I was given I And Thou by Martin Buber for Christmas, and I’ve been wanting to read this book for a long time. I got the newer-translated version, because everybody says it’s easier to read, but uh…I can’t make sense of it at all.
It’s one of the hardest books I’ve ever (tried to) read.
I’m thinking about buying the original version, Ich Und Du, but my German is really elementary right now and I don’t think I’d do much better.
Anybody ever read this book? And if so, how? 
Hey, Cranberry!
Yeah, I read a translation of I and Thou back in the late 70s, I think it was. To be honest, I had difficulty with it, too, as I do with just about all Western-style philosophy. What I got out of it was Buber’s viewpoint concerning what the relationship is between self and other, and what it is to be self and other. I’m afraid it didn’t make a big difference in my worldview. Then again, I was too busy concentrating on partying at the time.
I read it a couple of times many years ago but didn’t get much out of it. There needs to be a Philosophy for Dummies book which explains what people like Buber are trying to say.
Thanks, both. I’m glad it’s not just me.
About the first 50 pages of the newer translation are an introduction written by Walter Kaufmann, and I got through all that just fine. But when I started reading the actual book, I got lost immediately and never was able to find out where I was, so I quit.
Can’t blame you. I recall that the text seemed rather rambling, which didn’t help, and at the end of the day, it was just Buber’s musings. Then again, as I’ve said, Western philosophy and I are like oil and water.
There are such books, of course.
Sophie’s World is one of the better ones because it takes novel form and isn’t just an attempt to dumb down an academic field.
Will Durant’s The Story of Philosopy is the classic (if slightly stolid) sort of intro.
In Brooklyn we called it ‘Me and You.’ I didn’t understand
it either. There are several traditions in contemporary
Western philosophy,
including those who try to be (excrutiatingly) clear and accessible,
and those, often coming from a Germanic or Continental
tradition, who do not. I figure they’re up to something,
but I don’t yet know what it is.
The former bunch tends to feel about the latter
bunch much as Nano feels about Western philosophy
as a whole.
Of the Continental types, Sartre is the most accessible,
I think, because he was a great writer and had
a lucid mind.
Above all it is better to be in the Continental tradition
if you wish to pick up babes (or the male equivalent,
Cranberry).
Much better to say:
"Come up to my room, baby. I’ll show you all about
Existentialism!’
than to say
‘There is something that is my room and another thing
that is you and a third thing that is me, and a three-place
relation R that I want to obtain between you, me, and my room
etc.’
Don’t ask me how I know.
I have read many introduction to (Western) philosophy type books, including Sophie’s World which is one of my favorite books ever. I love that book. I read it twice.
The reason I was reading I And Thou wasn’t really to learn about philosophy as much as it was to read a book that I’d seen referenced everywhere, in a bunch of other books I’ve read (perhaps it shouldn’t, but it seems a bit strange to me that a lot of Christian apologetic authors so often cite Buber, who was a Jew).
But I just can’t read it. Oh well.
There is a story that when Heidegger was writing
he would give his stuff to his grad students.
If they understood, he would re-write.I don’t suppose it’s true, really.
I guess my favorite non-fiction book by a jewish
author from the last century is Viktor Frankls’
‘Man’s Search for Meaning,’ which relates
the way he came to terms in a positive way
with life in a Nazi concentration camp.
No trouble understanding that one.
On one occasion the people in his barracks,
after an especially bad day, begged him
to say something positive to cheer them up.
Frankl, as depressed as everybody else,
was at a loss, and then he thought and said:
They can’t take our past!
That’s the whole thing about Buber. Keep trying a little longer, read slowly but don’t stop either if you feel you don’t understand.
And good for you to you use “apologetic” in its grown-up sense. 
MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING!!!
I LOVE THAT BOOK, TOO!
I was told to read that book when I was 15 and a bit psycho, and never got around to it until right before I turned 20. I loved it and wished I’d read it sooner.
“Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben.” (I hope I got that right )
Yeah, I figure if he could be happy in Auschwitz
I can manage St. Louis. He arrived at
Stoicism, I think.
I read all of Man’s Search For Meaning in two days. I should find some more of his writings. I especially like psychiatrists/psychologists who deal with more religious/philosophical issues. M. Scott Peck is one such (Christian) writer who I’ve gained new perspectives from as well.
Speaking of Jewish authors who write about such things, I recently read When Bad Things Happen To Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner. On the whole I didn’t like the book much, but I’m not terribly sure why. It just rubbed me the wrong way, I guess.
I heard about it from jewish friends who didn’t like it.
He’s trying to deal with the problem of evil, right?
They said he said that the tsunami, say, isn’t
God’s department.
If I may expand to fiction, two Jewish writers
I love, and who write from a religious perspective
(though not always overtly so) are
Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer (especially his stories,
especially ‘Gimpel the Fool’).
I rather think this may be an easier (and far more pleasant)
way to grasp a Jewish spiritual sensibility
than non-fiction.
(From what I understood) Kushner seems to think that there are certain things that God cannot control, such as tsunamis and disease and stuff. One of his children died really young of a fatal disease, and he talks about that a lot, as well as people he’s pastored when family members’ve died, etc. He basically tries to explain evil as being something that God has no control over, and I’m not sure I agree with that. For that matter, I’m not sure that’s my main bone I’d pick with the book, I’m just not sure what I didn’t like about it.
I’m thinking about reading People Of The Lie M. Scott Peck, which also addresses evil, and I’ve read a lot about the book, but never the book itself. I’ve read two other books by him, and I love his writing style and topics he covers.
I was going to read When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough by Kushner, but I probably won’t.
I’d definitely recommend People of the Lie. That work made a lot of sense to me.
Thank you. I will definately get it now. I’ve read the first two books in his Road Less… trio, too. Loved them both.
From what (little) I’ve read about people of the lie, it seems I grew up surrounded by them.
An important point of this book is that evil is frequently just banal, and that we all have it in us to some degree. This assertion made me take a more honest look at myself, which I thought was valuable.
So true, I have this great story about Derrida…I was at some conference at UC Irvine where he taught in the spring time before he died, and I went to relieve myself in the bathroom. I saw him zip up his pants… walk to the mirror, cooly run his fingers through his hair like he was some Greaser from the 80’s and look at himself with more love than I have ever seen any man give to a woman…My friends and I who studied philosophy constantly wail about it…
Didn’t Sarte die of syphillis…that cheeky womanizer…