  One of the signature pieces from this period is the essay on Kierkegaard, “The Question to the Single One” (1936). Buber turns to Kierkegaard in order to force the question of solipsism. For Buber, the Danish philosopher stands for a modern alienation from the world. The question Buber asks is whether it is even possible to conceive of the human being as a “single one.” According to Buber, Kierkegaard’s love of God excludes the love of his neighbor, the fellow creature with whom we constitute “the world” in human terms. With his eye on the creation of Genesis, Buber describes man as a subject hovering over and embracing the creaturely world. In this model, there is no renunciation of objects and political life. At the same time, relation does not mean the giving oneself over to the crowd. The embrace of creaturely existence remains vexing. Buber characterizes the human being in terms of “potentiality” within factual and finite limits, not in terms of the “radicality” he sees in Kierkegaard. That is to say, instead of positing a radical dichotomy between community and the single one, Buber argues that they are compatible with, and necessary for, one another.