This book is divided into three volumes. The first volume aims to clarify the duality of the world and life, the opposition between your world and its world, and the opposition between "I-you" life and "I-it" life. The second volume discusses the presentation of "I-you" and "I-it" in human history and culture. The third volume shows the "eternal you", that is, the relationship between God and man.
People are in a dual world, so there are two completely different lives.
People live in the world of "it". This means that in order to survive and meet their own needs, people around them-other people, all living things-must be regarded as objects that are separated from me and opposed to me, and knowledge about them can be obtained through experience and then used by me. As long as I hold this attitude, existence is "it" to me and the world is "it" to me. This will naturally lead to two consequences. First of all, everything related to me has become the object of my experience and utilization, and it is a tool for me to satisfy my interests, needs and desires. Buber called it the "I-it" association. Secondly, in order to realize the purpose of using existence, I must put existence into the time-space framework and causal sequence as one of the things to grasp. Because, if I don't know all kinds of connections between objects and their positions in the space-time network, how can I successfully use them? My attitude towards survivors depends on my needs here and now, as well as their specific characteristics and qualities. In this way, the existence is just one of many "it", which complement each other and are limited.
People also live in your world. In the meantime, he met the "you" of the existing person, or he met the "you" of the existing person. At this point, the existing object is no longer separated from me. There are two meanings here: (1) When I met you, I was no longer the subject of experience and utilization, and I didn't establish a relationship with you to meet any of my needs, even the noblest needs (such as the so-called "love needs"). Because "you" is the world, life and God. I want to use my whole existence, my whole life and my true self to approach "you" and call it "you". (2) When the existence is presented to me as "you", he is no longer a thing in the world of time and space, and it is limited to one thing. At this point, the current "unique power" has completely dominated me. "You" is the world, and there is nothing outside the world. You don't have to rely on or wait for anything else. You are God. I can't compare you with other creatures. I can't calmly analyze you and understand you, because all this means that I put you under accidental manipulation. For the "I-you" relationship, the causal inevitability of all daily meanings is contingency, because it lacks transcendental roots beyond fate.
The following examples can convey some meanings of Buber's theory. When Andersen presented a crimson rose to the ugly little girl who was washing dishes in the hotel (Bao Si Tosky: Golden Rose Evening Post), he didn't do it out of condescending pity. All pity is waiting, waiting for the beauty of others and the ugliness of the little girl, waiting for her humble position, waiting for her comparison with other objects, in a word, waiting for the chance of fate. However, at this moment, when I met you, the difference between them suddenly disappeared. Her ugliness and humbleness are just random tricks of fate, and I met you beyond time and fate. Because, although she is only a limited relative, her "you" is an absolute existence outside the universe dominated by ruthless causality. At this moment, "you" are the master of all the worlds, and "I" spend my whole life welcoming your tortured and discriminated soul. I tremble for every pain and joy of "you", and my whole existence is immersed in the brilliant brilliance of "you".
But in Buber's view, the encounter between "I" and "you" and the pure relationship between "I-you" transcend and stay in time, which is only an eternal moment in the long river of time. In infinite time, people are destined to be together. Therefore, he has to live in the world of "you" and return to the world of "it" from time to time, hovering between the uniqueness of "I-you" and the inclusiveness of "I-it". This duality is the real situation of people. This is the sorrow of life, and this is also the greatness of life. Because, although people have to stay in the world of "it" in order to survive, people's eager desire for "you" makes people constantly resist it and surpass it. It is this kind of resistance that creates people's spirit, morality and art, and it is this kind of resistance that makes people become people. "Man, stand in the solemnity of truth and listen to this revelation: man can't live without truth, but he who lives only by truth is no longer a man."
Buber's theory directly aims at the two dominant values in the history of western thought, and its purpose is to try to explain the true meaning of transcendence, the core concept of religious philosophy, and to clarify the fundamental spirit of Christian culture-love.
At the end of the second volume of Me and You, Buber compares the two transcendental views he opposes to two world pictures: one is to engulf the individual's life with the infinite universe, so that the individual can gain self-transcendence and achieve immortality by putting his own limitations into the infinite process of the universe; Second, the universe and other beings are swallowed up by the all-encompassing "I", and the universe living in infinite time flow is regarded as the self-realization content of "I", thus casting the eternity of "I".
