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Martin Buber

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On the Coordinates: 6.19 Philosophy of Love and Friendship

מרטין בובר

Also known as Mordechai Martin Buber

1878 – 1965 · Vienna, Lemberg, Frankfurt, Jerusalem

Traditions: Jewish

Schools: Existentialism

In brief

Martin Buber (1878–1965) was a Jewish philosopher, translator and writer, born in Vienna and brought up mainly by his grandparents in Lemberg (now Lviv). He is best known for the short book I and Thou (1923). It contrasts two basic attitudes. In ‘I–It’ we treat what is in front of us as an object to be classified and used. In ‘I–Thou’ we meet it as a whole, in a direct encounter. Real life, he held, happens in the ‘between’ of such meetings, and every true relation points towards God, the ‘eternal Thou’. He also retold Hasidic tales, translated the Hebrew Bible into German with Franz Rosenzweig, and argued for a state shared by Jews and Arabs in Palestine.

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Influences
6 sourced relationships

Life

Buber was born in Vienna on 8 February 1878. His parents, Carl Buber and Elise Buber (née Wurgast), separated when he was three, and he was raised largely by his paternal grandparents, Solomon and Adele Buber, in Lemberg. Solomon was a community leader and scholar of rabbinic literature. The boy was taught at home and grew up among several languages. At fourteen, the IEP reports, he was tormented by the problem of imagining the infinity of time; reading Kant’s Prolegomena calmed him, and soon afterwards he was absorbed by Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He studied art history, German literature, philosophy and psychology in Vienna, Leipzig, Berlin and Zurich, attending courses by Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, and completed his doctorate in Vienna in 1904. Meanwhile he became a leader in the Zionist movement, backing a ‘cultural’ Zionism. In 1899, in Zurich, he met Paula Winkler, who became his wife. From 1906 he published German retellings of Hasidic tales, and he edited the journal Der Jude from 1916 to 1924. From 1923 to 1933 he taught at the University of Frankfurt and at the Free Jewish House of Learning (Lehrhaus) founded by Rosenzweig. In 1925 he and Rosenzweig began a new German Bible translation, which Buber completed alone after Rosenzweig’s death in 1929. In 1938 he left for Palestine and became chair of sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, retiring in 1951. He lived and taught there until his death in Jerusalem on 13 June 1965.

Problems

  • What is the difference between using something and meeting it?
  • Where does real human life happen: inside the individual, or between people?
  • How can God be met rather than talked about?
  • What can modern people learn from Hasidic piety?
  • How should a community, and a Jewish homeland, be organised?

Core ideas

I–Thou and I–It

I and Thou (1923) begins from a distinction between two pairs of ‘primal words’: I–Thou and I–It. They name two ways of standing towards whatever is in front of us. In the I–It attitude, as the IEP puts it, we experience ‘a detached thing, fixed in space and time’: we sort it, measure it, use it. In the I–Thou attitude we meet one whole, unique being with another. The IEP’s example: if we truly enter into relation with a tree or a cat, we take it in not as a thing with a list of features but as this single being. Buber did not reject I–It knowledge, which life needs, and he held that each Thou must sometimes turn back into an It. Critics still complain that the contrast is too stark. Writing to Buber after the book appeared, Rosenzweig said, ‘In your setting up the I-IT, you give the I-Thou a cripple for an opponent.’

Three spheres and the eternal Thou

Buber says I–Thou relations can happen in three spheres, which the IEP sums up in one line: we ‘exchange’ in language with other people, ‘transmit below language with nature’, and ‘receive above language with spirit’. The relation with nature, the SEP explains, is ‘pre-dialogic’, because a tree cannot answer back; relations between people involve reciprocity, though not identity. All three point beyond themselves to what Buber calls the ‘eternal Thou’, which he sometimes calls God. The SEP adds that, as an experience that constitutes faith, the relation also occurs between a human being and God. The IEP adds that, for Buber, a real community needs each member to stand in relation to this common centre. One objection, which the IEP attributes to the critic Cherbonnier, is that any objective criticism of the view would itself belong to the world of I–It, so the view seems shielded from criticism.

Dialogue and the ‘between’

Buber places real relation not inside either partner but between them. In an I–Thou relation, says the IEP, the two partners are poles of a relation ‘whose center lies in the between’. In the essay ‘Dialogue’ (1929) he describes the opposite, monologue, as not just turning away from the other but turning back on oneself. Later, in ‘Distance and Relation’ (1951), he added that relation needs a prior distance: we must first set things and people apart from ourselves before we can turn to them, and without otherness there is no confirmation of the self (SEP). This also drove his criticism of Kierkegaard, whose love of God, Buber argued, shuts out love of the neighbour. A general objection asks whether such praise of the encounter undervalues detached, scientific knowledge; defenders reply that Buber never rejected the I–It attitude.

