Existential entities

The existential I – Heidegger’s Dasein – is the cheapest and most exciting philosophical discovery.

The existential You – Buber’s Thou – is more elusive. Catching sight of the concept of the existential You points the way to the development of the intellectual and ethical practice of existing in the I-Thou relationship. The rules in this strata of being are different from those of ordinary objective thought.

Developing the practice of the I-Thou relationship, one necessarily discovers the existential We, the ground of I-Thou. With that discovery one begins to move into the profound and boring world of Pragmatism.

(At this point, I’d call myself a Hermeneutical Pragmatist. When I’m done reading Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology I am looking forward to reading Richard Rorty.)

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