The morality of faith in Martin Buber and William James

Some philosophers have become atheists because of “intellectual probity.” Martin Buber relates two occasions during which he advocated his view of the term “God” and rejected alternative perspectives. He never justified the basis for either his advocacy or his rejection, yet both play an important role in all his writing, especially his specific type of Zionism. Using what has been called the mere theism of William James’ “The Will to Believe” and the criteria for faith that James advances in that essay illuminates both Buber’s general view of the divine and more particularly his Zionism. Once Buber, no less than James, is understood as a mere theist the basis of what he accepts and what he rejects as true religion becomes clearer. Buber’s theism meets James’ requirement of being a live, forced, momentous option and his Zionism also strives to meet those standards.     

Buber from the Cartesian Perspective? A Critical Review of Reading Buber’s Pedagogy

The positive reception of Buber??s philosophy does not fully match Buber??s intention in terms of overcoming the problem of the subject?Cobject binary. In other words, a number of authors have remained within the traditional way of thinking by merely replacing the subject and object with Buber??s I and You, establishing a more dogmatic normative subjectivity, paradoxically going against Buber??s intent and even seemingly not noticing this problem. In this article, we will investigate the reasons for these paradoxical readings of Buber. By focusing on the structure and significance of Buber??s ontology of between-humane, we will study the concept of I?CYou and I?CIt, suggesting that these are not intentionality-oriented concepts, but a radically relationship-centered one. The theoretical problem caused by Buber himself in the process of adaptation of his dialog-philosophy to his dialog-pedagogy, namely the impossibility of complete mutuality in the educational relationship will be critically examined, based on Buber??s own declaration in his ??Afterword?? (1957) in I and Thou (1923). With this, we will reflect on the problematic situation of post-Buberian literature in contemporary pedagogy to pave a way to modernize Buber??s dialog-pedagogy.     

Martin Buber’s Myth of Zion: National Education or Counter-Education?

If national education is, as Ilan Gur-Ze’ev thinks, inevitably a matter of agents for and victims of a national system, only a “counter-education” can correct it. Martin Buber shared many of Gur-Ze’ev’s concerns, but advocated a more positive view of national education. This essay examines Buber’s development of his pedagogical theory in its context, notes his influence on several educational models, investigates how his view of national education either continues or is ignored in the modern State of Israel, and shows that his positive view draws not only on his “I-Thou” dialogical insight but also on his advocacy of a myth of Zion, a myth that provides an alternative not just to the dominant myths in Israel today but also to Gur-Ze’ev’s counter-education.     

From the Thou to the We: Rediscovering Martin Buber’s Account of Communal Experiences

Human Studies - While Martin Buber is best known for his conception of the so-called I-Thou relation, many of his philosophical writings are concerned with the wider realities of communal being...     

Escaping the Dark Side of Curiosity

Curiosity as a clinical entity has been a neglected subject in the psychoanalytic literature. Freud never addressed the issue of curiosity systematically. His interest was in trying to account for children's sexual questioning. Nevertheless, hinderance to internal curiosity—this is to say, that which intimidates and abates the appetite for an exploration of one's motives—is part and parcel of psychoanalytic inquiry. And, arguably, there is no greater clinical challenge for the analyst than trying to treat an analysand who appears to lack an interest in the underlying causes of his unhappiness. The problem of impeded self-inquiry is usually exacerbated in people with more serious emotional disturbances. My position here is that in studying the conditions that mitigate against curiosity in a seriously disturbed patient, we gain access to an enlarged version of the curiosity problems of our less disturbed patients. Here I interpret my clinical impressions about problems with curiosity with ideas from the writings of Martin Buber and Albert Camus.     

Mordechai Rotenberg's Dia-logo Therapy: A New Approach to Dialogical Psychotherapy

This article attempts an overview of Mordechai Rotenberg's second and third books, Dialogue with Deviance and Re-Biographing and Deviance, and an in-depth analysis of his fourth book Dia-logo Therapy. It shows how Rotenberg builds on his early studies of Protestantism and American individualism and on his Talmudic, Hasidic, and Jewish hermeneutic background to offer a challenging rereading of the task of the therapist. This includes the bridging of the rational and the irrational, the factual and the mystical, through psychonarration and re-biographing. It also includes a trenchant distinction between the unilateral truth of Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, and Freud and the multilateral truth of Socrates, the Talmud, and Martin Buber. Throughout the article a comparison is made between Rotenberg's thought and that of both Martin Buber and Maurice Friedman.     

A dialogic perspective for family therapy: the contributions of Martin Buber and Gregory Bateson

This paper concerns the philosophies of Martin Buber and Gregory Bateson, and the application of their philosophies to family therapy. The relevance of Buber's philosophical concepts to a social constructionist perspective in family therapy is given particular attention. Central points of Buber's and Bateson's theoretical perspectives are reviewed and compared. Both thinkers believe that relationship is the primary ingredient in the world of the living, and both have a commitment to the concept that difference is the essential building block of the world of the living. Buber and Bateson, as philosophical anthropologists, are concerned with questions of how their ontologies or epistemologies can be applied to the domain of human interactions, including various healing relationships such as family therapy. This paper shows how their theoretical ideas fit into family therapy thinking and practices, particularly from a social constructionist perspective.     

