On Dialogue (Routledge Classics) (Volume 76)

by David Bohm

There is no way by which thought can hold the whole, because thought only abstracts; it limits and defines.” This idea of abstracting versus appreciating wholes was conveyed beautifully by Hebrew existentialist philosopher Martin Buber, in speaking of what it means to take in the whole of a person, to see a person as “a Thou:”3 If I face a human being as my Thou, … he is not a thing among things, and does not consist of things … Thus human being is not a He or She, bounded from every other He or She, … but with no neighbor, and whole in himself, he is Thou and fills the heavens. Just as the melody is not made up of notes nor the verse of words nor the statue of lines, but these must be tugged and dragged till their unity has been scattered into these many pieces, so with the man (mensch) to whom I say Thou. I can take out from him the color of his hair, or of his speech, or of his goodness. I must continually do this. But each time he ceases to be Thou.