The Knowledge of Man by Martin Buber

In June we were delighted to welcome Dr Sam Rocha to introduce The Knowledge of Man by Martin Buber. Dr Rocha is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. In 2015 his book Folk Phenomenology: Education, Study, and the Human Person was published by Pickwick Publications and his essay, “A Tales of Three Cubicles,” won the Outstanding Contribution Award from Visual Arts Research. In 2016, he released Fear and Loving, a soundscape companion album to Folk Phenomenology. His 2020 book, The Syllabus as Curriculum: A Reconceptualist Approach, received the same year's Outstanding Book Award from AERA: Division B, Curriculum Studies. He opened the discussion posing the following questions:

A concern for the ideas at stake in the following questions indicate we can read Buber's The Knowledge of Man as an explicit philosophy of education. In other words, insofar as (1) appearance, mind, and life, (2) knowledge, and (3) philosophical anthropology are at stake, we do not need to translate the text indirectly into philosophy of education so much as to understand it as directly as possible.

1. What are the phenomenological, psychological (psychoanalysis included), and pastoral dimensions of this text?

2. What kind of knowledge is Buber proposing and seeking?

3. What kind of anthropology does Buber present, i.e., what does he mean by 'man' or what is his notion of the human person?