For the convenience of discussion, let's call the former "self-loss" and the latter "self-sanctification". Both of them stem from people's pursuit of transcendence, or the transcendence of "saving life" stems from people's fear of absolute contingency and absurdity of existence (their own existence and the existence of the universe) and their reflection on the meaning of existence. This kind of reflection is naturally associated with a higher purpose, because reflection itself means people's resistance to physical existence, which urges people to get rid of humble desires, break through the shackles of fame and fortune, and reach the realm of my country. The difference is the direction of transcendence, in other words, resistance only shows the essence of transcendence from the negative side, but what kind of value content transcendence itself has and where people get a place to live are still unresolved issues. Thus there is a distinction between the theory of "self-loss" and the theory of "self-sanctity".
The theory of self-loss has a long history, which can be described as a transcendental view born on the same day as human reflection. It can be seen everywhere in Plato's idealism, Stoicism, Prudin's cosmology, scholasticism, medieval mysticism and Hegel's cosmology. In order to satisfy people's desire for meaning and immortality, this theory sanctifies and deifies the universe itself, endows it with mysterious motives, and claims that perfect and beautiful purposes are hidden in this vast and magnificent cosmic order. When people realize that the finiteness of an individual is only a moment in the infinite process of the universe, when people "lose themselves" in this process, all kinds of pains brought by the impermanence of life will be ashamed in front of this solemn infinity, and this loss will lead people to step into the spiritual realm of everything and wait for life and death. However, any theory of self-loss can hardly avoid some fundamental problems. Transcendence requirements stem from people's resistance to meaninglessness, but the theory of self-loss only draws the conclusion that the seemingly meaningless cosmic order has some sacred purpose, but says nothing about the purpose or meaning itself. On the other hand, its influence on moral philosophy is simply devastating. If the inevitable process of the universe is the unfolding process of the moral realm, then we are affirming that everything is good and reasonable. To make matters worse, this theory also implies a view that all individuals are tools in the process of the universe realizing its own content, so "love" becomes meaningless nonsense.
The theory of self-holiness puts the transcendental direction on the individual's self-completion, but it can't get rid of the dilemma of self-loss. Because, no matter how lofty a person's spiritual needs are, how far away from material desires and private affairs, it is my needs after all. Therefore, to assert that morality is the realization of a certain need is to assert that morality is utilitarian. Humanistic psychology, which was popular in Europe and America in recent years, especially exposed the fatal flaw of this theory. For example, in order to reconcile the humanism centered on personal self-realization with the Christian spirit of self-sacrifice, Fromm simply reduced the realm of altruism to the necessary link of self-realization (Fromm: Chapter 1 of Self-made Man). However, if the ultimate goal of self-sacrifice is self-satisfaction, this kind of sacrifice will lose its originality and its moral absoluteness.
In the third volume of Me and You, Buber regards mysticism, which advocates religious transcendence, as the representative of self-loss, and Mahayana Buddhism, which asserts that everything in the universe exists in the "I" body, as the representative of self-holiness. In his view, the former mistakenly regards the infinite stretch and infinite causality of the universe in time as the immortality of axiology. So it can be said that it begins with resisting the meaningless universe and ends with bowing to the latter. The theory of self-sanctification also fails to see through the truth. "I" itself cannot have a valuable transcendental source, otherwise I don't need to reflect on meaning and pursue meaning. Resistance is only the starting point of transcendence, and the completion of transcendence can only exist in a higher realm than oneself. In fact, the theory of self-sanctification is an attempt to enrich my body with the infinity of time, so it is exactly the same as the theory of self-mourning.
If the value or transcendence point is neither in the universe outside man nor in the subject, where may it live? This question can lead us into the most subtle and profound part of Buber's thought. His answer is: the value lies in the relationship, in the relationship between "I" and other beings in the universe. Relationship is a spiritual home. All kinds of theories covered in the binary opposition between subject and object are stuck in the surface world. In the world of "the other", only relationship can lead people to the lofty divine world, but the related party has divine and transcendental roots. When the Bible tells people to "love God and others", people not only inherit the key to the sacred world, but also appreciate the real content of value. Love is not the attribute of the object, nor is it the overflow of the emotion of "I". It is presented in the relationship and makes itself clear in the relationship. It is here that "I" and "you" sublimate themselves and surpass themselves at the same time. People transcend in the resistance to the world of "it", and people realize transcendence in the relationship!