Martin Buber (Hebrew: מרטין בובר‬;
German: Martin Buber; Yiddish: מארטין
בובער‎; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian-born Israeli
Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy
of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered
on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship
and the I–It relationship. Born in Vienna,
Buber came from a family of observant Jews,
but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular
studies in philosophy. In 1902, he became
the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central
organ of the Zionist movement, although he
later withdrew from organizational work in
Zionism. In 1923, Buber wrote his famous essay
on existence, Ich und Du (later translated
into English as I and Thou), and in 1925,
he began translating the Hebrew Bible into
the German language.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature
ten times, and Nobel Peace Prize seven times.
== Biography ==
Martin (Hebrew name: מָרְדֳּכַי,
Mordechai) Buber was born in Vienna to an
Orthodox Jewish family. Buber was a direct
descendant of the 16th-century rabbi Meir
Katzenellenbogen, known as the Maharam of
Padua. Karl Marx is another notable relative.After
the divorce of his parents when he was three
years old, he was raised by his grandfather
in Lvov. His grandfather, Solomon Buber, was
a scholar of Midrash and Rabbinic Literature.
At home, Buber spoke Yiddish and German. In
1892, Buber returned to his father's house
in Lemberg, today's Lviv, Ukraine.
Despite Buber's connection to the Davidic
line as a descendant of Katzenellenbogen,
a personal religious crisis led him to break
with Jewish religious customs. He began reading
Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich
Nietzsche. The latter two, in particular,
inspired him to pursue studies in philosophy.
In 1896, Buber went to study in Vienna (philosophy,
art history, German studies, philology).
In 1898, he joined the Zionist movement, participating
in congresses and organizational work. In
1899, while studying in Zürich, Buber met
his future wife, Paula Winkler, a "brilliant
Catholic writer from a Bavarian peasant family"
who later converted to Judaism.Buber, initially,
supported and celebrated the Great War as
a 'world historical mission' for Germany along
with Jewish intellectuals to civilize the
Near East.In 1930, Buber became an honorary
professor at the University of Frankfurt am
Main, but resigned from his professorship
in protest immediately after Adolf Hitler
came to power in 1933. He then founded the
Central Office for Jewish Adult Education,
which became an increasingly important body
as the German government forbade Jews from
public education. In 1938, Buber left Germany
and settled in Jerusalem, Mandate Palestine,
receiving a professorship at Hebrew University
and lecturing in anthropology and introductory
sociology.
Buber's wife Paula died in 1958, and he died
at his home in the Talbiya neighborhood of
Jerusalem on June 13, 1965. They had two children:
a son, Rafael Buber, and a daughter, Eva Strauss-Steinitz.
== Major themes ==
Buber's evocative, sometimes poetic, writing
style marked the major themes in his work:
the retelling of Hasidic and Chinese tales,
Biblical commentary, and metaphysical dialogue.
A cultural Zionist, Buber was active in the
Jewish and educational communities of Germany
and Israel. He was also a staunch supporter
of a binational solution in Palestine, and,
after the establishment of the Jewish state
of Israel, of a regional federation of Israel
and Arab states. His influence extends across
the humanities, particularly in the fields
of social psychology, social philosophy, and
religious existentialism.Buber's attitude
toward Zionism was tied to his desire to promote
a vision of "Hebrew humanism". According to
Laurence J. Silberstein, the terminology of
"Hebrew humanism" was coined to "distinguish
[Buber's] form of nationalism from that of
the official Zionist movement" and to point
to how "Israel's problem was but a distinct
form of the universal human problem. Accordingly,
the task of Israel as a distinct nation was
inexorably linked to the task of humanity
in general".
