The You That Wasn't Enough: Walter Kaufmann and Martin Buber

Walter Kaufmann (1921-80), best known for his work on Nietzsche, is also inextricably linked with the dissemination of Martin Buber's work through his 1970 translation of I and Thou (or "I and You"). Some forty years after the publication of this well-known volume, Kaufmann's relationship to Buber remains mostly unexplored, though occasionally harshly criticized. This essay argues that this relationship should not be left unexplored. Kaufmann's involvement with Buber went well beyond the translation and contains ideas about what should be accepted and rejected in Buber that deserve the attention of contemporary Buber scholars. To make this case, this essay covers Kaufmann's personal relation with Buber from the 1930s onward, relating Kaufmann's principal criticisms of Buber's thought to ideas shaped by the strong encounter with Buber himself. It makes the case that Kaufmann's relationship with Buber has not yet been appreciated and deserves a much wider hearing.