I and Thou

Ich und Du, usually translated as I and Thou, is a book by Martin Buber, published in 1923, and first translated from German to English in 1937.

Premise

Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:

One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships. In Buber's view, all of our relationships bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.

Buber explains that humans are defined by two word pairs: I-It and I-Thou.

The "It" of I-It refers to the world of experience and sensation. I-It describes entities as discrete objects drawn from a defined set (e.g., he, she or any other objective entity defined by what makes it measurably different from other entities). It can be said that "I" have as many distinct and different relationships with each "It" as there are "It"s in one's life. Fundamentally, "It" refers to the world as we experience it.