Edith Stein

Norm and deviation, who chose is oun destiny.

Being Unfolded: Edith Stein on the Meaning of Being, Thomas Gricoski (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020), pp. xxi + 268, $75.00.

Edith Stein´s philosophical work was largely devoted to the synthesis of the phenomenological thought of her master Edmund Husserl with thomistic scholasticism. This work tries to continue the motivation of that Steinian synthesis project in relation to one of the notions dealt with in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas that may help to clarify the phenomenological analysis about imagination and image consciousness: namely the idea of virtuality. It will be argued that this notion of “virtuality” used by Thomas Aquinas can (...) characterize the mode of being of some components of pictorial images. (shrink)

Edith Stein was first one of Husserl’s disciples and adopted her method of “eidetic reduction”. She then discovered Thomas of Aquinas’ metaphysics, a realism which Husserl’s later work seemed to betray. However Edith Stein’s Thomism is not a literal return to the thinking of Aquinas: indeed, her fidelity to Husserl’s essentialism drove her to a conception of being withought which the me-subject plays an essential role in the way to the knowledge of the truth. On can then wonder if the (...) philosophical work of Edith Stein leads to a genuine synthesis between the two sources of her thinking. Our hypothesis is that saint Augustine’s metaphysics enables her to articulate the theocentrical vision of the world, coming from Thomism, and a philosophy of mind taken from Husserl, for which the truth cannot only be discovered in the interiority of her consciousness. Thus can we characterize Edith Stein’s thinking as the expression of “Augustinian Thomism”. (shrink)

‘What is the human being?’ Edith Stein, master-disciple of Husserl, developed a remarkable phenomenology, especially in refer to the interrelation of human body, soul, self-concept, and divine giftedness. In German the conception of body is twofold: It can be understood as „Körper“, that means as an objective entity, or instrument. And body can be understood in a deeper sense: as „Leib“ = living body, etymologically related to Leben, including soul, integrating spirit – while „Körper“ could be also a dead body. (...) Leib reveals itself ascending from the non-living to the living entities, from vegetative and animal life to human being including freedom and self-consciousness. Therefrom human being can activate its access to the creative origin, to the original light. This is Edith Stein’s answer to the auto-construction of an I, which regards its own body only as an instrument or masque on a meaningless stage. (shrink)

This text explores how self-consciousness and self-understanding differ phenomenologically from the experience and comprehension of others, and the extent to which such relations are constitutively interdependent. -/- Jardine argues that Husserl’s analyses of selfhood and intersubjectivity are animated by the question of what's at stake in recognising an agent’s engagement as the situated response of a person, rather than simply as the comportment of an animal or living body. Drawing centrally from the freshly excavated Ideas II drafts and manuscripts, the (...) author develops Husserl’s often fragmentary investigations of attention, habit, emotion, freedom, the common world, and action, and considers their implications for subjectivity and the experience of others. Empathy, Embodiment, and the Person also brings Husserlian phenomenology into dialogue with twenty-first century philosophical concerns, from accounts of selfhood and agency from analytic philosophy to the treatment of social experience in critical theory. -/- The book shows the reader that transcendental phenomenology can be rejuvenated by engaging with a broader philosophical landscape and will appeal to researchers, students, and instructors in the field. (shrink)

This paper describes Stein’s process for establishing the relationship between finite and temporal beings and infinite and eternal beings. Although she contextualized her research in the fields of phenomenology and ontology, Stein surpasses these domains. Following Aquinas, Stein uses the analogy to trace the ascension towards the sense of Being. However, this process ends up being closest to the position of St. Augustine. In fact, the author first draws up a temporal analogy and then a personal analogy starting from two (...) pieces of evidence: the certainty of “I am”, from Augustine, Descartes, and Husserl, and the divine “I am”, according to the name that God reveals of himself: “I am who I am”. Through personal analogy, the author goes beyond phenomenology and ontology, while the category “person” includes both being and an attributed fullness. (shrink)

