Dimensions of Poverty

• Key areas: Income, Health, Education, Empowerment, Working conditions

Intersubjectivity

• Concept: Shared awareness and understanding among individuals

• Made possible by self-awareness and awareness of others

Jurgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action

• Validity claims necessary for mutual understanding:

  • Comprehensibility: Ordinary language use

  • Truth: Accuracy of statements

  • Truthfulness: Genuine speaker intentions

  • Rightness: Acceptable tone and pitch

Subject vs. Object

• Intersubjectivity as a condition of mutual understanding

Martin Buber's Philosophy

• Developed through dialogue that emphasizes quality interactions

• Quote: "The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings."

Dialogue

• Defined as a genuine relationship acknowledging each other's presence and treating each other as equals

Buber's Sphere of the Interhuman

• Social: Life within a group bound by common experiences

• Interhuman: Life between individuals focusing on dialogue

Challenges to Dialogue

• Treating others as "Thou" rather than "It"

• Requires listening, humility, and love

Characteristics of Monologue

• Obstacles to genuine dialogue:

  • Seeming vs. Being

• Man’s quest for confirmation of existence

Genuine Dialogue

• Involves turning towards the partner

• Maintains faithfulness, respect, and truthfulness

Empathy

• Sharing emotions and understanding another's thoughts and feelings

Sympathy

• Perception and reaction to the distress or need of another

Availability

• Willingness to be present for others

Ethics of Care

• Moral obligation to respond to the needs of others

I-It (Relationship)

• Experience of beings as objects

• Not a dialogue, but a monologue

I-Thou (Relationship)

• Subject-to-subject connection

• Reciprocal and mutual engagement

Quotes from Martin Buber

• "Through the Thou a person becomes I."

Karol Wojtyla (St. Pope John Paul II)

• Emphasis on shared human experience

• Quote: "No one dies for oneself alone. No one lives for oneself alone."

Filipino Philosophical Perspectives

• Emphasizes personhood, humanness, openness, justice, and empathy among others

Thoughtful Reflection

• Quote: "Happiness can exist only in acceptance." - George Orwell

• Commentary on being heard but not truly listened to.