Dialogue as a Trans-disciplinary Concept. Martin Buber’s Philosophy of Dialogue and its Contemporary Reception

This volume of essays takes as its point of departure Martin Buber`s principle of dialogue, which he applied as a comprehensive hermeneutic method for the study of various cultural phenomena. The volume critically evaluates the methodological purchase to be gained by the introduction of Buber`s conception of dialogue in political theory, psychology and psychiatry, and religious studies

In the Shadow of Death: Jewish Affirmations of Life

The Book of Genesis reports that “On the sixth day of Creation “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:31). The very, so a Talmudic sage taught refers to “death”. We are to share God’s exultant affirmation of His work of creation as culminating in death. For death is intrinsic to the blessings of life. As Buber notes in the epigraph cited above, life is “unspeakably beautiful because death looks over our shoulder”. The seeming paradox—an existential antinomy—inflected the vernacular Yiddish of my late father which was also that of Buber’s youth “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42); “love is strong as death” (Song of Songs; 8:6)