Two ephemerides motivated this issue of the Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia. October 2021 marks the 130th anniversary of Edith Stein’s birth, and in August 2022 we remember her death in Auschwitz. To pay tribute to Edith Stein, this issue seeks to retrieve and discuss her philosophical inheritance. After having studied in Göttingen, Edith Stein moved to Freiburg, where she became an assistant of Edmund Husserl, known as the father of phenomenology. She was among the first women to work as an (...) assistant teacher in one of the most respected European universities of her time. Besides her retrieval of Husserl’s work, a synthesis whose value was recognized by her academic peers, she also developed her own philosophical thought in diverse domains, such as the meaning of values, the role of women in society, the critique against totalitarianisms, among many other contributions. Edith Stein’s most relevant contribution in the field of phenomenology is, probably, an in-depth study of the notion of empathy. She inherited this notion from her master, Husserl, who had, in his turn, inherited it from Theodor Lipps. By defending the thesis that, through empathy, it is possible for one to grasp subjective experiences of other persons, Edith Stein emerged as an original thinker in the philosophical milieu of her time. Her research around the notion of empathy brings out a thematization of the possibility of knowing what other persons, who are different from oneself and with whom one cohabits this world, might subjectively suffer. Edith Stein’s analysis sought to ensure this possibility even without the direct and personal experience that other persons feel. In addition to Husserl’s influence, Edith Stein’s philosophical work was profoundly affected by her conversion to Catholicism in 1922, and, from 1933, influenced by her Carmelite vocation, according to which she lived the last years of her life. In this respect, the interest that she showed in the thought of John Henry Newman and Thomas Aquinas, whose work Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate she translated directly from Latin to German, stands out. Together with Husserls Phänomenologie und die Philosophie des hl. Thomas von Aquin, Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person, and Kreuzeswissenschaft, and without forgetting the fundamental work Endliches und ewiges Sein, published posthumously in 1950, phenomenology, in the works of Edith Stein, developed into a fruitful dialogue with Thomism and Dark Night of the Soul mysticism. This issue starts by posthumously publishing a text by the Jesuit philosopher Xavier Tilliette, S.J.. We are honored to present “La doctrine des anges d’après Edith Stein” in this special issue, which celebrates the figure of the Christian martyr and other disciples of Husserl. The text is followed by a brief presentation by Cécile Rastoin. Tilliette argues that angelology remains current in the context of contemporary philosophy. And Edith Stein was able to express it by connecting classical angelology with the epistemological and anthropological questions of her time. Then, in this first part, we begin with a section dedicated to one of the most important notions in Edith Stein’s work: empathy. “Reflections around the Steinian notion of ‘Empathy’” contains five studies. Anna Maria Pezzella opens the section with “La passione per l’umano. Empatia e persona in Edith Stein,” an article in which the description of the phenomenon of empathy illustrates a person who comes out of himself and is therefore relational. Anna Maria Pezzella analyzes, in this context, what is proper to Edith Stein’s phenomenology, especially in relation to Husserl and Scheler. With the article “‘L’enigma dell’esistenza dell’altro’. Empatia e intersoggettività in Edith Stein,” Antonio Di Chiro draws out from Edith Stein’s philosophical itinerary a phenomenology that, instead of trying to access the consciousness of the other, describes the gesture of opening up to the other in his or her own situation within a shared world. The following article, entitled “Esencia y posibilidad de la intersubjetividad en Edith Stein y Max Scheler: Presentificación empática y percepción simpatética en la Fremderfahrung,” by Juan Velázquez González, proposes a fruitful complementarity, for the phenomenological description of the experience of alterity, between Edith Stein’s notion of empathy and Max Scheler’s concept of sympathy. This text is followed by “Ampliación trascendental de la empatía en Edith Stein: el tipo analógico,” by José Luís Caballero Bono, according to whom analogy is present in intersubjective experience in both Husserl and Stein. To conclude the first section, we include Rastko Jovanov’s article, entitled “Edith Stein’s Theory of Empathy in Applied Context.” This is an original practical application of Steinian theory to group psychotherapy. Entitled “Metaphysical and Phenomenological Issues,” the second section begins with the article “Edith Stein et le débat idéalisme versus réalisme en phénoménologie,” in which Juvenal Savian Filho argues that Edith Stein remains a phenomenologist throughout her entire work, i.e., faithful to Husserl’s approach, in refusing the classical opposition between idealism and realism. Next, in “Il complessivo ed ultimo pensiero di Edith Stein nell’orizzonte della Fenomenologia ultra-husserliana di Karl Jaspers,” Vincenzo Nuzzo shows the dependence on Husserl that Edith Stein exhibits even in the mystical-religious period of her work. Here follows the article “Entre Husserl y Tomás de Aquino. Aspectos metafísicos y epistemológicos del diálogo entre fenomenología y escolástica según Edith Stein,” in which Miriam Ramos Gómez shows how, in Edith Stein, scholastic philosophy meets the epistemological turn of Modernity. This relationship, between phenomenology and scholasticism, concerns the questions regarding the starting point of philosophy and how habit influences knowledge. By Michel Faye, the article “Edith Stein, entre Husserl et Thomas d’Aquin” follows the same direction, insofar as Edith Stein nuances Thomistic realism by staying true to Husserl’s essentialism. The result of this original synthesis is a kind of Augustinian Thomism. Entitled “Análisis de la noción de virtualidad en el contexto de una fenomenología de la conciencia de imagen: un estudio steiniano,” Maria Teresa Alvarez’s article goes further in the relationship between phenomenology and Thomism, showing Stein’s capacity to integrate Thomistic metaphysics in order to better clarify the notion of imagination and virtuality. Section III, entitled “Anthropology, Ethics, and Politics,” contains five articles. In “La questione del male nella filosofia di Edith Stein. Politica, etica e metafisica,” Angela Ales Bello addresses the question of evil in Steinian phenomenology, drawing out its metaphysical and political consequences. The article “A essência do eu: uma análise da constituição do si humano em Edith Stein e Hedwig Conrad-Martius” by Clio Tricarico, reveals the proximity between these two philosophical women in the conception of the human person in his or her pneumatic substance: the intentionality to the other is due to the spiritual and free nature of the person. In “Leib mehr als Körper. Bemerkungen zu Edith Steins Anthropologie,” Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz deepens the distinction between Leib and Körper, to show how the notion of “living body” characterizes the experience that Edith Stein describes as freedom and self-consciousness.” Next, Joachim Feldes seeks to understand, in “Edith Steins Umgang mit Krisen – Phänomenologie, Gemeinschaft und Glaube,” in a very original way, what Steinian philosophy and life experience may say to our contemporary social crisis, linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same direction, Eric De Rus revisits, in his article “Anthropologie et éducation selon Edith Stein : une approche de la destination surnaturelle de la personne humaine,” the intrinsic connection between phenomenology, metaphysics, and anthropology found in Stein’s work. Thus, insofar as human finitude is inevitably described in its openness to the eternal being, pedagogy that does not take this inner connection into account tends to reduce and destroy the human person. Finally, the fourth section, “Philosophy, Religion, and Mysticism,” begins with the article “El reposo y la seguridad en Dios. Bases para una fenomenología de la religión en Edith Stein,” in which Rubén Sánchez Muñoz elaborates, from the description of the experience of rest, a philosophy of religion from the work of Stein, who never detailed or made explicit such a philosophy. The following article is “El misterio de Edith Stein,” in which Walter Redmond shows how Stein combines philosophy with the mysticism of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, in the final period of her philosophical-spiritual production and in the concrete experience of her life. At the end, we present the article “Edith Stein : une philosophie juive? De quelques résonnances philosophiques avec Martin Buber et Franz Rosenzweig,” in which Bénédicte Bouillot examines the Judaic concepts found in Steinian thought, arguing that her philosophy differs from the Thomistic models because it is inspired by some Jew philosophers. (shrink)

A passion for the person led E. Stein to investigate empathy and the human person. Empathy is an act that allows recognition of the other, but not inner participation in his or her experience, which is proper to sympathy. The value of empathy lies in being not only a way of access to the estranged subject but also a way of understanding oneself, because only through relationship with others is self-knowledge possible. After such an examination, the human person is described, (...) which, formed by the unity of body soul and spirit, escapes from any mechanistic analysis because its ultimate essence is the freedom before which God Himself stops. Such an investigation is accomplished with the Husserlian lesson in mind, on which Stein has been nourished, and with some aspects of the philosophy of M. Scheler who has been a stimulating ground of comparison for her. (shrink)

