.126 Words does not only build a life of dialogue but can also be considered as a hindrance to genuine dialogue. Buber calls it as speechifying. Speechifying is the act of talking past one another, the deficiency of a human person to shut himself from others. Personal making present is what Buber considers as a chief presupposition for the rise of genuine dialogue. That each should regard his partner as the very one he is.127 The I here presents himself as a very person he is. He recognizes the difference between him and the other, for they have their personal uniqueness. Buber further explains, I become aware of him, aware that he is different, essentially different from myself, in the definite, unique way which is peculiar to him, and I accept whom I thus see, so that in full earnestness I can direct what I say to him as the person he is.128
125

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 68. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 68-69. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 69. Ibid.

126

127 128

33

3.6.3 Imposition and Unfolding Imposition here means when somebody impose himself to the whole being of the other.129 Whereas unfolding means that the other should reveal himself to the other who relates.130 In a relationship man is basically affecting each other in terms of views and their attitude to life. Buber said that there are two fundamental ways of affecting men in the realm of relationship. First is the way that man is trying to impose on the other, his views and attitudes in such a way that the other feels the result of this imposition.131 Buber once said that imposition is more developed in the realm of propaganda. Buber clarifies it as, The propagandist I have in mind, who imposes himself, is not in the least concerned with the person whom he desires to influence, as a person; various individual qualities are of importance only in so far as he can exploit them to win the other and must get to know them for this purpose.132 The propagandists opinion on the other is that they just see the other in their individual qualities and appeared as a burden. Since the propagandist is mainly concern on the number of their member and not their whole being. The second fundamental way of affecting others, a man wishes to find and to further in the soul of the other the disposition toward what he has recognized in himself
129

Ibid., 72. Ibid. Dy, The Philosophy of Human Person, 110. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 72.

130

131

132

34 as the right133 or more simply he called it as unfolding. Buber said that unfolding is more developed in the realm of education. Buber says in the viewpoint of an educator, The educator sees each of these individuals as in a position to become a unique, single person, and thus the bearer of a special task of existence which can be fulfilled through him and through him alone. He sees every personal life as engaged in such a process of actualization, and he knows from his own experience that the forces making for actualization are all the time involved in a microcosmic struggle with counterforces.134 An educator sees himself as a helper of others who actualized their own self. Educator may and must unfold of what is right and help to develop his actualization. He is the reason of growth of each individual because he leads other person to authentic existence through meeting and dialogue.135 But according to Buber these two fundamental attitudes should never be a factor that would lead us to confuse with the other concepts such as arrogance and humility. Man can be also arrogant without wishing to impose himself to others, and it is not enough to be humble in order to help another to unfold itself.136

133

Ibid. Ibid., 73. Dy, The Philosophy of Human Person, 115. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 74.

134

135 136

35

Chapter 4 EMMANUEL LEVINAS CONCEPT OF I-OTHERS RELATIONSHIP

This chapter presents a comparative discussion on Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others. This concept of I-Other Relationship of Levinas revolves mainly on his idea of responsibility for the Others. Levinas in his discussion of this manner of relationship clarified that it would be proper that it should start with the meet of the I to the face of Other. Thats why the discussion would start on human face, then discourse, responsibility for the other,

36 Asymmetry and Height, Dwelling, Substitution and the last is hostage which is under the topic of substitution.

4.1 Human Face Levinas said that the face is not a plastic form similar to a portrait but the very identity of a being; it manifests itself in it in terms of itself, with no concept.137 He said that the access to the face is straightaway ethical.138 It is in this face that man can have a direct access to the being of the other. Levinas affirms, You turn yourself toward the other as toward an object when you see a nose, eyes, a forehead, a chin, and you can describe them. The best way of encountering the other is not even to notice the color of his eyes! When one observes the color of the eyes one is not in social relationship with the other.139 When one encounter the other by only noticing the characteristics of his face will never lead into a real relation between him and the other. For Levinas, the I should see the face of the other since the face is not strictly speaking an object of vision at all. It is neither a mask nor a persona that the other wears.140 Instead, the face is a personification in that it represents the other on the person.141 Moreover, the face cannot be characterized within any context, because the entire signification in the usual sense of the term is relative to such a context.
137

Emmanuel Levinas, Enter Nous: On Thinking of the Other, trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 34.
138

Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, trans. Richard Cohen (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press, 1885), 88.
139

Ibid.,, 85. Peter Atterton and Matthew Calarco, On Levinas (New York: Thomson Learning, 2005) 27. Ibid.