== Zionist views ==
Approaching Zionism from his own personal
viewpoint, Buber disagreed with Theodor Herzl
about the political and cultural direction
of Zionism. Herzl envisioned the goal of Zionism
in a nation-state, but did not consider Jewish
culture or religion necessary. In contrast,
Buber believed the potential of Zionism was
for social and spiritual enrichment. For example,
Buber argued that following the formation
of the Israeli state, there would need to
be reforms to Judaism: "We need someone who
would do for Judaism what Pope John XXIII
has done for the Catholic Church". Herzl and
Buber would continue, in mutual respect and
disagreement, to work towards their respective
goals for the rest of their lives.
In 1902, Buber became the editor of the weekly
Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist
movement. However, a year later he became
involved with the Jewish Hasidim movement.
Buber admired how the Hasidic communities
actualized their religion in daily life and
culture. In stark contrast to the busy Zionist
organizations, which were always mulling political
concerns, the Hasidim were focused on the
values which Buber had long advocated for
Zionism to adopt. In 1904, he withdrew from
much of his Zionist organizational work, and
devoted himself to study and writing. In that
year, he published his thesis, Beiträge zur
Geschichte des Individuationsproblems, on
Jakob Böhme and Nikolaus Cusanus.In the early
1920s, Martin Buber started advocating a binational
Jewish-Arab state, stating that the Jewish
people should proclaim "its desire to live
in peace and brotherhood with the Arab people,
and to develop the common homeland into a
republic in which both peoples will have the
possibility of free development".Buber rejected
the idea of Zionism as just another national
movement, and wanted instead to see the creation
of an exemplary society; a society which would
not, he said, be characterized by Jewish domination
of the Arabs. It was necessary for the Zionist
movement to reach a consensus with the Arabs
even at the cost of the Jews remaining a minority
in the country. In 1925, he was involved in
the creation of the organization Brit Shalom
(Covenant of Peace), which advocated the creation
of a binational state, and throughout the
rest of his life, he hoped and believed that
Jews and Arabs one day would live in peace
in a joint nation. In 1942, he co‑founded
the Ihud party, which advocated a bi-nationalist
program. Nevertheless, he was connected with
decades of friendship to Zionists and philosophers
such as Chaim Weizmann, Max Brod, Hugo Bergman,
and Felix Weltsch, who were close friends
of his from old European times in Prague,
Berlin, and Vienna to the Jerusalem of the
1940s through the 1960s.
After the establishment of Israel in 1948,
Buber advocated Israel's participation in
a federation of "Near East" states wider than
just Palestine.
== Literary and academic career ==
From 1906 until 1914, Buber published editions
of Hasidic, mystical, and mythic texts from
Jewish and world sources. In 1916, he moved
from Berlin to Heppenheim.
During World War I, he helped establish the
Jewish National Committee to improve the condition
of Eastern European Jews. During that period
he became the editor of Der Jude (German for
"The Jew"), a Jewish monthly (until 1924).
In 1921, Buber began his close relationship
with Franz Rosenzweig. In 1922, he and Rosenzweig
co-operated in Rosenzweig's House of Jewish
Learning, known in Germany as Lehrhaus.In
1923, Buber wrote his famous essay on existence,
Ich und Du (later translated into English
as I and Thou). Though he edited the work
later in his life, he refused to make substantial
changes. In 1925, he began, in conjunction
with Franz Rosenzweig, translating the Hebrew
Bible into German. He himself called this
translation Verdeutschung ("Germanification"),
since it does not always use literary German
language, but instead attempts to find new
dynamic (often newly invented) equivalent
phrasing to respect the multivalent Hebrew
original. Between 1926 and 1930, Buber co-edited
the quarterly Die Kreatur ("The Creature").In
1930, Buber became an honorary professor at
the University of Frankfurt am Main. He resigned
in protest from his professorship immediately
after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.
On October 4, 1933, the Nazi authorities forbade
him to lecture. In 1935, he was expelled from
the Reichsschrifttumskammer (the National
Socialist authors' association). He then founded
the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education,
which became an increasingly important body,
as the German government forbade Jews to attend
public education. The Nazi administration
increasingly obstructed this body.