The fundamental program of Stein’s philosophy after his conversion was the relationship between modern philosophy and scholasticism. This article deals with new metaphysical and epistemological aspects of Stein’s work that reflect the encounter between both philosophical currents, starting from her reading of Thomas Aquinas’ De veritate, which have not yet been treated in the Edith Stein Forschung. Thus, from the metaphysical point of view, the question of the relationship between unity and multiplicity and the problem of the conditions of possibility (...) of organic development are identified. And from the epistemological point of view, the following relevant aspects are raised: the starting point of philosophizing; the principles of knowledge; the extent to which habit influences knowledge; the question of whether angelic knowledge can serve to clarify human knowledge; the relationship between mathesis universalis and divine knowledge; the relationship between abstraction and intuition; and the critique of the Heideggerian interpretation of the concept of truth in the philosophical tradition. (shrink)

I investigate the complex relationship between politics and philosophy by focusing on the notion of testimony. I argue that there is a necessary and fruitful tension between sapiential and political life. Testimony is characterized here as a free value-response in an intersubjective relation that requires empathy on both sides of the communication. This act of affirming a truth or value goes beyond the limits of prudent self-realization and self-preservation: authentic testimony requires some kind of self-sacrifice. I contrast this general image (...) of testimony to Jan Patočka’s interpretation of «care for the soul». Patočka, by following the early Husserl’s renewal of philosophy, managed to establish and to preserve the harmony between theory and praxis even during persecution of the communist regime. His courageous acts come close to and illuminate the testimony of Edith Stein, who set the measure for philosophical authenticity and self-donation. The comparison of these two testimonies helps to elaborate the notion of exemplary sapiential life — a highly relevant notion for politics. (shrink)

This paper claims that phenomenon of empathy, described by Edith Stein, and phenomenon of sympathy, analysed by Max Scheler, offer complementary insights into the essence of intersubjective link and into the conditions of possibility for experiencing the Other. Stein’s and Scheler’s phenomenological analyses took place in the context of Husserlian researches on intersubjectivity problems, following a critical attitude towards modern theories of sympathy and towards Lipps’ psychology of empathy as well. However, Scheler’s and Stein’s standpoints got also together on the (...) basis of a philosophical affinity and a critical shared position with regard to Husserl’s transcendental constitution of phenomenology. According to Stein to empathize involves a particular kind of apperception that actualizes the original contents of living experiences of the alien body in a non-original way, whereas for Scheler to sympathize refers to the manner of feeling with others some shared emotions, in an original way, thanks to inner perception of the living life of the neighbour, as another condition of possibility for the Fremderfahrung. (shrink)

Edith Stein came to phenomenology after beginning her university studies in psychology. She struggled with the inability of psychology to justify and delineate its founding principles. She found in Edmund Husserl, though his sustained criticisms of psychologism, the possibility of a phenomenological ground for psychology. This article demonstrates how Stein, drawing from but also distancing herself from Husserl, justifies the possibility of a phenomenological psychology framed within a personalist structure of subjectivity and sociality.

In the following paper we will attempt to analyze and reconstruct Edith Stein’s interpretation of Husserl’s “transcendental idealism,” notably, the reason why, in her opinion, the latter ended up embracing that specific philosophical position. As will soon become apparent, according to Stein, Husserl misunderstands the peculiar ontological structure of individual essences and, in particular, the specific connection with reality that they carry within themselves. Without raising the question of whether Stein’s own understanding of transcendental idealism perfectly corresponds with Husserl’s, we (...) will confine ourselves to discussing, first, the wider context within which she tackles it and, second, the relation between Husserl’s idealism and the formal-ontological issue of how to characterize the internal content of individual essences. No matter what we think of Stein’s critical assessment, her approach has the great and undeniable merit of forcing the “interpreter” to face the problem of the tight connection between the transcendental dimension and the eidetic dimension of Husserl’s thought. (shrink)

Today, many philosophers write on topics of contemporary interest, such as emerging technologies, scientific advancements, or major political events. However, many of these reflections, while philosophically valuable, fail to contribute to those who may benefit the most from them. In this article, we discuss our own experience of engaging with nursing researchers and practicing nurses. By drawing on the field of philosophical phenomenology, we intervene in a longstanding debate over the meaning of “empathy” in nursing, which has important implications for (...) nursing research, training, and practice. However, our intention is not only to introduce and discuss this philosophical intervention. Rather, we present this intervention as a model for how philosophers might successfully engage with the field of nursing, and perhaps with other fields as well, with the aim of effecting positive change in research or practice. The article proceeds in five parts. First, we introduce the problem of conceptual clarity in nursing and explain why many nursing concepts are still in need of refinement. Second, we discuss the origins of the concept of empathy in nursing and outline the challenges associated with borrowing theory from other fields. Third, we explain how nurses tend to conceptualize empathy today, drawing upon the psychological distinction between cognitive and emotional empathy. Fourth, we discuss our intervention in this debate and explain how we attempt to resolve existing conceptual confusions by developing the concept of empathy from the ground up. Fifth, we conclude by briefly reflecting upon some of the challenges of interdisciplinary engagement and providing some recommendations based upon our own experience. (shrink)

Stein claims that Husserl’s transcendental idealism makes it impossible to clarify the transcendence of the world because it posits that consciousness constitutes being. Inspired by Aquinas, Stein counters that making thinking the measure of being deprives what is of its epistemological and ontological independence from and primacy over what thinks. She contends that this approach inverts the natural relationship between the mind and the world. Given the complicated relationship between them, however, the question is whether Stein’s argument that Husserl lacked (...) an adequate understanding of and appreciation for the phenomenon of transcendence is sound. In fact, Husserl’s treatments of “limit problems of phenomenology” in his manuscripts from 1908 to 1937, which were only recently published in Husserliana XLII, show that he undertook extensive investigations of metaphysical, metaethical, and religious and theological questions. Tragically, Stein was prevented from gaining an even remotely complete picture of Husserl’s work. In this paper, therefore, I examine Stein’s critique of Husserl’s transcendental idealism in light of the fuller evidence. (shrink)

