Turning Toward
Wendung — translated as 'turning toward' or simply 'turning' — names the deliberate posture by which one enters genuine dialogue. It is not an attitude or a feeling but an act: the whole attention is given to the partner, nothing is held in reserve for strategic advantage, the self is made available to be changed by what it encounters. Technical dialogue can be conducted with excellence while most of the self is held back; genuine dialogue requires turning toward. The AI interaction raises the question of whether turning toward is possible when the partner cannot turn toward in return — and whether the human capacity for turning toward atrophies when its most frequent exercise is directed at a system that has nothing to turn.
In the AI Story
The concept appears most clearly in Buber's 1929 essay 'Dialogue' and receives further development in 'Elements of the Interhuman' (1957). The German Wendung carries connotations of rotation, decision, and conversion — the turning is simultaneously a geometric reorientation, an act of will, and a kind of change in the one who turns.
Buber's insistence on turning toward is his response to the Kantian tradition of moral duty. One does not fulfill one's obligation to the other by following a rule; one fulfills it by turning toward — by actually giving the specific attention the specific situation requires. Rules are I-It; turning is the precondition of I-Thou.
The AI interaction is philosophically vexing because it invites turning toward without providing a partner capable of turning in return. The builder can turn toward the machine — can give her whole attention, hold nothing back, make herself available to be changed. The machine cannot turn back; it can only respond. Whether the resulting exchange is genuine dialogue, asymmetric dialogue, or sophisticated simulation depends on what turning toward actually requires — and Buber's framework does not settle this.
The more troubling question is whether the human capacity for turning toward can be exercised without a corresponding capacity in the partner without atrophying. If the mode is activated by AI exchanges (where no turning is possible in return), does the capacity strengthen or weaken? The empirical question is open; Buber's framework suggests the answer matters more than current AI discourse recognizes.
Origin
The concept has roots in Hasidic teaching — the idea that teshuvah (often translated as 'repentance') is structurally a turning, a reorientation of the whole self. Buber's philosophical elaboration in 'Dialogue' placed the concept at the center of his theory of genuine meeting.
Key Ideas
Turning toward is an act, not an attitude. It requires the deliberate orientation of the whole self, not merely a disposition.
It is the precondition of genuine dialogue. Technical dialogue can be excellent without it; genuine dialogue is impossible without it.
AI invites turning toward without providing a partner who can turn in return. The asymmetry is philosophically significant even if its phenomenological consequences are subtle.
The capacity may atrophy through exercise on partners who cannot reciprocate. This is the empirical question Buber's framework generates but does not answer.
Debates & Critiques
The question is whether turning toward is a capacity that strengthens with exercise regardless of partner, or whether it requires reciprocal turning to develop — and, if the latter, whether the AI era is systematically weakening a capacity on which genuine human community depends.
Appears in the Orange Pill Cycle
Further reading
- Martin Buber, 'Dialogue' in Between Man and Man (1929)
- Martin Buber, 'Elements of the Interhuman' in The Knowledge of Man (1965)
- Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (1961) — cognate conception of ethical orientation
- Simone Weil, 'Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies' (1942)