Finally, in 1938, Buber left Germany, and
settled in Jerusalem, then capital of Mandate
Palestine. He received a professorship at
Hebrew University, there lecturing in anthropology
and introductory sociology. The lectures he
gave during the first semester were published
in the book The problem of man (Das Problem
des Menschen); in these lectures he discusses
how the question "What is Man?" became the
central one in philosophical anthropology.
He participated in the discussion of the Jews'
problems in Palestine and of the Arab question
– working out of his Biblical, philosophic,
and Hasidic work.
He became a member of the group Ihud, which
aimed at a bi-national state for Arabs and
Jews in Palestine. Such a binational confederation
was viewed by Buber as a more proper fulfillment
of Zionism than a solely Jewish state. In
1946, he published his work Paths in Utopia,
in which he detailed his communitarian socialist
views and his theory of the "dialogical community"
founded upon interpersonal "dialogical relationships".
After World War II, Buber began lecture tours
in Europe and the United States. In 1952,
he argued with Jung over the existence of
God.
== Philosophy ==
Buber is famous for his thesis of dialogical
existence, as he described in the book I and
Thou. However, his work dealt with a range
of issues including religious consciousness,
modernity, the concept of evil, ethics, education,
and Biblical hermeneutics.Buber rejected the
label of "philosopher" or "theologian", claiming
he was not interested in ideas, only personal
experience, and could not discuss God, but
only relationships to God.Politically, Buber's
social philosophy on points of prefiguration
aligns with that of anarchism, though Buber
explicitly disavowed the affiliation in his
lifetime and justified the existence of a
state under limited conditions.
=== Dialogue and existence ===
In I and Thou, Buber introduced his thesis
on human existence. Inspired by Feuerbach's
The Essence of Christianity and Kierkegaard's
Single One, Buber worked upon the premise
of existence as encounter. He explained this
philosophy using the word pairs of Ich-Du
and Ich-Es to categorize the modes of consciousness,
interaction, and being through which an individual
engages with other individuals, inanimate
objects, and all reality in general. Theologically,
he associated the first with the Jewish Jesus
and the second with the apostle Paul (formerly
Saul of Tarsus, a Jew). Philosophically, these
word pairs express complex ideas about modes
of being—particularly how a person exists
and actualizes that existence. As Buber argues
in I and Thou, a person is at all times engaged
with the world in one of these modes.
The generic motif Buber employs to describe
the dual modes of being is one of dialogue
(Ich-Du) and monologue (Ich-Es). The concept
of communication, particularly language-oriented
communication, is used both in describing
dialogue/monologue through metaphors and expressing
the interpersonal nature of human existence.
==== Ich-Du ====
Ich‑Du ("I‑Thou" or "I‑You") is a relationship
that stresses the mutual, holistic existence
of two beings. It is a concrete encounter,
because these beings meet one another in their
authentic existence, without any qualification
or objectification of one another. Even imagination
and ideas do not play a role in this relation.
In an I–Thou encounter, infinity and universality
are made actual (rather than being merely
concepts). Buber stressed that an Ich‑Du
relationship lacks any composition (e. g.,
structure) and communicates no content (e.
g., information). Despite the fact that Ich‑Du
cannot be proven to happen as an event (e.
g., it cannot be measured), Buber stressed
that it is real and perceivable. A variety
of examples are used to illustrate Ich‑Du
relationships in daily life—two lovers,
an observer and a cat, the author and a tree,
and two strangers on a train. Common English
words used to describe the Ich‑Du relationship
include encounter, meeting, dialogue, mutuality,
and exchange.
One key Ich‑Du relationship Buber identified
was that which can exist between a human being
and God. Buber argued that this is the only
way in which it is possible to interact with
God, and that an Ich‑Du relationship with
anything or anyone connects in some way with
the eternal relation to God.