The capacity to share and understand another’s state of mind or the ability to put oneself into another’s shoes or, in some way, experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself has been referred to as empathy. It is a presumed ability to burrow into another person’s structures of consciousness and experience oneself as another. Hence it involves the capacity of one to understand or feel what another is experiencing from within their frame of reference. This paper investigates (...) the im/possibility of empathy. The question of the im/possibility of empathy finds expression in the question of the possibility of a subject’s access into the subjective conscious experiences of another. The paper appraises various positions accruing from the basic Husserlian/Steinian views. It also highlights the optimists’ belief that empathy puts us in touch with others in a way that generates a compassionate concern that forms the foundation of morality and the pessimists’ view that empathy merely blurs the distinction between oneself and others, yielding self-interested motivation or at least precluding genuine altruism. This paper suggests that the problem of the im/possibility of empathy would persist in so far as the definition of empathy involves ‘feeling with’ rather than ‘feeling for.’ As Diana Meyers puts it, “the metaphor of putting oneself in the other’s shoes is misleading, for it is a mistake to assume that the other feels the same way as one would oneself feel in the same circumstances.” Thus, it is either that empathy is unreal or what is considered as empathy requires a redefinition. (shrink)

This review of one in the series of the monumental primary works of Kierkegaard shows him as the champion and, as it were, an inaugurator of the phenomenological turn in both philosophy and literature. The review touches upon serious issues regarding mass culture and Christianity. The review of the eighth volume in this series was published in January 2020, and these two reviews are the first by any Indian Hindu. While discussing Kierkegaard the reviewer touches upon John Caputo's theology derived (...) from Jürgen Moltmann's concept of a weak God. There are inadvertent typos in this review. (shrink)

Stein’s theory of empathy lies at the intersection of the phenomenological findings of E. Husserl and M. Scheler. By presenting the issue of “empathy” in a broader framework, including intentionality, the originality of experience, the issue of personality and the individual identity, as well as the so-called world of values, namely the culture, I argue for a dynamic, process-oriented concept of dealing with feelings, namely diapathy. -/- Koncepcja Edyty Stein rozumienia drugiego człowieka jest znana z jej dysertacji O zagadnieniu wczucia. (...) Niemniej, gruntowne przebadanie struktury osobowości ludzkiej, jakie podjęła w Filozofii psychologii i humanistyki, rzuca nowe światło na tę kwestię. Stein dokonuje swoistej syntezy Husserlowskiego prymatu prawdy i Schelerowskiej koncepcji miłości, unikając przy tym idealizmu i woluntaryzmu, którym obarczone są te stanowiska. Steinowska koncepcja znajduje kontynuację w fenomenologii M. Merleau-Ponty’ego i R. Barbarasa. (shrink)

In this paper, I reference a Paradigm Case Core Conception of Violence, which each individual has, and can share with others to various degrees. This is shown to imply that because we cannot get at violence itself, and can only interpret violence in relationships that involve humans, we cannot avoid politicizing our conceptions of violence in our empathic, intersubjective relationships. This is demonstrated by outlining various claims concerning violence, and by utilizing Edith Stein's phenomenological account on empathy and intersubjectivity, and (...) Alfred Schütz’s characterizations of commonsense constructs and typicalities, as well as theorists who define violence in reductive and non-reductive ways. (shrink)

In her mature thought, Edith Stein presents a philosophy that is positively Christian and specifically Catholic. The rationale behind her presentation rests upon three interplaying factors: the nature of philosophy; the nature and state of finite creatures in relation to God; and the meaning of being a Christian. Stein maintains that given the essential imperfection and natural limitation of philosophy as a human science, philosophy lies interiorly open for its elevation and completion through its supplementation by the supernatural contents of (...) Revelation, yet in such a way that it retains its proper philosophical character precisely as determined by its specific object domain appropriately investigated. In this paper, I critically examine this provocative proposal of Stein by setting it in contrast to “the Thomistic solution” of Jacques Maritain, upon which Stein’s solution to the question foundationally relies, and thereby intend to manifest its basic significance while simultaneously assessing its philosophical validity. (shrink)

Iris Marion Young’s classic paper on the phenomenology of pregnancy chronicles the alienating tendencies of technology-ridden maternal care, as the mother’s subjective knowledge of the pregnancy gets overridden by the objective knowledge provided by medical personnel and technological apparatuses. Following Fredrik Svenaeus, the authors argue that maternal care is not necessarily alienating by looking specifically at the proper attention paid by sonographers in maternal care when performing ultrasound examinations. Using Martin Heidegger’s philosophy as a theoretical lens, the authors argue that (...) sonographers who cultivate technical mastery, build patient rapport, explain the process and significance of the ultrasound, and understand the patient’s world are able to provide excellent patient care. The authors utilize Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics to show how sonographers can frame the ultrasound in a way that acknowledges both the subjective knowledge of the mother and the objective data obtained by the sonographer through the use of technology. Ultimately, the authors argue that the common practice of framing the ultrasound as the chance to “meet the baby” is inappropriate, as it exacerbates the tendency to regard objective knowledge as the only legitimate knowledge in medical contexts. They recommend a more balanced approach that elicits a fusion of horizons between the patient’s subjective knowledge and the objective data that is obtained by the sonographer via the ultrasound, thus respecting and bolstering patient autonomy. (shrink)

This paper discusses the thesis defended by Edith Stein that certain acts can be attributed to the State. According to Stein, the State is a social structure characterized by sovereignty. As such, it is responsible for the production, interpretation, and application of law. These tasks require the performance of acts, most of which are what Stein calls “social acts” like enactments and orders. For Stein, the acts in question are made by the organs of the State, but in the name (...) of the State, and are thus attributed to the State via a relation of representation. In the first section, the paper presents Stein’s thesis that the sovereignty of the State entails a series of legal prerogatives, which in turn result in various social acts being ascribed to the State through its representatives. In the second section, the paper critically discusses Stein’s views, notably her theory of representation, and her account of the nature of the State, while emphasizing its most interesting aspects, namely, its fine-grained analyses of the various acts that are attributed to the State. (shrink)

