Levinas and Buber: Dialogue and Difference

3. Buber and Levinas: Philosophical Reflections on an Opposition

Buber and Levinas: Philosophical Reflections 37 37 THREE Buber and Levinas Philosophical Reflections on an Opposition StephanStrasser Between Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas there reigns — despite the high esteem in which Buber held Levinas and the honor that Levinas accorded Buber — an opposition. And one has to encounter all the fundamental causes of this contrast with philosophical wonder. A superficial observation already leads us to posit numerous parallels. Both thinkers are sympathetic to a humanism that is nourished out of the religious sources of Judaism, and, insofar as this Judaism is rooted in its Hebrew past, one can rightly speak of a “Hebrew humanism.”1 It is further evident that both men strive for a renewal and deepening of religious life. Buber expresses a basic thought of Levinas when he speaks of an “eclipsed Transcendence” (EG, 127) in our time. A further striking agreement is that speech stands at the center of both philosophers. This is not so much a concern about language as a constituted system of signs as it is about “the word that is spoken” (KM, 106–20). Buber and Levinas see in dialogue the word that turns to a Thou, the “primal deed” of the spirit (IT, 143). In addition to such parallels that immediately meet the eye, various individual details at first glance also seem to be parallels but on closer examination prove not to be. Most significantly, both thinkers reject the one-sided prizing of knowledge and of the power that rests on knowing. Buber does this in his well-known doctrine of the two basic words “I-Thou” and “I-It.” The sphere of “I-It,” for Buber, is the 38 Stephan Strasser world of objectifying experience and conscious using. Levinas proceeds more exactly: he distinguishes within speech between “saying” that is turned toward the other and the thematizing “said.” The fundamental tendency appears to be the same in both thinkers — even in their negative consequences they appear to have farreaching agreement. Realism as well as idealism leads to an overemphasis of objective knowledge and the concepts that derive from it. Whether “the I is contained in the world” or “the world in the I” makes little difference, remarks Buber. In both cases the human being is separated from “the series of images” that appear to him or her. He remains alone, and this causes him to shudder (IT, 121). Levinas rejects realism and idealism in the same way is evident in his whole work. — At first glance, one cannot successfully oppose the two philosophers in the sphere of ethics, Buber’s statements that “love is responsibility of an I for a You” (IT, 66) and “responsibility which does not respond to a word is a metaphor of morality” (BMM, 17) could have stemmed from Levinas. When Buber praises Plato because he recognizes that “the Good towers above being in dignity and power,” (EG, 102) when he stresses the ethical irreplaceability of the Single One, “the single one and not the individual,” (EG, chap. 4) then we can imagine that we are reading Levinas. When one weighs all of this, one asks oneself with renewed wonder how to explain the oppositions. Two things are evident for those who consider themselves philosophical. First of all: one can only speak of an opposition where there is a common basis. The common ground for both thinkers may be vaguely indicated through the slogans Judaism , religiousness, sociality, speech, humanism. On the other hand, where there is much in common, different principles step forth with seemingly distinctive sharpness. To track these divergences, one must not remain immersed in the details. A synthetic grasp of both spiritual personalities and their works is necessary. Only then is it possible to piece together the occurrences, actions and words into a meaningful whole. Buber and Levinas: Philosophical Reflections 39 I What lies before us then is to seek the primal causes of the opposition in the historical situation. Levinas stems from a family in which talmudic piety and scholarship were cultivated. He confessed to this tradition of Judaism again in his later years; indeed he credited it with decisive significance. To a question of how the voice of Israel is to be perceived, Levinas solemnly responds before a gathering of Muslims, Christians and Jews, “The Judaism with a historical reality — Judaism , neither more nor less — is rabbinic” (DF, 13). Alongside this, he warns explicitly...