To create this I–Thou relationship with
God, a person has to be open to the idea of
such a relationship, but not actively pursue
it. The pursuit of such a relation creates
qualities associated with It‑ness, and so
would prevent an I‑You relation, limiting
it to I‑It. Buber claims that if we are
open to the I–Thou, God eventually comes
to us in response to our welcome. Also, because
the God Buber describes is completely devoid
of qualities, this I–Thou relationship lasts
as long as the individual wills it. When the
individual finally returns to the I‑It way
of relating, this acts as a barrier to deeper
relationship and community.
==== Ich-Es ====
The Ich-Es ("I‑It") relationship is nearly
the opposite of Ich‑Du. Whereas in Ich‑Du
the two beings encounter one another, in an
Ich‑Es relationship the beings do not actually
meet. Instead, the "I" confronts and qualifies
an idea, or conceptualization, of the being
in its presence and treats that being as an
object. All such objects are considered merely
mental representations, created and sustained
by the individual mind. This is based partly
on Kant's theory of phenomenon, in that these
objects reside in the cognitive agent’s
mind, existing only as thoughts. Therefore,
the Ich‑Es relationship is in fact a relationship
with oneself; it is not a dialogue, but a
monologue.
In the Ich-Es relationship, an individual
treats other things, people, etc., as objects
to be used and experienced. Essentially, this
form of objectivity relates to the world in
terms of the self – how an object can serve
the individual’s interest.
Buber argued that human life consists of an
oscillation between Ich‑Du and Ich‑Es,
and that in fact Ich‑Du experiences are
rather few and far between. In diagnosing
the various perceived ills of modernity (e.
g., isolation, dehumanization, etc.), Buber
believed that the expansion of a purely analytic,
material view of existence was at heart an
advocation of Ich‑Es relations - even between
human beings. Buber argued that this paradigm
devalued not only existents, but the meaning
of all existence.
==== Note on translation ====
Ich und Du has been translated from the original
German into many other languages. However,
because Buber's use of German was highly idiomatic
and often unconventional, there has naturally
been debate on how best to convey the complex
messages in his text. One critical debate
in the English-speaking world has centered
on the correct translation of the key word
pairs Ich-Du and Ich-Es. In the German, the
word "Du" is used, while in the English two
different translations are used: "Thou" (used
in Ronald Smith's version) and "You" (used
by Walter Kaufmann). The key problem is how
to translate the very personal, even intimate
German "Du", which has no direct equivalent
in Modern English. Smith argued that "Thou"
invokes the theological and reverential implications
which Buber intended (e. g., Buber describes
God as the eternal "Du"). Kaufmann asserted
that this wording was archaic and impersonal,
offering "You" because (like the German Du)
it has colloquial usage in intimate conversation.
Despite this debate, Buber’s book is widely
known in the English-speaking world as I and
Thou, perhaps because Smith's translation
appeared years before Kaufmann's. However,
both translations are widely available.
== Hasidism and mysticism ==
Buber was a scholar, interpreter, and translator
of Hasidic lore. He viewed Hasidism as a source
of cultural renewal for Judaism, frequently
citing examples from the Hasidic tradition
that emphasized community, interpersonal life,
and meaning in common activities (e. g., a
worker's relation to his tools). The Hasidic
ideal, according to Buber, emphasized a life
lived in the unconditional presence of God,
where there was no distinct separation between
daily habits and religious experience. This
was a major influence on Buber's philosophy
of anthropology, which considered the basis
of human existence as dialogical.
In 1906, Buber published Die Geschichten des
Rabbi Nachman, a collection of the tales of
the Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a renowned Hasidic
rebbe, as interpreted and retold in a Neo-Hasidic
fashion by Buber. Two years later, Buber published
Die Legende des Baalschem (stories of the
Baal Shem Tov), the founder of Hasidism.Buber's
interpretation of the Hasidic tradition, however,
has been criticized by Chaim Potok for its
romanticization. In the introduction to Buber's
Tales of the Hasidim, Potok claims that Buber
overlooked Hasidism's "charlatanism, obscurantism,
internecine quarrels, its heavy freight of
folk superstition and pietistic excesses,
its tzadik worship, its vulgarized and attenuated
reading of Lurianic Kabbalah". Even more severe
is the criticism that Buber de-emphasized
the importance of the Jewish Law in Hasidism.
== Awards and recognition ==
In 1951, Buber received the Goethe award of
the University of Hamburg.
In 1953, he received the Peace Prize of the
German Book Trade.
In 1958, he was awarded the Israel Prize in
the humanities.
In 1961, he was awarded the Bialik Prize for
Jewish thought.
In 1963, he won the Erasmus Prize in Amsterdam.
== Published works ==
=== Original writings (German) ===
Chinesische Geister- und Liebesgeschichten
included the first German translation ever
made of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
Alex Page translated the Chinesische Geister-
und Liebesgeschichten as "Chinese Tales",
published in 1991 by Humanities Press.
=== Collected works ===
Werke 3 volumes (1962–1964)
I Schriften zur Philosophie (1962)
II Schriften zur Bibel (1964)
III Schriften zum Chassidismus (1963)Martin
Buber Werkausgabe (MBW). Berliner Akademie
der Wissenschaften / Israel Academy of Sciences
and Humanities, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr & Peter
Schäfer with Martina Urban; 21 volumes planned
(2001–)
=== Correspondence ===
Briefwechsel aus sieben Jahrzehnten 1897–1965
(1972–1975)
I : 1897–1918 (1972)
II : 1918–1938 (1973)
III : 1938–1965 (1975)Several of his original
writings, including his personal archives,
are preserved in the National Library of Israel,
formerly the Jewish National and University
Library, located on the campus of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem[1]
== See also ==
== References ==
== Sources ==
BiographiesZink, Wolfgang (1978), Martin Buber
– 1878/1978.
Coen, Clara Levi (1991), Martin Buber.
Friedman, Maurice (1981), Martin Buber’s
Life and Work: The Early Years, 1878-1923.
Friedman, Maurice (1983), Martin Buber’s
Life and Work: The Middle Years, 1923-1945.
Friedman, Maurice (1984), Martin Buber’s
Life and Work: The Later Years, 1945-1965.
== Further reading ==
Schilpp, Paul Arthur; Friedman, Maurice (1967),
The philosophy of Martin Buber.
Horwitz, Rivka (1978), Buber's way to "I and
thou" – an historical analysis and the first
publication of Martin Buber's lectures "Religion
als Gegenwart".
Cohn, Margot; Buber, Rafael (1980), Martin
Buber – a bibliography of his writings,
1897–1978.
Israel, Joachim (2010), Martin Buber – Dialogphilosophie
in Theorie und Praxis.
Margulies, Hune (2017), Will and Grace: Meditations
on the Dialogical Philosophy of Martin Buber..
Nelson, Eric S. (2017). Chinese and Buddhist
Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German
Thought London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781350002555.
== External links ==
Literature by and about Martin Buber in University
Library JCS Frankfurt am Main: Digital Collections
Judaica
Martin Buber at Curlie
Martin Buber Homepage
Martin Buber – The Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy article by Sarah Scott
Zank, Michael. "Martin Buber". In Zalta, Edward
N. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Martin Buber, the Anarchist
Spiritual Community dedicated to Buber's I–Thou
philosophy
Martin Buber's Utopian Israel
Martin Buber's Final Legacy: "The Knowledge
of Man"; by Maurice Friedman.
Buber's Philosophy as the Basis for Dialogical
Psychotherapy and Contextual Therapy; by Maurice
Friedman.
I, thou, and we: A dialogical approach to
couples therapy
Dialogical and Person-Centred Approach to
Psychotherapy
Communitarian Elements in Select Works of
Martin Buber
The Martin Buber Institute for Dialogical
Ecology
