Sarah ScottCorresponding author

An Unending Sphere of Relation
Martin Buber’s Conception of Personhood

Article
19/1 - Spring 2014, pages 5-25
Date of online publication: 01 août 2015
Date of publication: 30 juin 2014

Abstract

I reconstruct Buber’s conception of personhood and identify in his work four criteria for personhood—(i) uniqueness, (ii) wholeness, (iii) goodness, and (iv) a drive to relation—and an account of three basic degrees of personhood, stretching, as a kind of “chain of being,” from plants and animals, through hu- mans, to God as the absolute person. I show that Buber’s “new” conception of personhood is rooted in older Neoplatonic notions, such the goodness of all be- ing and the principle of plenitude. While other philosophers have used reason and memory to distinguish persons, I find that Buber instead takes these to be specific to humanity, and I explore Buber’s account of a “fall” from a state of nature into a historical mode, such that our humanity threatens our personhood.

Cite this article

Scott, Sarah. "An Unending Sphere of Relation: Martin Buber’s Conception of Personhood." Forum Philosophicum 19, no. 1 (2014): 5–25. doi:10.35765/forphil.2014.1901.01.