In this chapter, I discuss the impact and legacy of Edith Stein’s philosophy in Canada and the United States. I identify three waves of reception of Stein’s philosophical work since her untimely death in 1942. The first phase we can refer to as the “Preservation of Edith Stein’s Legacy.” The second phase consists of a dissemination of her work and the third, more contemporary phase revolves around new scholarship and applications of her thought to various philosophical and social-political questions. Deeply (...) structured and conditioned by Protestant sensibilities, Canada and the United States have divided Stein’s philosophical legacy along two lines: phenomenology and Christian philosophy. (shrink)

This thesis is an investigation of Edith Stein’s later philosophical works with respect to the question of the human person to reveal in what way she engages with the thought of Thomas Aquinas while continuing to practice philosophy according to the phenomenological method of investigation. The investigation is focused primarily upon the confluence of understanding found in two of Stein’s later works, Endliches und ewiges Sein and Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person, with supplementary reference also made to Potenz und Akt. (...) Through an examination of these works under the themes of human nature, the human individual, and the human being’s relation to God, I show that Stein’s mature anthropology is expanded and augmented through her assimilation of certain anthropological and metaphysical teachings of Aquinas, namely, the classical definition of the person, the substantial unity of human nature and the soul as form of the body, and the analogy of being understood as an analogy of proportionality. Conversely, I show that Stein’s engagement with the thought of Aquinas, while simultaneously performing an independent phenomenological investigation of the human person, leads to a fundamental substantiation and development of these same received anthropological and metaphysical teachings. I propose that this complementary process of assimilation and development—a process I describe as a ‘progressive incorporation’ of the ‘conceptual apparatuses’ of Aquinas—leads to a significant reinterpretation of the conceptual content of each received teaching, a reinterpretation that I identify as a fundamental ‘personalization’ of the metaphysical anthropology of Aquinas brought about through Stein’s distinctively phenomenological perspective. Throughout the investigation, I seek to highlight the deep accord in the mature thought of Stein with the received teachings of Aquinas while also attending to any outstanding disagreements, most notably those regarding the formal structure of human nature, and formal bases of the individual being of the human being. Finally, I suggest that Stein can to a limited degree be read as a ‘Thomist’, if by ‘Thomist’ one understands a living philosophical confrontation with central Thomistic theses towards their clarification and development; and, moreover, that Stein’s mature anthropology can to a limited degree be understood as a ‘Thomistic anthropology’, inasmuch as it contains central Thomistic teachings now reinterpreted through their distinctive ‘personalization’. (shrink)

This chapter considers conceptions of the self in three early phenomenological thinkers: Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Edith Stein, and Gerda Walther. Although colleagues or students of Husserl and influenced by his phenomenology, they developed their own phenomenology of the human person in explicit opposition to Husserl’s more “idealist” turn. They remain, however, virtually unknown today in philosophical circles. This chapter seeks to retrieve their philosophies of the human being and suggests that their particular phenomenological approach still has much to teach us, especially (...) in the context of the conversation about the “self after the subject” and the question of inter-subjectivity. (shrink)

Throughout her entire philosophical corpus Edith Stein shows a concerted effort to reach a comprehensive understanding of the human being as individual. In this paper, I examine the question of how knowledge of the being-individual and qualitative individuality of the human being is attained, as it is found presented by Stein in her most mature philosophical work, Endliches und ewiges Sein. After briefly considering Stein’s understanding of consciousness and intentionality, I detail Stein’s own investigation of the manner the human being (...) attains primordial knowledge of the being-individual and qualitative individuality of the self as a spiritual and personal I, through the inherently distinct and distinguishable experiences of the I as given in conscious experiences and intentional acts. In this way, I show how Stein, in contradistinction to Aquinas, who accounts for material individuation through designated matter, understands the being-individual and qualitative individuality of the human being to be ultimately rooted in the spiritual and personal I, whereby the human being is given as a personal πρώτη οὐσία, a unity that is in itself undivided and distinct from all else, and absolutely incommunicable to another. Finally, I show in what way Stein maintains that the qualitative individuality of the human being, though humanly knowable, is uniquely determined in such a way that it is not conceptually graspable and humanly knowable, and, therefore, is something properly ineffable. (shrink)

Resumen El presente estudio investiga la importancia de la “experiencia originaria” husserliana para la comprensión del conflicto de las ciencias exactas con el problema de Dios, que Edith Stein califica de “angustia inconsciente de encontrarse” con Él. A través de su controversia con la Psicología del siglo XIX, la discípula de Husserl muestra en su obra Causalidad Psíquica que hace falta un adecuado conocimiento de la índole propia de la ciencia para remontar con rigor metódico a la originariedad de la (...) experiencia humana y el Dios presente allí. Esto conducirá a la ciencia al descubrimiento de su propia identidad por la superación del bloqueo consciente o inconsciente ante la revelación de Dios en el alma humana. De ahí que el presente estudio ofrezca un aporte relevante para la dilucidación filosófica de una cuestión teológica candente hoy ―aporte logrado a través de un esfuerzo interdisciplinario arduo.The present study investigates the importance of the Husserlian “originary experience” for the understanding of the conflict of the exacts sciences with the problem of God, which Edith Stein describes as “unconscious anguish of being” with Him. Through her controversy with of the 19th century Psychology, the disciple of Husserl shows in her work Psychic Causality that it is necessary to have an adequate knowledge of the nature of science to trace with methodical rigor the originarity of the human experience and the God present in there. This will conduct science to a discovery of its own proper identity by the overcoming of the unconscious or conscious blocking before the revelation of God in the human soul Hence, the present study offers a relevant contribution to the philosophical elucidation of a burning theological question today -a contribution achieved through an arduous interdisciplinary effort. (shrink)

