Abstract
In Works of Love, Søren Kierkegaard introduces the idea that God’s love is “the middle term.” It is a love that manages to be in the middle of all created being. To that extent, love is not just one relation among others, but the “being-in-relation” as such. It is, in Heideggerian terms, “the with” of being-with. This implies, further, that the middle is as inconspicuous as it is ubiquitous. According to Martin Buber, however, there is a privileged relation to the middle in the I–Thou relation. It is here that it reveals itself. For Buber, this is so on the strength of two important traits of this dyadic relation: that it is dialogical and personal. It is in dialogue that I and You are responsive to the word of God; and it is in personal co-presence that the theophany of “the absolute person” may occur. This paper explores these tenets of “philosophy of dialogue” at their fringes. Accordingly, it explores the impersonal in the person and the monologue in dialogue. More specifically, it aims to show how: (a) the impersonal in the person is disclosed in love and angst and how (b) the monologue in dialogue is expressed in a poetics of the impersonal.
Highlights
The aim of the present paper is to make a contribution to the philosophy of dialogue as inaugurated by Martin Buber
In Buber’s theology, we find a version of the Kierkegaardian idea that God is “the middle term.”[1]. It is on the strength of this middle term that I and Thou are in a personal and dialogical relation
The main point of the present paper, will be to show that it is on the strength of the same middle term that the personal and dialogical configuration of I and Thou is exposed to impersonal forces that disjoins dialogue and uncovers in it a monological dimension of language
Summary
This contribution will take the form of a deconstruction of two basic traits of the primordial dyad of I and Thou: that it is personal and that it is dialogical. The main point of the present paper, will be to show that it is on the strength of the same middle term that the personal and dialogical configuration of I and Thou is exposed to impersonal forces that disjoins dialogue and uncovers in it a monological dimension of language. This constellation, which informs Buber’s thinking, is the point of departure for the ensuing deconstruction. Only some brief concluding remarks are added (5)
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