Abstract
The chapter traces the main lines of Buber’s explicit reception of the intellectual legacy of the German idealist thinkers. It focuses on his discussions of Kant, Fichte and Hegel, which are at the center of this reception. While Buber devotes almost no attention to Schelling, Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation played an important role in his pre-dialogical thinking. Buber’s treatment of Hegel—especially in the context of political philosophy and philosophical anthropology—is even more substantial. The most extensive and diverse aspect of this reception is Buber’s study and use of Kant’s philosophy which had a profound and lifelong effect on his thought. Buber’s assessment of the ideas of the German idealist thinkers is quite varied, ranging from enthusiastic affirmation to harsh criticism.
This work was produced at the Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences. It was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-15-0682.
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Notes
- 1.
Buber refers briefly to Schelling in Zur Geschichte des Individuationsproblems (Buber 1904, p. 31), Franz Rosenzweig (Buber 1953, p. 247) or Zu Bergsons Begriff der Intuition (Buber 1953, p. 221). He also discusses Schelling in his correspondence with Rudolf Pannwitz in early 1937 (Buber 1972–1975, vol. 2, pp. 633, 637, 640–641).
- 2.
Buber’s probably earliest reference to Fichte is found in Über Jakob Böhme (Buber 1901, p. 252).
- 3.
There are brief discussions of Hegel’s philosophy also in other works than those examined in this chapter. See, for example, Franz Rosenzweig (Buber 1953, pp. 244–245), Die Frage an den Einzelnen (Buber 1962, pp. 221–222), Die Forderung des Geistes und die geschichtliche Wirklichkeit (Buber 1953, p. 129), Pfade in Utopia (Buber 1962, pp. 846–847, 863).
- 4.
Buber discusess Kant in more than a dozen works. I follow here the main lines of his reception.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
A more extensive analysis of Buber’s picture of Hegel in What is Man? is provided by Nathan Rotenstreich. Cf. (Rotenstreich 2009, pp. 43–50).
- 9.
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Šajda, P. (2020). Buber and German Idealism: Between Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy of Religion. In: Stewart, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Existentialism. Palgrave Handbooks in German Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44571-3_11
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