140 141

37 According to Levinas, face means Kath auto which also means all by itself. Face never depends on anything else to build its meaning. It means that it cannot become a content, which the thought would embrace; it is uncontainable and would lead the I beyond. In addition, Levinas contends that the face is destitute and expose without any defense.142 It is extremely naked in itself. Since, the face has no defense to protect itself, it is therefore prune to cruel and harms from the others. The face nudeness or unprotectiveness shows how vulnerable it is. Because of this vulnerability of the face, the self may be prompted to take advantage, calling the self to an act of violence. But despite of its exposure, it is also the one who forbids to kill the face. Levinas attests that, There is an essential poverty in the face; the proof of this is that one tries to make this poverty by putting on poses, menaced, as if inviting us to an act of violence. At the same time, the face is what forbids us to kill.143 The face therefore pleads for non-violence in spite of his being expose boldly. It resists possession and powers.144

4.2 Discourse Genuine conversation takes place through the face and it is evident through discourse. Discourse here should not be taken as a straightforward passage of information from one individual to the other. It is not even systematic as Levinas justifies that,
142 143

Levinas, Ethic and Infinity, 86-87. Ibid., 86. Levinas, Totality and Inc finity, 197.

144

38 The face looks at me, regards me, and speaks to me by language or discourse. Although which is not structural or systematic but spontaneous one.145 By the use of discourse, one could open up itself to the other. It is because of the discourse between the I and the other that the dialogue, which means opening and sharing, happens. Yet they cannot be considered as one. There will still be a distance between him and the other. But even though it is like that, the face can demand from the self during the face to face encounter through the use of discourse. For Levinas, discourse has another dimension. It is not only a process of conveying a message or conglomeration of words but also in the positive command to give the other hospitality.146 The relation between face to face would emerges as responsibility for the other.

4.3 Enjoyment and Separation According to Levinas, enjoyment and separation is a reality that can be place into one occasion. As Levinas describes, In enjoyment throbs egoist being. Enjoyment separates by engaging in the contents from which it lives. Separation comes to pass as the positive work of this engagement it does not result from a simple split, like spatial removal. To be separated is to be at home with oneself.147 Enjoyment gives mans a reason to exist. In fact, for mans, happiness is what makes the activity of living possible, if activity means a commencement occurring in duration, which nevertheless is continuous.148
145 146

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 247. Ibid., 205. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 147. Ibid.

147 148

39 Separation here is not only understood as a distance but also implies difference, a difference between the I and the other. Separation in the strictest sense is solitude, and enjoyment is isolation itself.149 Because being happy in oneself is being separated with others. It forgets the others and would cling into his own and become selfish. If one enjoys himself, he also separates with the other. Levinas affirms that, The interiority of enjoyment is separation in itself, is the mode according to which such an event as separation can be produced in the economy of being.150 Before enjoyment, there is still the self and the other object that has yet to nourish me, even if the otherness of what will nourish me becomes apparent only in enjoyment. Therefore, in enjoyment, the self emerges already as the subject of its need.151

4.4 Responsibility to the other According to Levinas, the face is the face of destitution and poverty. And it is through this vulnerability of the other that the self is calling up to look after the other. It is through this situation of the other that man has control over the I. Levinas contends, This gaze that supplicates and demands, that can supplicate only because it demands, deprived of everything because it is entitled to everything, and which one recognizes in giving this gaze is precise of the face as a face. The nakedness of the face is destituteness. To

149 150

Ibid., 117. Ibid., 147.