Once More . . .

Mark S. Smith, Second Edition with a foreword by Patrick D. Miller, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
Martin Buber, ed. Maurice S. Friedman, Third Edition, Meetings: Autobiographical Fragments
Martin Buber, The Legend of the Baal-Shem
Martin Buber, Ten Rungs: Collected Hasidic Sayings
Martin Buber, Between Man and Man
Martin Buber, The Way of Man According to the Teachings of Hasidism
Maurice S. Friedman, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue
Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies
Gerhard Endress, Islam: An Historical Introduction
Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism
Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason and Hugh Pyper (eds), Christian Thought: A Brief History
Paul Avis, T & T Clark, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective     

God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue: Martin Buber’s Tools for Reconciliation

??Prayer?? can be defined as ??the offering, in public worship or private devotion, of petition, confession, adoration, or thanksgiving to God; also the form of words in which such an offering is made?? (cf. Cohn-Sherbok 2010). In addition to this simple definition it could be said that there are different forms of prayer: some are vocal and articulate and others are only mental in nature; some prayers are communal and liturgical and other prayers are spontaneous or at least composed by the one saying the prayer (cf. Stump 1999). Accordingly, it is evident that there are manifold intricacies involved in any characterisation of ??prayer??. In this article my aims are twofold. First, I explore the implications of Martin Buber??s philosophy, particularly of his conception of God as Thou for our understanding of ??prayer??; second, I will argue that Buber??s understanding of ??prayer?? as dialogue serves as a way for the individual to seek reconciliation with itself, with others, and with God.     

Space in the Trinity and in pastoral care

A central feature of the life of the Trinity is contrast without conflict: God is three and God is one. This dynamic has a spatial reference. The Three draw close to each other in the intimacy of love, but they also give each other space to be. This dynamic is a necessary condition for mature relationships on the human level. It is argued that effective pastoral counseling involves both moving in close through empathy and acceptance, and creating appropriate distance through a process that Martin Buber refers to as confirmation. Confirmation involves wrestling with the other person to help her or him actualize her or his God-given moral and spiritual potential.     

‘In the Beginning is Relation’: Martin Buber’s Alternative to Binary Oppositions

In this article we develop a relational understanding of sociality, that is, an account of social life that takes relation as primary. This stands in contrast to the common assumption that relations arise when subjects interact, an account that gives logical priority to separation. We will develop this relational understanding through a reading of the work of Martin Buber, a social philosopher primarily interested in dialogue, meeting, relationship, and the irreducibility and incomparability of reality. In particular, the article contrasts Buber??s work with that of poststructuralist theorists who take as their starting point the deconstruction of the Hegelian logic of binary oppositions. Deconstruction understands difference as the excess that undoes the binary, but Buber, we argue, shows how difference derives from the primacy and ontological undefinability of relation. Relational logic does not exclude the logic of separations and oppositions: relation is the primal ground that makes separations possible.     

Hume and the nominalist tradition

Many of the central theses of Hume's philosophy – his rejection of real relations, universals, abstract objects and necessary causal relations – had precedents in the later medieval nominalist tradition. Hume and his medieval predecessors developed complex semantic theories to show both how ontologies are apt to become inflated and how, if we understand carefully the processes by which meaning is generated, we can achieve greater ontological parsimony. Tracing a trajectory from those medieval traditions to Hume reveals Hume to be more radical, particularly in his rejection of abstraction and abstract ideas. Hume's denial of general, abstract ideas is consistent with his philosophical principles but fails to appreciate the more sophisticated nominalist approaches to abstraction, the result of which is a theoretically impoverished account of our capacity for generalization.     

The Possibilities and Consequences of Understanding Play as Dialogue

The intention of this article is to contribute to the understanding of play as a dialogue. This recognises both the human creator potential and the collective character of human existence. The argument is developed through a phenomenological approach based chiefly on Merleau-Ponty's ideas about habit and expressivity, together with a consideration of the relevance of authors such as Huizinga, Gadamer and Buber. According to Merleau-Ponty ‘habit’ is not repetition, but always presents something new which makes the border between what is acquired and what is created uncertain. The innovatory character of the habit is connected with our expressive potential. In order to go beyond our historicity we need more than we can find in ourselves. We need ‘the Other’, not necessarily another person, but a question. During play the Other's movements and responses are questions to us. Our corporeality is called upon by the world to represent itself and in order to continue playing we need to be expressive. However, the dialogue carried out through play can create conflicts that cannot be suppressed or avoided. One of the possibilities presented by play is the recognition of our ability to adopt different perspectives and to create new kinds of relationship with the Other.     

The barbarism of reflection: A Vichian perspective on the nuclear arms race

Abstract

This article explores how the I—Thou relation described by Martin Buber can be important in the therapeutic effect of psychotherapy relationships. It also discusses the characteristics that Buber viewed as essential to interhuman encounter, both as helpful aspects of a psychotherapy relationship in themselves and as guidelines for increasing the likelihood of the occurrence of I—Thou relations.     