Many genetic approaches in philosophy, psychology or sociology lead to a partially or fully deterministic understanding of the self and its position-taking. In this article, I argue that Husserl’s view of genesis differs broadly from such deterministic conceptions, as he investigates the genesis as the awakening of consciousness as consciousness or spirit as spirit. Husserl claims that the passive foundation of conscious life is the topsoil of activity and rational position-taking. But still the genetic process of the awakening of the (...) ego, far from being an automatism, demands a primary responsibility to proceed with the awakening itself. I discuss the issue of the responsibility of wakefulness in three interconnected ways. Drawing on Edith Stein, I first develop some theological implications to demonstrate how the paradox of responsibility points toward its divine ratio, because the unfounded givenness of responsibility links the awakening person to a phenomenological understanding of theosis: the more a person cultivates her responsibility the more she resembles the divine actus purus. In a second step, I show how the ethical implications of the responsibility of awakening connect it with the truth of will. The manifold obstacles that tend to undermine ethical love reveal a new level of both responsible position-taking and practical faith in the divine entelechy. Finally, the theological and ethical results motivate a social renewal, in which responsibility embraces the Other and longs for the communitization of the truth of wills. Clearly, the Husserlian view of genetic philosophy enables deep theological and ethical insights, that remain hidden from the method of static phenomenology and that are denied by most empirical genetic approaches. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to deal with E. Husserl’s and E. Stein’s analyses on the anthropological and metaphysical questions. To perform this task it is necessary to explain the meaning of the phenomenological method, first of all in Husserl and then in E. Stein, underscoring the novelty of their approach to the knowledge of human being, world and God. The essay is divided in four parts; two are dedicated to Husserl’s and Stein’s investigation on the human being and (...) two to their development of metaphysical themes. Regarding the first topic we discover a significant connection between the two thinkers, regarding the second one we notice that it is possible to find a metaphysical approach to reality even in Husserl and an original development of the theme in Stein’s analysis linked up with the medieval philosophy and theology. (shrink)

In recent years, some simulation theorists have claimed that the discovery of mirror neurons provides empirical support for the position that mind reading is, at some basic level, simulation. The purpose of this essay is to question that claim. I begin by providing brief context for the current mind reading debate and then developing an influential simulationist account of mind reading. I then draw on the works of Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein to develop an alternative, phenomenological account. In conclusion, (...) I offer multiple objections against simulation theory and argue that the empirical evidence mirror neurons offer us does not necessarily support the view that empathy is simulation. (shrink)

I recommend this balanced, tripartite examination of phenomenology, psychology, and neuroscience.

My aim in this essay is to show that Edith Stein’s influence on Merleau-Ponty in Phenomenology of Perception is predominantly through her early work On the Problem of Empathy. Though he does not give Stein due acknowledgement, Merleau-Ponty is closer to her philosophically than to her near contemporary Max Scheler, who receives much more attention. Whilst Stein’s influence is in the main difficult to disentangle from that of Husserl, some of her reformulations of and additions to the latter’s ideas are (...) taken up recognisably in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment. I focus on her accounts of bodily ownership and embodied willing and acting, and on her view of how the ownness of conscious human life is a condition of explicit self-awareness and empathic experience. I conclude by showing how her contributions are developed further by Merleau-Ponty, most notably in his reworking of the representation, decision and implementation model of human action. (shrink)

This book explores the phenomenological investigations of Edith Stein by critically contextualising her role within the phenomenological movement and assessing her accounts of empathy, sociality, and personhood. Despite the growing interest that surrounds contemporary research on empathy, Edith Stein’s phenomenological investigations have been largely neglected due to a historical tradition that tends to consider her either as Husserl’s assistant or as a martyr. However, in her phenomenological research, Edith Stein pursued critically the relation between phenomenology and psychology, focusing on the (...) relation between affectivity, subjectivity, and personhood. Alongside phenomenologists like Max Scheler, Kurt Stavenhagen, and Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Stein developed Husserl’s method, incorporating several original modifications that are relevant for philosophy, phenomenology, and ethics. Drawing on recent debates on empathy, emotions, and collective intentionality as well as on original inquiries and interpretations, the collection articulates and develops new perspectives regarding Edith Stein’s phenomenology. The volume includes an appraisal of Stein’s philosophical relation to Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler, and develops further the concepts of empathy, sociality, and personhood. These essays demonstrate the significance of Stein’s phenomenology for contemporary research on intentionality, emotions, and ethics. Gathering together contributions from young researchers and leading scholars in the fields of phenomenology, social ontology, and history of philosophy, this collection provides original views and critical discussions that will be of interest also for social philosophers and moral psychologists. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Jewish-Catholic philosopher and Carmelite Edith Stein offers a rich notion of love, based on an original phenomenology, which resulted from an active engagement with her teachers Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler, and was later enriched and deepened by incorporating religious philosophical and theological ideas. In order to locate Stein’s original thinking, the essay will first introduce the two thinkers by whom she was most clearly influenced, and show how Stein contrasted the ‘nothing’, as it is presented in Husserl’s other (...) pupil Martin Heidegger’s existentialist analysis, with the fullness of being to which the human person aspires, and which is given through love. Her phenomenological thinking, based on the intersubjective approach to its object, ultimately leads Stein to a triple philosophical statement about love: Love is a principle of being, a principle of knowledge and a principle of relationship. The passage through theology verifies what has been said philosophically about its relationship to God, in whom love ultimately finds its completion. The three basic principles of love complement and correct each other, to the point not only of issuing in an analysis of the phenomenon ‘love’ but of also opening up an ethics of love. (shrink)

In order to clarify the relationship among phenomenology, ontology and metaphysics I analyze Husserl’s and Thomas Aquinas’ influence on Edith Stein’s inquiry. One can discover that she succeeds in establishing a link between the phenomenological essential description of reality and the metaphysical one, particularly regarding the problem of ontology and the research on the human being, giving at last her personal and original contribution to these philosophical questions.

