ABSTRACT
Why Read This Text? Martin Buber was arguably the most famous Jewish thinker of his generation, and among the most influential. While his various writings cross many disciplines, including philosophy, biblical studies, and social and political theory, his book I and Thou, first published in German in 1923, is his masterpiece, and contains his most important and influential ideas. The book proposed a new way of thinking about human existence in terms of two attitudes, the I-It and the I-Thou. It presents a vision of human life as finding its highest meaning in the principles of meeting, relation, and dialogue: in authentic encounters that we have with other humans, but also with nature, and through each of those finally with God (often referred to by Buber as the “eternal Thou”).
