Martin Buber and the Human Sciences

The first book on Buber to address the full scope of his seminal influence for any number of thinkers and fields from philosophy to psychotherapy to literary theory

The specific focus of Martin Buber and the Human Sciences is "dialogue" as the foundation of and integrating factor in the human sciences, using dialogue in the special sense which Buber has made famous: mutuality, presentness, openness, meeting the other in his or her uniqueness and not just as a content for one's own thought categories, and knowing as deriving in the first instance from mutual contact rather than knowledge of a subject about an object. By the "human sciences" the authors/editors mean material that can be meaningfully approached in a dialogic way, hence, the humanities, education, psychology, speech communication, anthropology, history, sociology, and economics. The essays in Martin Buber and the Human Sciences demonstrate that thirty years after Buber's death his influence is still resonating in many countries and in many fields.

Maurice Friedman is the world's foremost authority on Martin Buber. His three volume critical biography, Martin Buber's Life and Work was the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award in 1995. In addition, he is the author of three other books on Buber, editor, translator, and introducer of a dozen of Buber's works, and principal editor of The Philosophy of Martin Buber volume of The Library of Living Philosophers. He is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University and Co-Director of the Institute for Dialogical Psychotherapy.