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Article: Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas: An ethical query
- Article from:
- Philosophy Today
- Article date:
- April 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright DePaul University Spring 2001. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Juxtaposing Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas is irresistible. Both are solidly rooted in Judaism. Both are philosophers who have broken with the central thrust of philosophy from Plato to Heidegger in favor of a radical relation to otherness, alterity. Both are centrally concerned with ethics. Both link the relationship with God with the relationship with our fellow human beings. Both are thinkers who lived, wrote, and acted in the present century.
Beyond that, important differences begin to emerge. Although Buber was as much of a Maskil (a person concerned with enlightenment) as he is a Hasid, he was open to mysticism and myth in their many forms and espoused a teaching of Hasidism and ...