151

Anthony F. Beavers, Introducing Levinas to Undergraduate Philosophers, [article online]; available from http://faculty.evansville.edu/tb2/PDFs/UndergradPhil.pdf; 18 June 2011.

40 recognize the other is to recognize a hunger. To recognize the other is to give or to be responsible to the other.152 The relation of the face or the face to face relation, which cannot be reduced to relation of comprehension emerges as responsibility for the other.153 Responsibility is to be understood as a double meaning, responsivity to the other and responsibility for the other. Responding with responsibility to the face of the other means to take care of the others needs and longing. Because Levinas contends that, No human or interhuman relationship can be enacted outside of economy; no face can be approached with empty hands and closed home. Recollection in a home open to the Otherhospitalityis the concrete and initial fact of human recollection and separation; it coincides with the Desire for the Other absolutely transcendent. The chosen home is very opposite of a root.154 Being responsible is not only to be compassionate to the other. It is by providing the other with his basic worldly need. Levinas explains that since the I and the Other are considered worldly with concrete and economic needs; the proper response to the appeal of the other will also be concrete and that is economic.155 But it is difficult to offer material possessions to the other. Levinas then declares that giving acquires its highest meaning only when it entails stripping of what is more my own possession.156 He says that giving from ones excess does not constitute real giving for this is equivalent to not giving at all.
152 153

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 75. Atterton and Calarco, On Levinas, 29. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 172 Ibid.

154

155 156

Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), 56.

41 Therefore, to be responsible is to offer everything to the other even to the extent of giving ones life. Furthermore, responsibility is also something that cannot be transferred. It is already in the self. No one can replace the self in fulfilling its responsibility to the other.

4.4.1 Asymmetry and Height Levinas I-Others philosophy is characterized by an ethical responsibility. This responsibility, according to him, cannot be reserved not transferred. Levinas said that the others responsibility to the I remains his own affair. The only thing that would matters most is the very own responsibility to the other. Levinas states in this idea by saying, The intersubjective relationship is a non-symmetrical relation. In this sense, I am responsible for the other without waiting for reciprocity, where I die for it.157 For Levinas, relationship with the other should always be his own affair and should not wait for any reciprocity. Since it is characterize by a non-reciprocal relationship, for the reason that a relationship that is practiced through reciprocity, will be impossible. He clearly gives more emphasis to the other than to the I. He describes the ethical relation as one of asymmetry in which the other approaches the I in the dimension of height. To take care of the others needs without remuneration or reward is the very meaning of ethical asymmetry.158 It means that responsibility of the self seeing the other is endless.

157

Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 98.

158

Emmanuel Levinas, The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Great Britain: Camelot Press PLC, 1989), 48.

42

4.5 Dwelling It is an unavoidable fact that life is a continuous experience of ups and downs. According to Levinas, happiness is a chance that can be missed and is thus threatened if not by misfortune itself, then by worry of misfortune.159 But this anxiety is overcome through dwelling, as what Levinas calls it.160 Levinas says that dwelling, It does indeed belong to the gear consisting of things necessary for the life of man. It serves to shelter him from the inclemencies of the weather, to hide him from enemies or the importunate.161 It a place of comfort where relax I can and live a life with security. As Levinas would add on it as, To dwell is not the simple fact of the anonymous reality of the being cast into existence as a stone one casts behind oneself; it is a recollection, a coming to oneself a retreat home with oneself as in a land of refuge, which answers to a hospitality, an expectancy, a human welcome.162 It is, With the dwelling the separated being breaks with natural existence, steeped in a medium where its enjoyment, without security, on edge, was being inverted into care.163

4.6 Substitution
159

Levinas, On Levinas, 21. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 150. Ibid., 152. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 156. Ibid.

