ABSTRACT
Our concern in this critical examination of some of Buber’s ideas, is not the factual importance of the relation between one human being and another. We are interested, rather, in elucidating the basic ontological position of this fact in terms set by Buber himself, who claims to be inquiring into the basic stratum and texture of human existence. Regardless of the importance of human mutuality on the factual level, it is doubtful whether the factual level is metaphysically independent, whether it reveals the most fundamental level of human existence. In other words, the identity between factual importance and ontological relevance should not be taken for granted.
