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User:VargasMilan/I and Thou/Part 1 (view source)
Revision as of 13:52, July 22, 2019
, 13:52, July 22, 2019+ section 23
Consciousness of the "I" is not connected with the primitive sway of the instinct for self-preservation any more than with that of the other instincts. It is not the "I" that wishes to propagate itself, but the body, that knows as yet of no "I". It is not the "I" but the body that wishes to make things, a tool or a toy, that wishes to be a "creator". Further, a ''cognosco ergo sum'', in however naïve a form and however childlike a conception of an experiencing subject, cannot be found in the primitive function of knowledge. The "I" emerges as a single element out of the primal experience, out of the vital primal words ''I-affecting-Thou'' and ''Thou-affecting-I'', only after they have been split asunder and the participle has been given eminence as an object.
Consciousness of the "I" is not connected with the primitive sway of the instinct for self-preservation any more than with that of the other instincts. It is not the "I" that wishes to propagate itself, but the body, that knows as yet of no "I". It is not the "I" but the body that wishes to make things, a tool or a toy, that wishes to be a "creator". Further, a ''cognosco ergo sum'', in however naïve a form and however childlike a conception of an experiencing subject, cannot be found in the primitive function of knowledge. The "I" emerges as a single element out of the primal experience, out of the vital primal words ''I-affecting-Thou'' and ''Thou-affecting-I'', only after they have been split asunder and the participle has been given eminence as an object.
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T{{sc|he fundamental difference}} between the two primary words comes to light in the spiritual history of primitive man. Already in the original relational event he speaks the primary word ''I-Thou'' in a natural way that precedes what may be termed visualisation of forms—that is, before he has recognised himself as ''I''. The primary word ''I-It'', on the other hand is made possible at all only by means of this recognition—by means, that is, of the separation of the ''I''.
The first primary word can be resolved, certainly, into ''I'' and ''Thou'', but it did not arise from their being set together; by its nature it precedes ''I''. The second word arose from the setting together of ''I'' and ''It'': by nature it comes after ''I''.
In the primitive relational event, in virtue of its exclusiveness, the ''I'' is included. While, that is to say, there are in it, in accordance with its being, only the two partners, the man and that which confronts him, in their full actuality, and while the world becomes in it a dual system, the man, without yet perceiving the ''I'' itself, is already aware of that cosmic pathos of the ''I''.
On the other hand the ''I'' is not yet included in the natural, actual event which is to pass over into the primary word ''I-It'', into the experience with its relation to ''I''. This actual event is the separation of the human body, as the bearer of its perceptions, from the world round about it. The body comes to know and to differentiate itself in its peculiarities; the differentiation, however, remains one of pure juxtaposition, and hence cannot have the character of the state in which ''I'' is implied.
But when the ''I'' of the relation has stepped forth and taken on separate existence, it also moves, strangely tenuous and reduced to merely functional activity, into the natural, actual event of the separation of the body from the world round about it, and awakens there the state in which ''I'' is properly active. Only now can the conscious act of the ''I'' take "place. This act is the first form of the primary word ''I-It'', of the experience in its relation to ''I''. The ''I'' which stepped forth declares itself to be the bearer, and the world round about to be the object, of the perceptions. Of course, this happens in a "primitive" form and not in the form of a "theory of knowledge." But whenever the sentence "I see the tree" is so uttered that it no longer tells of a relation between the man—''I''—and the tree—''Thou''—, but establishes the perception of the tree as object by the human consciousness, the barrier between subject and object has been set up. The primary word ''I-It'', the word of separation, has been spoken.