160

161

162

163

43 The responsibility of the I towards the others is non-transferable and cannot be replaced by someone else. No one can get out of his responsibility, since it is his own affair. Levinas commends that responsibility is what on the I exclusively, and what, humanly, cannot refuse.164 Levinas describes substitution as, Calling upon me as someone accused who cannot reject the accusation it obliges me as someone irreplaceable and unique, someone chosen. In as much as it calls upon my responsibility if forbids me any replacement.165 A responsibility that is his own was given to someone is no longer a responsibility. Understandably, substitution for Levinas is putting oneself in the place of the other.166 According to Levinas, Through substitution for others, the oneself escapes relations. At the limit of passivity, the oneself escapes passivity or the inevitable limitation that the terms within relation undergo.167 In addition, substitution also means that one answers for his deeds, and his misdeeds, for the trouble he causes and for his faults.168 Hence, substitution is conceived as the state of being a hostage, held for what the I did not do, accountable for the others before the others.169

164

Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 101.

165

Emmanuel Levinas, God and Philosophy, in Philosophy Today (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996), 139.
166

Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, xxiii. Ibid., 115. Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, xxii. Ibid., xxiii.

167

168

169

44

4.6.1 Hostage Substitution is the place of other nothing is left to the self except the non-place of the hostage where it is the other who rises to speak within the self. 170 Mans responsibility towards others cannot be ignored or taken for granted. Despite the pain that responsibility is giving, still it cannot be taken off. Levinas considers this responsibility as the Nessus Tunic he cannot taken off despite the pain it causes, he stresses, In the exposure to the wounds and outrages, in the feeling proper to responsibility, the oneself is provoked as irreplaceable, as devoted to other, without being able to resign. It is thus one and unique, in passivity from the start, having nothing at its disposal that would enable it to not yield to the provocation.171 The I therefore is subjected to the weight of everything the compressed point of the gravity of responsibility.172 Levinas adds that in the role of hostage, the self is not just responsible for the other but also to the responsibility of others. To be responsible is not only to take care of the needs of other but also for his/her misdeeds. Levinas explains this thoroughly by saying, Obsessed with responsibility which did not arise in decisions taken by a subject contemplating freely, consequently accused of its innocence, subjectivity in itself is being thrown back on oneself. This means concretely: accused of what the other do or suffer, or responsible for what they do or suffer. The uniqueness of the self is the fact of bearing the fault of another.173
170

Alma Santiago, Emmanuel Levinas: Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence,105. Levinas, On Levinas, 68. Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, 112.

171

172

173

45

However, Levinas admits that to hold a person accountable for the faults he/she did not commit from the philosophical point of view is simply demented.174 Levinas here is not trying to say that everybody is responsible without guilt.175 Levinas then argues that substitution is indeed the bottom line of his ethics. It is the greatest sophisticated account of the relation between the I and the other irreducible to ontology.176

174

Ibid., 113. Levinas, On Levinas, 70. Ibid., 72.

175

176

46 Chapter 5 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Based on the expositions of Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou relationship and Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others relationship, a comparative analysis is done in this chapter. Particularly, the analysis is done on key points of similarities and differences.

5.1 Point of Convergence Buber and Levinas agree on the issues of responsibility and the other, dialogue and discourse, seeming and substitution.

5.1.1 Responsibility and the other Buber talks that every individual is responsibly connected with each other in the so called social realm. It is where they establish their relation with each other. A relation, that the self should be aware of the presence of the other, who completes the relation through responding. This responsibility of the self towards the other in a relation is best explained in his idea of I-Thou relationship. The I- Thou relationship is a primary word wherein the I has a responsibility to be in contact with the other with their entire being. The I should know the Others whole being by means of genuine dialogue. Levinas is one of many philosophers who agreed about the responsibility for the Other. He said that all man has a responsibility towards his fellow man. The Others face is an access to the whole being of the other, for the face, according to Levinas, is

47 the clearest representation of the whole being of the Other. For the reason that the face is the one which I can encounter the physical characteristic of the Other. It is in the face that the I see the vulnerability of the Other. For Levinas, responsibility is to be understood in responding with responsibility to the face of Other, A responsibility which in the time of his conception is being given to him. Buber and Levinas are just two of the many philosophers who responded regarding our own responsibility for the Other. They both stated that man in the social realm is always in connection with the other. This connection entails a responsibility for the other man. That is why Buber and Levinas would always remind us about this responsibility fro the other in all the works that they have written