Games Studies reveals the performative nature of playing a character in a virtual-game-world (Nitsche 2008, p.205; Pearce 2006, p.1; Taylor 2002, p.48). Tbe Player/Character relationship is typically understood in terms of the player’s in-game “presence” (Boellstorff 2008, p.89; Schroeder 2002, p.6). This gives the appearance that living-into a game-world is an all-or- nothing affair: either the player is “present” in the game-world, or they are not. I argue that, in fact, a constitutive phenomenology reveals the Player/Character relationship to be a (...) multi-dimensional matter of empathy. I advance a broadly Schutzian framework, drawing on his 1932 discussions of “face-to-face encounters” and ”historical predecessors,” showing how at- tention to empathy reveals a variety of “presences” that different kinds of Player/Character relationships afford. The central determinants of empathetic affordances which I focus on here are (i) how much players know about a character (especially the character’s past) and (ii) how players learn this information.The purpose of this discussion will be to show that a phenomenological analysis reveals that the relationship between a player and their character is complex, highly variable, and inherently social. Furthermore, it will add to the growing body of scholarship that demonstrates that video games are rich social objects deserving of study. (shrink)

This paper reviews the concept of ‘essence’ in Edmund Husserl and Thomas Aquinas as found presented by Edith Stein in her Festschrift article, ‘Husserl’s Phenomenology and the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas: Attempt at a Comparison,’ in the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung (1929, 370). The aim of the paper is to perform an analysis of Stein’s understanding of the principal similarities and differences in the understandings of essence found in the writings of Husserl and Aquinas, and primarily in (...) terms of the immediacy of the intuition or cognition of essences. I begin by a basic analysis of this commonality and difference with a focus on the interweaving of the following themes: essence and existence; essence and sensual knowledge; essence and its objective ground; essence as intuited, as actively acquired and as passively received; insight into essence, immediate and mediate knowledge. Despite certain misunderstanding arising between the phenomenological movement and the scholastic tradition in this sphere, Stein recognises a number of points of agreement, namely, 1) the beginnings of all knowledge in sense experience, 2) the intellectual ‘work’ (erarbeiten) that is required to achieve a clear vision of essences, and 3) the finally passive nature of the act of understanding. I critically analyse each of these enumerated points of agreement towards clarifying how Stein conceives of the possibility of using the phenomenological method for achieving an understanding of essences coherent with a Thomistic metaphysical worldview, and how she parses and explains the further disagreements over the question of the mediacy or immediacy of human knowledge of essences of different kinds. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to find mystical elements in Edith Stein's anthropology as a connecting principle between phenomenology and Thomism. Relying on methodological definition of philosophical mystic, as a matching of theological and philosophical doctrines, based upon reflection on experience of ecstatic unity with the Absolute, it was shown that phenomenology is implicitly directed towards research of real structure of immediate experience which in all its limits approaches to mystical experience. Not the mind and not the faith, but (...) will is defining for the mystical character of Stein's creative method. Stein, being a bright representative of phenomenology, gradually disagrees with Husserl at some points: 1. Stein considers the world as an immediate contemplation on the entity that transcends the identity of being and thinking; 2. In her opinion, phenomenology neglects the ontological Absolute. As a result, there is misplace of the Absolute by structural-cognitive aims, that, in its turn, was a reason for amalgamation of onthology and epistemology, according to Stein's views. 3. Stein strives to overcome epistemological rationality and achieve a sphere of philosophical mystic where ontological object and epistemological subject are identical in the act of mystical contemplation. 4. Lack of metaphysical elements in phenomenology leads Stein to Thomism in which she potentially seeks a way out of metaphysical limits and the way which leads to the level of transpersonal states of mind. 5. Stein reproaches transcendentalism in loss of the world and she ignores the changes in Husserl's world outlook, his transcendental turn and genealogy of the trustworthy acquaintance with the world. An empathy, as a model of extrapolation of the principle onto mystical act of overcoming of subject-object opposition of transpersonal content and an intuition, as a movement inside the self, an ability to complete an integral image refusing the subjectivity and bringing back generic, spiritual subject, are considered to be key-constructs of the Edith Stein's evolutionary views development on her way to philosophical mystic. At the same time, mystical does not drop out of the phenomenological series but fills it with new existential meaning. The novelty of the study is in its showing up the productive meaning of philosophical mystics in the creativity of Edith Stein, who enriched contemporary anthropology by metahistorical content of moral and existential meaning on the basis of synthesis of philosophy of mind and Thomistic metaphysics. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to find mystical elements in Edith Stein's anthropology as a connecting principle between phenomenology and Thomism. Relying on methodological definition of philosophical mystic, as a matching of theological and philosophical doctrines, based upon reflection on experience of ecstatic unity with the Absolute, it was shown that phenomenology is implicitly directed towards research of real structure of immediate experience which in all its limits approaches to mystical experience. Not the mind and not the faith, but (...) will is defining for the mystical character of Stein's creative method. Stein, being a bright representative of phenomenology, gradually disagrees with Husserl at some points: 1. Stein considers the world as an immediate contemplation on the entity that transcends the identity of being and thinking; 2. In her opinion, phenomenology neglects the ontological Absolute. As a result, there is misplace of the Absolute by structural-cognitive aims, that, in its turn, was a reason for amalgamation of onthology and epistemology, according to Stein's views. 3. Stein strives to overcome epistemological rationality and achieve a sphere of philosophical mystic where ontological object and epistemological subject are identical in the act of mystical contemplation. 4. Lack of metaphysical elements in phenomenology leads Stein to Thomism in which she potentially seeks a way out of metaphysical limits and the way which leads to the level of transpersonal states of mind. 5. Stein reproaches transcendentalism in loss of the world and she ignores the changes in Husserl's world outlook, his transcendental turn and genealogy of the trustworthy acquaintance with the world. An empathy, as a model of extrapolation of the principle onto mystical act of overcoming of subject-object opposition of transpersonal content and an intuition, as a movement inside the self, an ability to complete an integral image refusing the subjectivity and bringing back generic, spiritual subject, are considered to be key-constructs of the Edith Stein's evolutionary views development on her way to philosophical mystic. At the same time, mystical does not drop out of the phenomenological series but fills it with new existential meaning. The novelty of the study is in its showing up the productive meaning of philosophical mystics in the creativity of Edith Stein, who enriched contemporary anthropology by metahistorical content of moral and existential meaning on the basis of synthesis of philosophy of mind and Thomistic metaphysics. (shrink)

