On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity
Buber's central focus in his sociological work is the relation between social interaction, or intersubjectivity, and the process of human creativity. Specifically, Buber seeks to define the nature and conditions of creativity, the conditions of authentic intersubjective social relations that nurture creativity in society and culture. He attempts to identify situations favorable to creativity that he believes exist to some extent in all cultures, though their fullest development occurs only rarely.
Buber considers the combination of open dialogue between human and human and a dialogue between man and God to be necessary for the crystallization of the common discourse that is essential for holding a free, just, and open society together.
Important for an understanding of Buber's thought, these writings—touching on education, religion, the state, and charismatic leadership—will be of profound value to students of sociology, philosophy, and religion.
Selected Bibliography of Buber's Works
I. The Anthropological Philosophy of Man
1. The Nature of Man
What is Man? Kant's Questions
2. The Social Dimensions of Man
Distance and Relation
Elements of the Interhuman
On the Psychologizing of the World
II. The Social Framework of Cultural Creativity
3. Community as the Basic Social Framework of Human Creativity
A Translation of Buber's Preface to "Die Gesellschaft"
Comments on the Idea of Community
4. Biblical Leadership and Community
5. Hasidic Community and Leadership
Introduction to Tales of the Hasidim
6. National Community: The Zionist Movement
The Land and Its Possessors
III. Processes of Social and Cultural Renovation
7. Religious Renovation
The Teaching of the Tao
An Experiment That Did Not Fail
IV. The Dynamics of Social Retrogression
9. The Interrelations between the Social and the Political Dimensions of Human Existence
Society and the State
The Demand of the Spirit and Historical Reality
The Validity and Limitation of the Political Principle
Lenin and the Renewal of Society