5.1.2 Dialogue and Discourse For Buber, dialogue is a means given to the I to communicate with the other with its whole being. It is a form of participation between persons in dialogue who has the will to communicate to one another. Dialogue is considered as a method to express the whole being of the I and the Thou/Other. In dialogue, the I should be true to himself in talking with the Thou. He expresses himself for him to meet the whole being of the other to whom he is talking. Thus, for Buber, dialogue is a way wherein the I and Other meets with their whole being. This dialogue can only be possible in an I-Thou relationship. For Levinas, discourse is also a way that the I could open up to the Other, just like dialogue of Buber. Levinas philosophy of dialogue should never be understood as a straightforward passage of information from one person to the next. Discourse between

48 I and Other is a building up of a relation. It is in communication of the I and Other that the opening and sharing of oneself among themselves happen. Thus, for Levinas, discourse is a way in which the I communicate with the otherness of the Other. Dialogue and discourse shares the same context in which they are used as method to communicate or makes the I and the Other open up with their whole being. Therefore, dialogue and discourse can be seen as one aspect, for they just share that same meaning for both philosophers. But this dialogue and discourse must be treated as a special from of communicating with the other man.

5.1.3 Seeming and Substitution Seeming is considered by Buber as an essential problem of an interhuman relation because if affects mans personal dealings with one another. To seem means to destroy the interhuman relation, for it threatens the individual existence. This philosophy of Buber explains that man is inauthentic with his dealings with the other man. It provides a means for the destruction of the real and authentic relation. For real existence requires an authentic being which proceeds from what is real. Thats why Buber gives his answer for this, and it is genuine dialogue. For if man is in a genuine dialogue with the other. He will not experience such thing that Buber called as seeming. Substitution for Levinas is never be possible in dealing with others. For man cannot omit his own responsibility for the other. Man, according to Levinas, should not run away from his responsibility because it is mans individual responsibility that he is required to perform. Moreover, this responsibility cannot be simply passed to someone else. But if it happens, there would be a great problem in the social realm. For it could

49 create a social misunderstanding and confusion because of his lack of concern for the other. For a responsibility to be passed to someone else would no longer be a responsibility. These concept of seeming of Buber and substitution for Levinas are somewhat sharing the same concern regarding mans personal dealing with one another. Both philosophers established that man should never seem nor substitute his own responsibility, for it causes a great problem in the interhuman relation. Therefore, seeming and substitution is similar, for they share the same objective in destroying the world of relation.

5.2 Point of Divergence Buber and Levinas disagree on the issues of response to responsibility which is symmetrical and asymmetrical relationship, and the individual and the self.

5.2.1 Response to Responsibility Buber and Levinas tackled about our individual responsibility for the other. Responsibility is already in our self since we are in the so called social and interhuman world. On one hand, the response of the responsibility for Buber is symmetry or the equality of the relationship. While, on the other hand, Emmanuel Levinas response of the responsibility is asymmetry, for the I should not wait for the response of other because relationship should not be taken as a reciprocal one, not waiting for the others response.

50 5.2.1.1 Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Relationship Symmetrical relationship is a characteristic of a relationship in which the I and the other practices reciprocity between themselves. According to Buber, relationship should have a kind of reciprocity between them, who enters in a relation. That means that the I should treat the other equally and the other should respond in this relationship equally so that they may both have an equal treatment of their relationship. They must not have any biases between each other that would lead the other to lower down its value in the relation. The symmetrical relationship can happen only in a genuine dialogue and this genuine dialogue can only happen in and I-Thou relation. For genuine dialogue means, an encounter where each individual has in mind the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between him and his partner in their relation. Whereas asymmetrical relationship is also a characteristic of a relation wherein the I should not wait in the response of other or the reaction of the other to the I. Levinas once said that the others responsibility to the I remains his affair, what matters the most is the responsibility of the I to the other. Because Levinas says that the I is responsible for the other without waiting for any reciprocity of the other. Man is obliged to be responsible for the other without anything that man can acquire. For man live not only for himself but also for the service of his fellow man. Therefore, in this aspect Buber and Levinas differ from each other. Since Buber believes in the reciprocity of the relationship while Levinas also contends that the relationships are non-reciprocal or the asymmetry of the relationship of the I and the other.