In everyday language, we readily attribute experiences to groups. For example, 1 might say, “Spain celebrated winning the European Cup” or “The uncovering of corruption caused the union to think long and hard about its internal structure.” In each case, the attribution makes sense. However, it is quite difficult to give a nonreductive account of precisely what these statements mean because in each case a mental state is ascribed to a group, and it is not obvious that groups can have (...) mental states. In this article, I do not offer an explicit theory of collective experience. Instead, I draw on phenomenological analyses and empirical data in order to provide general conditions that a more specific theory of collective experience must meet in order to be coherent. (shrink)

It is commonplace to speak of social groups as if they were capable of the same sorts of activities as individuals. We say, “Germany won the World Cup”; “The United States invaded Iraq”; and “The world mourned the passing of Nelson Mandela”. In so doing, we attribute agency, belief, and emotional states to groups themselves. In recent years, much literature devoted to analyzing such statements and their implications has emerged. Within this literature, the issue of “intentionalism,” whether individuals must have (...) a certain self-conception in order to constitute a collectivity, has received surprisingly little attention. While Paul Sheehy has criticized this view, claiming that individuals may be related in such a way as to constitute a collective without their realizing it :377–394, 2002), little other scholarship on the topic exists. The purpose of this article is to contribute to this debate. I will argue, drawing on Edith Stein’s phenomenology of social groups, that intentionalism, as Margaret Gilbert defines it, is false. I begin by establishing Gilbert’s account, Sheehy’s criticism of intentionalism, and what I take to be its shortcomings. I then explicate Stein’s phenomenology of collectives and argue that plural subjects who do not meet intentionalist requirements can exist. Given this, intentionalism must be rejected. Because the intentionalism debate presupposes that there are irreducibly social agents, I do not argue for this claim. (shrink)

Within the phenomenological tradition, one frequently finds the bold claim that interpersonal understanding is rooted in a sui generis form of intentional experience, most commonly labeled empathy (Einfühlung). The following paper explores this claim, emphasizing its distinctive character, and examining the phenomenological considerations offered in its defense by two of its main proponents, Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein. After offering in section 2 some preliminary indications of how empathy should be understood, I then turn to some characterizations of its distinctive (...) structure, considering, in section 3, the Husserlian claim that certain forms of empathy are perceptual in nature, and in section 4, Stein’s insistence that empathetic experience frequently involves explicating the other’s own intentional experiences. Section 5 concludes by assessing the extent to which their analyses lead support to a conception of empathy as an intuitive experience of other minds. (shrink)

Basing itself on Edith Stein's research into philosophy of psychology and the humanities, this article focuses particularly on discussions of the theory of association. Stein's approach, rooted in Husserlian phenomenological perspective, seems to represent a significant contribution to the establish of an intellectual framework for the exploration of the philosophy of consciousness, and also seems helpful for inquiries into the issue pf practical know-how pertaining to remembering things, as well as the use of schemata in intellectual activity generally.

What is a society? What is political power? John Searle claims that previous political philosophers not only neglected these fundamental questions but also lacked the means to effectively address them. Good answers, he thinks, depend on theories of speech acts, intentionality, and constitutive rules first developed by analytic philosophers. But Searle is mistaken. Early phenomenologists had already developed the requisite theories. Reinach’s philosophy of law includes a theory of speech acts. This theory is based on Husserl’s account of intentionality. Edith (...) Stein extended that account by offering a detailed description of collective intentionality. And it was Stein who brought these strands of early phenomenological research together to address the very questions of political philosophy Searle regards as both fundamental and neglected. In this paper, I recount Stein’s answers to these questions and argue that they compare favourably withthose of Searle. (shrink)

The domain of phenomenological investigation delineated by the Husserlian term authentic empathy presents us with an immediate tension. On the one hand, authentic empathy is supposed to grant the subject access (in some sense that remains to be fully specified) to the Other’s experience. On the other hand, foundational phenomenological considerations pertaining to the apprehension of a foreign subjectivity determine that it is precisely a disjunction in subjective processes that is constitutive of the Other being other. In my approach to (...) this problem, I seek, within the context of a reading of Edith Stein’s work On the Problem of Empathy, to clarify the place of ascription in authentic empathy, and to render more explicit a certain notion of “contiguity” that I take to be informing Stein’s understanding of the co-givenness of the Other’s mental life. I go on to argue that a resolution to the problem of empathy lies in the idea that the respective lived experiences of self and Other are, as a matter of descriptive fact, phenomenally connected by a relation of resemblance, and that, consonantly, the essential structure of authentic empathy is characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to picture consciousness. (shrink)

The domain of phenomenological investigation delineated by the Husserlian term authentic empathy presents us with an immediate tension. On the one hand, authentic empathy is supposed to grant the subject access (in some sense that remains to be fully specified) to the Other’s experience. On the other hand, foundational phenomenological considerations pertaining to the apprehension of a foreign subjectivity determine that it is precisely a disjunction in subjective processes that is constitutive of the Other being other. In my approach to (...) this problem, I seek, within the context of a reading of Edith Stein’s work 'On the Problem of Empathy', to clarify the place of ascription in authentic empathy, and to render more explicit a certain notion of “contiguity” that I take to be informing Stein’s understanding of the co-givenness of the Other’s mental life. I go on to argue that a resolution to the problem of empathy lies in the idea that the respective lived experiences of self and Other are, as a matter of descriptive fact, phenomenally connected by a relation of resemblance, and that, consonantly, the essential structure of authentic empathy is characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to picture consciousness. (shrink)

Edith Stein’s early phenomenological texts describe community as a special unity that is fully lived through in consciousness. In her later works, unity is described in more theological terms as participation in the communal fullness and wholeness of God or Being. Can these two accounts of community or human belonging be reconciled? I argue that consciousness can bring to the fore the meaning of community, thereby conditioning our lived-experience of community, but it can also, through Heideggerian questioning, uncover that which (...) remains somewhat hidden from consciousness itself: its own ground or condition of possibility, namely, being—a being that is both one and many, unified, communalised, and very diversified. If my reading of Stein is correct, the traditional understanding of the split between Stein’s strictly Husserlian/phenomenological period and her later Christian philosophical period must be renegotiated, at least when it comes to the philosophical problem of community or human togetherness. (shrink)