note on rethinking Martin Buber’s ‘I consider a tree’

Abstract

In the original English version of I and Thou (1937) and in a postscript to the second English edition (1958), Martin Buber assured his readers that an I–Thou relationship is possible between a person and a tree. Considering the importance of dialogue in that form of relationship, commentators have often looked for ways to bypass the tree’s inability to speak in reconceptualising the I–Thou relationship. This article looks instead at the importance of the person’s ability to hear what trees may be telling us as a way of understanding Buber’s point. A story found in Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) is used as an illustration.