51 5.2.2 The Individual and the Face According to Buber, the individual person is the one that man meets in the physical world or in reality. It is the whole being of the I that he sees and not just merely a fraction of him. For it is this individual person which man meets in the sphere of interhuman. Because relationship is always consists of two men who are relating with each other in their whole being through genuine dialogue. Relationship would not be possible if there is only one man or being just in his own self and being alone in this sociality. If the I or the self enters into the so called relation, there would always be the other who would complete the relation. While according to Levinas, it is the face that man meets in the physical world. And you can only encounter another man through the face of the other, for it the face who interacts with the other man. It is the one that provides a most immediate access to the otherness of the other. And this face is a personification in that it represents the other person. The face is beautifully exposed without any defense. This defenselessness of the face shows how vulnerable it is. Plus, through this vulnerability that the self may be induce to take advantage, calling the self to an act of violence. Therefore, this philosophy of Buber and Levinas is in a way distinct from each other. Fro Buber say that it is already the whole being of the individual person that the I meets while Levinas says that it is the face that man meets in the realm of the social. Both of them have different perspective on how the I or the self meets the other in their whole being.

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Chapter 6 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This

chapter

presents

the

summary

of

findings,

conclusion,

and

recommendations. The summary of findings is based on the answers to the questions in

53 the statement of the problem. The conclusion is drawn on the basis of the findings and the analysis.

6.1 Summary of Findings Based on the exposition on Bubers concept of I-Thou and Levinas concept of I-Others relationship and the comparative analysis of the both concepts, the researcher would like to present the following findings: Martin Bubers concept of I-Thou relationship claims that all humans are meeting and that the I should be in a genuine dialogue with the other so that they can both enter to the whole being of each other. This relationship is built in a reciprocal and asymmetrical characteristic of a relation. The other should also attend the needs of the I, as similar as the I treat the other. This reciprocity of the relationship would only happen to an I-Thou relation, according to Buber. Emmanuel Levinas base his concept of I-Other relationship on our individual responsibility to others. His philosophy of I-Other begins not from the I but from the other. For him, the other should prioritize the other and must be viewed in the height so that the egoistic nature of the self can be overcome. Furthermore, Levinas I-Other is nonreciprocal. For the I is responsible of the other even to the point of giving everything even his life without waiting fro something in return. He added that responsibility to other in non-transferable, everybody is obliged to be responsible for the other. Lastly, he expresses that the I should not consider the other as an object for it would just add to the problem of authentic relationship.

54 Both Buber and Levinas contend that man by nature is relational and this relation would connect to the other side of man, his being an ethical being. Both of them agreed that the I or the self should be in contact with the other. But according to Buber, if I have to care for the other, so also the other should also care for the I, for they have reciprocity in themselves. While for Levinas, if the I does something for the other, he must not wait for any response for the other, for it is not about what can you give but how you perform your responsibility to others. But likewise, they both oppose in the socalled moral relativism.

6.2 Conclusion Having undertaken a comparative analysis between Bubers concept of I-Thou and Levinas concept of I-Other relationship which is rooted in his idea of responsibility to others, it drove the following conclusion: In Bubers I-Thou relationship, man achieves his being man when he communicates with other. This concept of Buber is more favorable than that of Levinas concept of I-Others relationship. He can be most applicable in our present society. It allows every individual to be in a genuine relation and it also reveals the authenticity of both individual. Since I cannot exist without the others presence and vice versa. However, the concept of I-Other of Levinas is complicated for it favors the other than the I. He forgets the I for the sake of other. He also overlooks the Is identity to the point of losing its individual existence. Levinas leaves the individual self for the welfare of the other to the point of owning even all his wrongdoings and misdeeds. As he

55 believes that reciprocity should not be a hindrance for us to do our individual responsibility to others. Buber and Levinas just want to attain authentic relationship among individuals. But there are really some ideas that they differ from each other. Bubers I-Thou is practical among individuals in a relation while Levinas I-Other is too focus in the other that it forgets the individual self. Bubers I-Thou speaks to the other equally whereas Levinas I-Other speaks to the other as priority.