Bion's Notes on memory and desire – its initial clinical reception in the United States: A note on archival material

While Bion's 1967 memory and desire paper reflected a crucial episode in his clinical thinking during his epistemological period, it was also central to his evolution as a Kleinian psychoanalyst who worked with seriously disturbed adult patients. The author explicates and contextualizes these claims with a new archival document, the Los Angeles Seminars delivered by Bion in April 1967, and the full‐length version of Notes on memory and desire. Bion here instigated a radical departure from years of theory‐laden work when he made his clinical work and ideas accessible to a new audience of American Freudian analysts. While this new group was keenly interested to hear about Bion's clinical technique with both borderline and psychotic patients, there were varied reactions to Bion's ideas on the technical implications of the analyst's abandonment of memory and desire. Both the Los Angeles Seminars and Notes elicited responses ranging from bewilderment, admiration to skepticism amongst his audience of listeners and readers. These materials also however allow for a more complete and systematic presentation of important ideas about analytic technique – and while his ideas in this domain have been long valued and known by many psychoanalysts, this contribution stresses the crucial aspect of the reception of his ideas about technique in a particular American context. American analysts gained a much more explicit idea of how Bion worked analytically, how he listened, formulated interpretations and factored in the analyst's listening receptivity in the here‐and‐now. The author concludes with a consideration of the importance of Bion's American reception in 1967.     

Hugo Kauder's unexpressed philosophical concept: Schelling's transcendence,Nietzsche's visions and Buber's Israel

Hugo Kauder, born in 1888 near Prague, composer, instrumentalist, theoretician and music-philosopher, came to Vienna in 1905, left Austria after the Novemberpogrom 1938 and reached New York via the Netherlands and England in 1940. In 1938 Tel Aviv was also one of his intended havens (parts of Kauder's estate are kept at the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem). Engaged in the crisis discourse in Vienna's postwar period of the early 1920s, Kauder drafted his philosophical ideas under the influence of Friedrich Schelling and Friedrich Nietzsche, also speculating on music-teleology, mysticism and cosmology. Corresponding with the German philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz, with the authors Karl Wolfskehl and Erich von Kahler, Kauder expressed his Jewishness – much more as a mindset than an active Jewish identity. Coming from a system of transcendental and natural philosophy combined with Christian ideas, Kauder moved to a more complex syncretism also reflecting on Jewish topics. Kauder did not organize his ideas into a concept, they are, rather, the theoretical framework of his educational books and are widespread in his essays and letters.     

Hartmann on adaptation: an incomparable or incomprehensible legacy?

Hartmann's essay sets forth ideas of incomparable value as well as incomprehensible density. While he developed many important concepts which have far-ranging clinical utility even today, his attempt to extend psychoanalysis into a general psychology back-fired because it separated psychoanalytic concepts from analytic data. Because of his lack of clinical material or anecdotal illustration, Hartmann's theoretical scaffolding has been frequently misunderstood and misapplied. This paper re-examines Hartmann's essay in light of current clinical and metapsychological issues, and illustrates some of his more important ideas.     

Criticism and conversational texts: rhetorical bases of role, audience, and style in the Buber-Rogers dialogue

This essay describes conversation as an ensemble accomplishment that can be illuminated by critics working with specific texts within a rhetorical framework. We first establish dialogue as the key concept for any criticism of conversation, specifying the rhetorical dimensions of interpersonal dialogue. Second, we show how template thinking is particularly dangerous for conversational critics and suggest a research (anti)method, based on a coauthorship, that provides a thoroughgoing dialogical access to texts. Finally, we exemplify dialogic criticism of a conversational text by analyzing the famous 1957 dialogue of philosopher Martin Buber and psychologist Carl Rogers.Portions of this essay were first developed in a presentation to the international interdisciplinary conference on Martin Buber: His Impact on the Human Sciences, San Diego State University, in October, 1991. A version of the present essay was presented at the Central States Communication Association and Southern States Communication Association Joint Conference, Lexington, Kentucky, in April, 1993. We acknowledge gratefully the assistance of Professor John Stewart in providing a copy of the audiotape of the Buber-Rogers dialogue, and also appreciate the assistance of Professor Maurice Friedman who, through interview and correspondence, shared his impressions of the event and helped us refine our analysis. We note that he disagrees strongly with us on several matters of interpretation.     

Jung and the Kabbalah

Jung's use of Kabbalistic symbols and ideas as well as his personal Kabbalistic vision are critically examined. It is argued that as great as Jung's acknowledged affinity is to the Kabbalah, his unacknowledged relationship was even greater. Jung has been accused of being a contemporary Gnostic; however, the interpretations Jung placed on Gnosticism and the texts Jung referred to on alchemy were profoundly Kabbalistic, so much so that one would be more justified in calling the Jung of the Mysterium Coniunctionis and other late works a Kabbalist in contemporary guise. Although Jung, at least during the 1930s, appears to have had powerful motives that limited his receptivity to Jewish ideas, his highly ambivalent and at times reproachable attitude toward Judaism should not prevent one from appreciating the affinities between Jungian psychology and Jewish mystical thought.