The presence of the absent-one: towards the problem of the Other in the social phenomenology of Jean-Paul Sartre and Semyon Frank

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of the Other in the philosophical projects of Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Buber and Semyon Frank. Through an analysis of the opposing perspectives on the meaning of the Other such as implied in the subject-object scheme of Sartre's philosophy and in the dialogical way of thinking in Buber's oeuvre, the author accomplishes a reconstruction and a critique of the attempt to reconcile both these concepts of the Other undertaken by Semyon Frank. It is demonstrated that in the ontology of the Me-You-relationship as delineated in Frank's book, The Unfathomable, the Russian philosopher seeks to harmonize both the dialogical and the objectifying aspects of the personal encounter, either of which had been explored and developed in its own right by Buber and Sartre respectively. An harmonization of this kind is only achievable because Frank includes both the aspect of the seeing subject and that of being under the glare of the Other, as preferred by Sartre, and the relationship between the addressor and the addressee, central for Buber, under the category of self-revealing. The understanding of the very phenomenon of being under the glare of the Other is derived by Frank not form the subject-object problem, as suggested by Sartre, but rather from the realm of dialogical thought. It must be emphasized, however, that in doing so the Russian philosopher substitutes the inner perspective of interpersonal communication between two human individuals with that of absolute Unity, so that that the inner connection existing between 'I' and 'You' becomes one of the manifestations of universal Unity.