I AND THOU

I and thou: translation

A notion heralded in Feuerbach, but especially deployed by the religious thinker Buber, emphasizing the interpersonal dialogue between God and man. The conception of this dialogue opposes it both to the religious goal of a mystical union with God, and to the idea of any impersonal or objective knowledge of God. To many religious thinkers, such as Spinoza and Kant, the idea of such a dialogue would have seemed to be the perversion of religion called theurgy. See religion, philosophy of.