I’m sorry: I don’t understand exactly your challenges to Buber. In I & Thou, Buber, in his quite idiosyncratic language, seems to allow for your point 1 -- I-Thou relations are specific, even if, as per his own illustration, specific to that cat, or, for that matter, to that tree. As regard your second point, he is also quite aware that one cannot “navigate” the “real world” in the quasi-transcendent state that I-Thou seems to imply, and that of necessity, human relationships require transactional grounding. The point, as I took it, in part, is to be aware that transactional relations, even if the most intimate, erect barriers to a fully conscious, as aware as possible, potential transcendent engagement. The non-human examples were posited, I think, to point us, ultimately, to the human interactions, and the awareness of the divine that those interactions could allow us. All that said, it is difficult for me to see how Buber’s thought could be actualized in our lives on any on-going basis. He offers, as far as I can see, no method, no technique. It’s kind of like socialism: it might be a nice thought, but application in reality is another matter altogether.
I’m sorry: I don’t understand exactly your challenges to Buber. In I & Thou, Buber, in his quite idiosyncratic language, seems to allow for your point 1 -- I-Thou relations are specific, even if, as per his own illustration, specific to that cat, or, for that matter, to that tree. As regard your second point, he is also quite aware that one cannot “navigate” the “real world” in the quasi-transcendent state that I-Thou seems to imply, and that of necessity, human relationships require transactional grounding. The point, as I took it, in part, is to be aware that transactional relations, even if the most intimate, erect barriers to a fully conscious, as aware as possible, potential transcendent engagement. The non-human examples were posited, I think, to point us, ultimately, to the human interactions, and the awareness of the divine that those interactions could allow us. All that said, it is difficult for me to see how Buber’s thought could be actualized in our lives on any on-going basis. He offers, as far as I can see, no method, no technique. It’s kind of like socialism: it might be a nice thought, but application in reality is another matter altogether.