From mysticism to the hallowing of everyday life

Buber first became famous by recording Yiddish Hasidic legends in German (IEP). He was also drawn to mysticism: his anthology Ekstatische Konfessionen (1909), the SEP says, established the field of comparative mysticism. He later moved away from the inward experience of union towards responsibility between self and other. What he took from Hasidism, on the IEP’s account, was the hallowing of ordinary life: creation is ‘not an obstacle on the way to God, but the way itself’. Ecstasy that escapes concrete duties was, for him, a wrong turn. The best-known objection came from the historian Gershom Scholem. He argued that Buber chose the elements of Hasidism that fitted his own philosophy, and relied on folk tales rather than the movement’s theoretical writings, where the turn away from the world is stronger (SEP, IEP).

The Bible and the ‘eclipse of God’

Buber read the Hebrew Bible as a record of dialogue. In the IEP’s words, he saw it as ‘the history of God’s relation to man from the perspective of man’. With Rosenzweig he set out to translate it so that German readers could sense the Hebrew behind the words; the SEP notes that they imitated features of the original text. In Two Types of Faith (1951) he contrasted, according to the IEP, the trusting faith of Jesus with a different kind of faith that he linked to Paul and John. ‘Eclipse of God’ was his name for the spiritual crisis of post-war Western culture (SEP). He blamed in part a philosophy that, as the IEP summarises, ‘fragments being’, while religion addresses the whole person. An open question is whether this treats philosophy too harshly.

Community without domination

Buber’s politics drew on the anarchism of his friend Gustav Landauer. In Paths in Utopia (1947) and later essays he set the ‘social principle’, in which government serves to build community, against the ‘political principle’, which tends to concentrate power (IEP). He praised the Jewish village communes in Palestine as an ‘experiment that did not fail’ (SEP). He applied the same ideas to Zionism. He belonged to Brit Shalom and later to Ihud, groups that called for a binational state shared by Jews and Arabs, and after 1948 he acted as a loyal opposition within Israel (SEP). The IEP reports that he feared a Jewish victory over the Arabs would mean the defeat of Zionism. The SEP notes recent critics, such as Amal Jamal and Khaled Furani, who question his treatment of Palestinians and of Islam. A general question is whether his ideal of small communities can work at the scale of a modern state.

Works

  • The Tales of Rabbi Nachman (Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman) 1906The first of his German retellings of Hasidic tales, which made his name.
  • Ekstatische Konfessionen (Ecstatic Confessions) 1909An anthology of mystical testimonies from around the world; the SEP credits it with founding the field of comparative mysticism.
  • I and Thou (Ich und Du) 1923His best-known work: the distinction between I–Thou and I–It, and the ‘eternal Thou’. He later modified it but never abandoned it (SEP).In the Book corner
  • Dialogue (Zwiesprache) 1929Essay on dialogue and monologue, later collected in Between Man and Man.
  • What Is Man? 1938On philosophical anthropology: human wholeness arises through our relations to things, persons, the mystery of Being and ourselves (SEP).
  • Paths in Utopia 1947A history and defence of communal socialism, ending with the Palestinian village communes.
  • Two Types of Faith 1951Contrasts the trusting faith of Jesus with a different kind of faith that Buber linked to Paul and John (IEP).
  • Eclipse of God 1952Essays on the relation between religion and philosophy in a time of spiritual crisis. The SEP gives 1951 in one place and 1952 in another.

Influences and relationships

6 sourced relationships. Open one to read why, and the source.

Shaped or answered Martin Buber 5

  • Influenced byImmanuel Kant1724 – 1804

    The IEP reports that reading Kant’s Prolegomena as a teenager relieved Buber’s anxiety about the infinity of time; Buber later said Kant gave him philosophical freedom.

    Source: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · stated on the profile of Martin Buber

    Immanuel Kant’s relationships

  • Influenced byFriedrich Nietzsche1844 – 1900

    The young Buber began translating Thus Spoke Zarathustra into Polish (IEP); the SEP calls him a ‘Nietzsche-inspired writer’ and says his Daniel (1913) still bore Zarathustra’s literary stamp.

    Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · stated on the profile of Martin Buber

    Friedrich Nietzsche’s relationships

  • Criticised byFranz Rosenzweig1886 – 1929

    Close collaborator on the Bible translation and the Frankfurt Lehrhaus, Rosenzweig objected that I and Thou made the I–It relation ‘a cripple’ of an opponent (SEP, ‘Martin Buber’); he had earlier criticised Buber’s theology (SEP, ‘Franz Rosenzweig’).

    Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · stated on the profile of Martin Buber

    Franz Rosenzweig’s relationships

  • Criticised byEmmanuel Levinas1906 – 1995

    Levinas held that Buber stayed caught in an ‘aestheticizing’ attitude rather than treating ethics as first philosophy; Buber replied, as the IEP reports, that Levinas had misunderstood him.

    Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · stated on the profile of Martin Buber

    Levinas held that Buber remained caught in an ‘aestheticizing’ attitude rather than treating ethics as first philosophy; Buber replied, as the IEP reports, that Levinas had misunderstood him.

    Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · stated on the profile of Emmanuel Levinas

    Emmanuel Levinas’s relationships

  • Criticised byGershom Scholemno profile yet

    Scholem argued that Buber selected parts of Hasidism to fit his own philosophy and relied on folk tales rather than Hasidic theoretical texts.

    Source: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · stated on the profile of Martin Buber

Martin Buber answered 1

Reception

Buber’s Hasidic retellings made him famous early; the IEP notes that they influenced Rilke, Kafka and Hesse. I and Thou was widely taken up by Protestant theologians, and his dialogical approach influenced psychologists and psychoanalysts such as Ludwig Binswanger. He held a public dialogue with Carl Rogers at the University of Michigan and developed a philosophy of education addressed to the whole person. He received the Goethe Prize of the University of Hamburg (1951), the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1953) and the Erasmus Prize (1963), and Dag Hammarskjöld nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959. Academic philosophers paid him less attention. The SEP observes that before the First World War they largely ignored him, and that in Jewish philosophy his name has since been eclipsed by those of Rosenzweig and Levinas.

Disputed interpretations

Is the I–It drawn too harshly?

Rosenzweig complained that I and Thou set up I–It as a ‘cripple’, and the SEP reports Walter Kaufmann’s charge that the contrast is a ‘Manichean insult’, along with his complaint about the book’s oracular style. Defenders point out that Buber treated I–It knowledge as necessary for life and held that every Thou must at times become an It.

Did Buber get Hasidism right?

Scholem argued that Buber’s Hasidism was selective: built from legends and folk tales, it played down the movement’s theoretical teaching and its stronger turn away from the world. Buber presented Hasidism less as a historical object than as a model for renewing community, so scholars disagree about whether Scholem’s historical standard is the right one to apply.

Mutual relation or the priority of the other?

For Buber the I–Thou relation is mutual. Levinas held that Buber stayed in an ‘aestheticizing’ attitude and did not see ethics as first philosophy; the SEP notes that the priority of the other over the self found in Rosenzweig and Levinas is ‘alien to Buber’. Buber replied that Levinas had misunderstood him: as the IEP explains, making the other transcendent leaves the self straining towards an infinite other, back in the solitude dialogue was meant to overcome.

Primary texts

  • I and ThouStill in copyright in most countries; no free legal full text found. The IEP’s bibliography lists Walter Kaufmann’s English translation (Simon and Schuster).
  • Early German writings (Hasidic tales, Daniel, Ekstatische Konfessionen and others) Free to read · onlinebooks.library.upenn.eduThe Online Books Page lists scanned first editions on HathiTrust; most are marked as viewable from the United States only.

Sources

Scholarly sources and reference works, free to read online.

Guides

In the Book corner

  • I and Thou 1923 · Intermediate
    A short, poetic book in three parts built on the claim that human beings stand in two basic attitudes, expressed in two…

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Cite this page

Written and kept up to date by the Coordinates of Thought editors. Each statement was checked against the sources listed above before publishing; this page is not peer-reviewed. Last updated 28 October 2026. How to cite this site.

APA (7th edition)

Coordinates of Thought Editors. (2026, October 28). Martin Buber. Coordinates of Thought. Retrieved [date accessed], from https://coordinatesofthought.com/thinker/martin-buber/

MLA (9th edition)

“Martin Buber.” Coordinates of Thought, 28 Oct. 2026, coordinatesofthought.com/thinker/martin-buber/. Accessed [date accessed].

Chicago (17th edition)

Coordinates of Thought Editors. “Martin Buber.” Coordinates of Thought. Last modified October 28, 2026. https://coordinatesofthought.com/thinker/martin-buber/.

BibTeX

@misc{cot-martin-buber-2026,
  author       = {{Coordinates of Thought Editors}},
  title        = {Martin Buber},
  howpublished = {Coordinates of Thought},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = oct,
  url          = {https://coordinatesofthought.com/thinker/martin-buber/},
  note         = {Last updated 28 October 2026}
}

RIS

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AU  - Coordinates of Thought Editors
TI  - Martin Buber
T2  - Coordinates of Thought
PB  - Coordinates of Thought
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/28
UR  - https://coordinatesofthought.com/thinker/martin-buber/
LA  - en
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