The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Martin Buber

1878–1965

Austrian-born Jewish philosopher of dialogue, best known for I and Thou, who retold Hasidic tales, translated the Bible and argued for a shared Jewish-Arab state in Palestine.

Photograph of an old man with a long white beard and thick eyebrows
Photograph, between 1940 and 1950. Central Zionist Archives.Public domain · See the original

Martin Buber was born in Vienna in 1878 and brought up largely by his grandparents in Lemberg (now Lviv), before studying art history, literature, philosophy and psychology in Vienna, Leipzig, Zurich and Berlin. Before his name became bound up with dialogue he was a critic, editor, translator and folklorist, and a writer inspired by Nietzsche; he first won fame with retellings of Hasidic stories made with his wife, Paula Winkler.

He resisted being labelled either philosopher or theologian. Besides I and Thou, an instant classic, he translated the Hebrew Bible into German, at first with Franz Rosenzweig, gathered mystical testimonies from around the world, and pioneered Jewish-Christian dialogue. From 1938 until his death in 1965 he lived and taught in Jerusalem, holding the Hebrew University’s chair in social philosophy.

Key ideas

I-Thou and I-It
In every situation we face a choice: to treat whatever we meet as an ‘it’, which diminishes us as well, or to meet it openly as a ‘Thou’, which raises us too. These two basic words shape all our relations.
Spheres of relation
Dialogue is possible not only with other people but with animals, a tree, and the divine Thou. With nature the relation is not yet fully dialogic, since it is not mutual; between people it is mutual without merging them into one.
A binational state
Buber’s dialogical thinking ran through his politics as well: within Zionism and in Israel’s early years he argued steadily for cooperation between Jews and Arabs and for a binational Israel-Palestine.
Tradition
Jewish
Region
Vienna, Germany and Jerusalem

Influences

Influenced by

Martin Buber1878–1965

Influenced by

Martin Buber1878–1965

Where these links come from
  • Martin Buber drew on Friedrich Nietzsche. Source: Michael Zank and Zachary Braiterman, Martin Buber, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Key works

  • I and Thou (Ich und Du), 1923
  • The Legend of the Baal Shem (Die Legende des Baalschem), 1908

Sources

  1. Michael Zank and Zachary Braiterman, Martin Buber, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy