Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Existentialism & Culture

Sartre, Kafka & Buber On Identity

Stephen Small on defining other people and ourselves.

We live our lives in the shadow of other people. Others fill and to a significant degree constitute our world. After many centuries of history we remain social animals, but our identity and its origins remain an issue for us. Although we easily imagine ourselves alone on a desert island, we cannot imagine having an identity without having had contact with other human beings. We intuitively recognize that other people are a mirror in which we come to see ourselves.

…