Buber’s I-tu dimension
12
Jul
Martin Buber’s ideas contribute to the integration of a philosophical conception 
of the human being with an attitude towards it.
In his work, Buber deals with the man in the world, of his multiple possibilities of existence, depending on how he stands.
The principle words I-you and I-these signify ways of being of man, ways of responding to reality, which always calls for a positioning.
The self that opens to a you is not like the self that relates to a thing, that is, the established form of relationship grounds the way of being. Therefore, the relationship produces different possibilities of the person being in the world.
I-you and I-that are part of the human movement, being inseparable, constantly alternating with each relationship (Buber, 1923/2001). In the I-you attitude, the person enters into a relationship, lets himself be impacted, let himself be crossed by the living presence of the other, be it a person, a situation, a work, or any entity. At that moment there is an intensive dimension, not measurable or reducible to temporality, spatiality and objective questions. The world of you has no coherence in space and time: it is a field of forces, of presence, of vitality. It can not be apprehended or imprisoned in representations: it always escapes. It is not reduced to perception: it is intense, alive, pulsating. It always reappears differently, in continuous transformation. The I-this attitude, in turn, leads to experiential objectively situations.
The world of this or of objectivity commands the real, making it habitable and recognizable.
For Buber (1923/2001), the melancholy of human destiny is that the tu becomes, irremediably, this, which is necessary for the understanding of the lived process.
One can not always maintain the I-you attitude, since man is incapable of permanently dwelling in the encounter, existence is ruled by the alternation between I-you, I-it and its unfolding.
In the Buberian perspective, experience implies a reflexive detachment, situating itself within the scope of this, while the relation is within the scope of the you. The relationship is experience, not experience. By finding someone in the self-mode, the consequent loss of space, time, and the destabilization of the self enable contemplation, new sensations, and crossings.
The self-relation, on the contrary, places the person in the world of objects, ordering and being extremely necessary for the elaboration and production of meanings, so long as it does not become the predominant form of relation to the world
