Abstract
The present account of Edith Stein’s philosophy has described her search for the essential structures of person, of community and the state, of woman and education. Like the other members of the original Husserlian circle at Göttingen, she explores and attempts to implement the Master’s concept of phenomenology as a science of essences (Wesenswissenschaften). Her method models Husserl’s ideal of phenomenological inquiry into the essential nature of things by way of descriptive analysis of the objects given to consciousness. From her earliest writings, however, to her final philosophical work, Finite and Eternal Being (Endliches and Ewiges Sein), she insists on examining the question of the relation of essence (Wesen) to existence (Sein),a question from which Husserl prescinds in his method. The object for Husserl is always the intentional object. He directs his attention to the world-for-consciousness, although he holds that the intentions which are directed to the “things” of cognition are ultimately founded through sensation and perception.1 Stein and other associates of Husserl were constantly questioning how the mental activity of the subject, working on the raw material of sensation, constructs its world in manifold acts and assemblage of acts. As she expresses the question, “How is the world constructed for a consciousness which I can explore in immanence?”2
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Notes
Ideen,pp. 91 ff. Also Logische Untersubhungen I (Niemeyer, 4th ed., Halle, 1928), chapters 1 and 2, pp. 8 ff. Hereafter cited as L.U. The ambivalence of Husserl’s works in regard to realism and idealism has resulted in divergent interpretations, including the position that the question is irrelevant in a phenomenology which finds objectivity in subjectivity. Paul Ricoeur says of phenomenology that it appears as a combat between two tendencies, the one toward respecting the “altereity” of that which “appears,” and the other toward the reduction of the “altereity” to the monadic life of the ego. Cf. “Études sur les Méditations Cartesiennes de Husserl,” in Revue philosophique de Louvain,LII (1954), 108–109. Cf. also Journée,pp. 33, 105–106, et passim.
Festschrift,p. 326.
Cf. Journée,p. 72; also p. 3, note 1 of: Quentin Lauer, Philosophie comme science rigoreuse (Les Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1955. Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Husserl’s “Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,” Logos I (1910).
Selbstbildnis in Briefen, I,letter 8.
Journée,pp. 109–111.
E.E.S.,chapters 3 and 4.
Ibid.,pp. 117 ff. Cf. De Ente.
Jean Hering, “Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit, und die Idee,” in Jahrbuch,IV (1921), 496–497. Edith Stein refers to this article extensively in her treatment of essence. Hereafter referred to as Bemerkungen.
E.E.S.,pp. 61 ff.
Ibid.,pp. 143–162.
In VII Met.,5, 1379; In I Sent.,12,1,1; De Ente,cc. 2 and 3.
E.E.S.,pp. 71 ff.
Bemerkungen,pp. 495–543.
L.U.,II, 1, 225 ff.
Ideen I,226 ff.; 315 ff.
E.E.S.,p. 99.
Cf. Aquinas, De Ente,c. 6; In VII Met.,12, 1552; De Ver.,4, 1, ad 8.
E.E.S.,p. 146.
Ibid.,p. 149.
Particularly Book VII (Z).
The following is Stein’s schema of being, formulated from material on pp. 147 ff. and pp. 303 ff., E.E.S.:
Ibid.,p. 141. I. Existenz 1. Dasein or Wirkliches Sein, real being 2. Ideale Gegenstände, ideal objects II. Gedankliches Sein 1. Sein-im-Geist, being-in-the-mind a. That which is derived from the experience of real being b. That which is derived from the knowledge of essential possibilities 2. Blosses Gedacht-sein, mere being of reason. III. Wesenhaftes Sein 1. Wesenheiten, the simple essences 2. Washeiten, the composite meaning structures Sinngebilde
Ibid.,pp. 273–274.
Ibid.,pp. 305–306.
Ibid.,pp. 101–103, 310–311. She quotes Aquinas De. Pot.,3, 5, ad 2.
Ibid.,pp. 108–112.
Ibid.,pp. 225–226.
See note 21 above.
E.E.S.,pp. 112–114.
Ibid.,pp. 257–301.
Modern Schoolman,XXIX (1951–1952), 139–145. Cf. also Guilead, pp. 207–230.
The principal texts of Aquinas which Stein refers to are: De Ver., 1, 1; 21, 1; 22. 1. De Ente. S.T.,I,5,4ad1;I-II,27, 1, ad 3.
Elementa philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae,Freiburg, 1929. On Stein’s treatment of Gredt, see: Matthieu Braukinamwo, Edith Stein (Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Bern, 1982), pp. 80–97.
E.E.S.,p. 269.
Ibid.,pp. 273–279.
Ibid.,pp. 279–284.
Ibid.,pp. 284–288.
Ibid.,pp. 290–292; also p. 271.
Ibid.,pp. 293–296. Here she indicates the influence of Max Scheler’s Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Halle, 1913).
E.E.S.,pp. 288-.
Ibid.,pp. 296–301.
VIII, “Sinn und Begründung des Einzelseins,” pp. 431–482.
Ibid.,pp. 454–455.
She does not go into detail and consider all possibilities; e.g., the reproduction by division of one-celled animals, etc.
E.E.S.,pp. 455–457. Cf. Guilead, pp. 309–310.
It is interesting here to compare Stein’s meaning of feeling with that of Suzanne Langer in her work, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, 3 v. (Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, 1967–1982).
E.E.S.,p. 460, note 53, in which she quotes Husserl’s principle: “dass jede originar gebende Anschauung eine Rechtsquelle des Erkenntnis sei….” Ideen (Halle, 1913), p. 43. Husserl’s complete statement is translateed by W. R. Boyce Gibson as follows: “that every primordial dator intuition is a source of authority for knowledge,that whatever presents itself in `intuition’ in primordial form (as it were in its bodily reality) is simply to be accepted as it gives itself out to be,though only within the limits in which it then presents itself” Ideas,p. 92. (Italics as in originals.)
E.E.S.,pp. 457–460.
Ibid.,p. 446, note 4.
See above, pp. 111 ff.
The Person and the Common Good (Notre Dame, Ind., 1966), Chapter III, “Individuality and Personality.” pp. 31–46.
Cf. Aquinas, S.T.,I, 85, 7; C.G.,II, 68 and 81, 7–16; In Sent.,32, 2, 3. Throughout the chapter, Stein discusses the Thomistic theory of individuation, which she does not accept in its emphasis on matter as the principle of individuation. She also criticizes interpretations of Gredt.
Op. cit.,p. 36.
E.E.S.,pp. 460–466.
Ibid.,pp. 466–482.
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Baseheart, M.C. (1997). Essence and Existence. In: Person in the World. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 27. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2566-8_6
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