6.3 Recommendations Based on the findings and the conclusion, the following studies are hereby proposed: 1. Interpreting Filipino Friendliness in the light of Emmanuel Levinas concept of responsibility to others. 2. Emmanuel Levinas concept of I-Others and Jiddu Krishnamurtis concept of SelfSelf-Others Relationship: A comparative analysis 3. Anti-Medicancy Law in the light Martin Bubers I-Thou Relationship. 4. Martin Bubers and Jacques Maritains philosophies of Education. A Comparative Analysis 5. Martin Bubers I and Thou Relationship and Karol Wojtyla Theory of Participation. A Comparative Analysis

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Buber, Martin. Between Man and Man. Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith. London: Routledge Classics, 2002. ________. Good and Evil. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Incorporated, 1997.

57 ________. I and Thou. Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1970. ________. On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity. Edited by S.N. Eisenstadt. Chicago: The University Press, 1992. ________. The Knowledge of Man: Selected Essays. Translated by Maurice Friedman. New York: Humanity Books, 1998. ________. The Martin Buber Reader. Edited by Asher D. Biemann. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Levinas, Emmanuel. Entre Nous: On Thinking of the Other. Translated by Michael Smith and Barbara Harshav. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. ________. Ethics and Infinity. Translated by Richard Cohen. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press, 1885. ________. Of God Who Comes To Mind. Translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford California: Stanford University Press, 1998. ________. Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981. ________. The Theory Of Intuition In Husserls Phenomenology 2nd Edition. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1995. ________. Totality and Infinity. Translated by Alfhonso Lingis. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

Secondary Sources Arrendt, Hannah. The Jewish Writings. Edited by Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman New York: Shocken Books. 2007. Atterton, Peter and Calarco, Matthew. On Levinas. USA: Thomson Learning. 2005. Bernasconi, Robert and Critchley, Simon. Re-reading Levinas. Indiana University Press. 1991. Cruz, Corazon L. Philosophy of Man. Metro Manila: National Bookstore, Inc. 1993. Dy, Mannuel B. The Philosophy of Man. Quezon City: Goodwill Trading Corporation. 1986.

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Gallagher, Kenneth T. The Philosophy of Knowledge New York: Fordham University Press. 1982. Lechte, John. Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers. USA: Routledge Publisher. 1995. Llewelyn, John. Emmanuel Levinas: Genealogy of Ethics. New York: Routledge Publisher, 1995 Magill, Frank N. Masterpieces of World Philosophy. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1990. Maythall, Wayne and Maythall, Timothy B. On Buber. Ontario: Thomson Learning, 2004. Peperzak, Adriaan T. Ethics as First Philosophy: The Significance of Emmanuel Levinas for Philosophy, Literature and Religion. New York: Routledge Publisher, 1995. ________. To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1993. Raymond, Diane Barsoun. Existentialism and the Philosophical Tradition New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. 1991. Sadler, William A. Existence and Love. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1969. Stumpf, Enoch Samuel and James Fieser. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, A History of Philosophy, 8th ed. New York: Mc Graw Hill Companies, 2003. Wood, Robert E. Martin Bubers Ontology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969.

General References Collier Encyclopedia, 1968 ed., s.v. Buber, Martin. New York: Cromwell-Collier Educational, 1968. Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. Buber, Martin. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990.

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Electronic Sources Beavers, Anthony F. Introducing Levinas to Undergraduate Philosophers. Article online. Available from http://faculty.evansville.edu/tb2/PDFs/UndergradPhil.pdf. 18 June 2011. Zank, Michael. Martin Buber. Article online. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/. 22 June 2011. Available from

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