Distance and Relation in Martin Buber

04 Aug, 2026

An excerpt from Saying You: An Introduction to Martin Buber by Simon James Brady.

The twofold movement

Note on language: Buber wrote Mensch — the human being, the species — and his English translators rendered it "man". The convention was unremarkable then and is not now. However, I have left the quotations as they stand, and my own prose follows them. The alternative was a text that switched register every few sentences, with Buber saying one thing and the exposition around him saying another; on balance the inconsistency seemed worse than the archaism.

In his late essay "Distance and Relation", Buber sets out to describe the natural predicament of mankind. It is his most explicit exposition of his ontology and does not suffer from the poetic ambiguities of a work like I and Thou. He discusses the basic distinction between humankind and other creatures. He does not place the difference in tool-making ability, in man's ability to use objects, because as he points out many other creatures can do this as well — a monkey using a stick as a lever, for instance. The difference resides in the moments after the tool has been used. For the monkey the stick remains just that, a stick. For man, however, the branch develops a separate existence after the event:

Only man, as man, gives distance to things which he comes upon in his realm; he sets them in their independence as things which from now on continue to exist ready for a function and which he can make wait for him so that on occasion he may master them again, and bring them into action.¹

Buber points out that what separates us from other species are not just physical traits but a special human way of being. This is the "twofold movement" in human life. Buber calls the first movement "the primal setting at a distance" and the second "entering into relation".² This is what lies behind the distinction between the man and the monkey using a tool. An animal, for its part,

in the realm of its perception is like a fruit in its skin.³

The animal takes what it needs and selects only that.

An animal's 'image of the world', or rather, its image of a realm, is nothing more than the dynamic of the presences bound up with one another by bodily memory to the extent required by the functions of life which are to be carried out … This image depends on, it clings to, the animal's activities.⁴

Man is the creature "through whose being 'what is' becomes detached from him and recognised for itself".⁵ Unlike the animal, for whom a "world" does not strictly exist, man has the ability to detach himself from the realm of the senses, to rise above pure need, and to set the world over against himself as an independent opposite. This is "the primal setting at a distance", but it is only half of the movement. For if this were the only movement, then man would know

the world as an aggregate of qualities that can be added to at will, not genuine wholeness and unity.⁶

Man becomes man in the same moment that the world becomes world — that is, when it is perceived truly as whole and one, rather than as a collection of qualities or a sum of parts. The act of relation sets the world as a genuine presence opposite to man, not just an object to be used. As Buber says:

Distance provides the human situation; relation provides man's becoming in that situation.⁷

The link between distance and relation, and the more familiar Buber terminology of I-Thou and I-It, should now be apparent. "Entering into relation" means the I-Thou relationship. But we should not be too hasty to match I-It to "the primal setting at a distance". They are not the same thing. Maurice Friedman points out that

when man fails to enter into relation … the distance thickens and solidifies; instead of making room for relation it obstructs it. This failure to enter into relation corresponds to I-It, and distance thus becomes the presupposition for both I-Thou and I-It. Entering into relation is an act of the whole being: it is the act by which we constitute ourselves as human and it is an act which must be repeated over and over in ever new situations. Distance, in contrast, is not an act, and neither is failure to enter into relation: both are states of being.⁸

Distance, then, is the precursor of both I-Thou and I-It. I-It is the thickening and solidifying of the distance. Only I-Thou is active.

I-Thou and I-It are what Buber calls "basic word pairs". They establish "a mode of existence".⁹ That is, the I — as the hyphen would suggest — exists only insofar as it is spoken in the word pair. There is no other I apart from these two. "Being I and saying I are the same." The difference is that in speaking I-It one involves only part of one's being; I-Thou involves the whole of one's being. In other words, the human "I" exists only insofar as it is related or fails to be related to something, while the type of word pair decides the type of "I".

Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation.¹⁰

Standing in relation is the essential act of the human being. According to Buber, it is the activity that decides our humanity. We cannot do without I-It, which is the world of tools and utility, but as Buber points out:

… without It a human being cannot live. But whoever lives only with that is not human.¹¹

The act of relation, I-Thou, the encounter, the meeting: these are all descriptions of the same process, the human becoming human. Can we shed a little light on this relation, the relation? Certainly.

a) The relation to a You is entirely unmediated. There is no purpose, no means to any end. Indeed, "only where all means have disintegrated encounter occurs."¹²

b) The You cannot be sought; there is an element of grace in the act, in that I am chosen as well as choosing. It is both active and passive — in the tradition of the Taoist wu-wei, which was a great inspiration to Buber as a young man. The fact that the act is done with one's whole being means that it seems passive. Buber explains that

an action of the whole being must approach passivity, for it does away with all partial actions and thus with any sense of action, which always depends on limited exertion.¹³

c) Thus I cannot become whole in relation by my own choice alone. This is where the element of grace lies. "Relation is reciprocity."¹⁴ I am really met by a You and it has an effect on me:

My You acts on me as I act on it. Our students teach us. The wicked become a revelation when they are touched by the sacred basic word. How we are educated by children, by animals! Inscrutably involved, we live in the currents of universal reciprocity.¹⁵

d) The only real present tense is in the presence of a You. I-It is past tense.

e) The connection between love and I-Thou is this: "Love is the responsibility of an I for a You."¹⁶ There are feelings that accompany love, but they do not constitute its essential nature. They are an accompaniment after the fact. Love for Buber is more than passion or melancholy; it is the ability to face an Other "in the whole compression of existence"¹⁷ and respond directly and spontaneously to their call to dialogue.

f) Every You in this world eventually becomes an It again. That is, the act of relation sparkles and fades back into the world of It many times in as many moments. This is the fate of humanity.

g) Buber names the space where the relation happens the "between". It is the dynamic space between partners in dialogue, not at either end of the relationship, but in the middle. It is what Buber calls the narrow ridge.

The world of It

I-It, which Buber also calls "monologue", we have already seen is a thickening and solidification of the natural distance from "what is" that humanity has as a species. However, we should not denigrate the world of It; we could not survive without it. But, as already pointed out, to survive with only I-It would mean becoming less than human. I-It is what Buber equates with "experiencing" something — that is, a superficial enjoyment of a collection of qualities. It is the world of objecthood, of use and utility.

The basic relation of man to the world of I-It includes experience, which constitutes this world ever again, and use, which leads it towards its multifarious purpose — the preservation, alleviation and equipment of human life.¹⁸

The It-world is a world of cause and effect. It is the world that coheres in time and space. It strictly speaking has no present tense, no presence.

Insofar as a human being makes do with the things that he experiences and uses, he lives in the past, and his moment has no presence. He has nothing but objects, but objects consist in having been.¹⁹

"The It is the chrysalis, the You is the butterfly."²⁰ Every You must become an It, but the reverse is also true. Every It can become a You. The objects we use and the people we see every day can enter into the mystery of relation, given the will to relate on our part. Any It can blaze up in the splendour of You, because as Buber says:

The limits of the possibility of dialogue are the limits of awareness.²¹

Saying You is now available in paperback.

Bibliography

Buber, Martin, Between Man and Man, (1974), Fontana, London.

Buber, Martin, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (1970), T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.

Buber, Martin, The Knowledge of Man, (1965), George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London. (Introduction by Maurice Friedman.)