An Investigation Concerning the State

by Edith Stein, Marianne Sawicki (translator)

Any state exists only for the benefit of human beings. This basic tenet of Edith Stein's political thought rests on her conviction that humanity is fundamentally one community, precious beyond measure. Differences of race, culture, and language offer us means to grasp the values of life uniquely so that we may share them universally, reaching across all such social boundaries. Stein wrote this treatise in the early days of the Weimar Republic, shortly after the First World War. It sets forth a philosophy of law, government, and administration that is at once idealistic and practical. What is right, Stein argues, does not arise from legislation or litigation or politics. Right relations, as such, are more basic than any institution. Here, too, are Stein's first serious discussions of religious issues such as quilt, expiation, and freedom of conscience. This is the philosophical work that immediately preceded her decision to be baptized on January 1, 1922. Whether ironically or predictably, Stein was put to death twenty years later by a state that brazenly defied nearly every principle that she had defended in this treatise. In death she bore personal witness to the unity and dignity of the human race. She perished with her people, Jews and Christians alike, at Auschwitz in August 1942.

Genres: Philosophy

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Edith Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, OCD, (German: Teresia Benedicta vom Kreuz, Latin: Teresia Benedicta a Cruce) (12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942), was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to the Roman Catholic Church and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church.

She was born into an observant Jewish family, but was an atheist by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of World War I, in 1915 she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in a hospital for the prevention of disease outbreaks. After completing her doctoral thesis in 1916 from the University of Göttingen, she obtained an assistantship at the University of Freiburg.

From reading the works of the reformer of the Carmelite Order, St. Teresa of Jesus, OCD, she was drawn to the Catholic Faith. She was baptized on 1 January 1922 into the Roman Catholic Church. At that point she wanted to become a Discalced Carmelite nun, but was dissuaded by her spiritual mentors. She then taught at a Catholic school of education in Speyer. As a result of the requirement of an "Aryan certificate" for civil servants promulgated by the Nazi government in April 1933 as part of its Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, she had to quit her teaching position. She was admitted to the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne the following October. She received the religious habit of the Order as a novice in April 1934, taking the religious name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross ("Teresa blessed by the Cross"). In 1938 she and her sister Rosa, by then also a convert and an extern Sister of the monastery, were sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands for their safety. Despite the Nazi invasion of that state in 1940, they remained undisturbed until they were arrested by the Nazis on 2 August 1942 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gas chamber on 9 August 1942.

Reviews

[Daniel Stepke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stein has some masterful insights to share, and she properly uses what phenomenology calls "eidetic analysis" on the state--isolating the concept of a thing to its necessary attributes. While the language is complicated, and there are huge problems left unsolved (for example, basically throwing her hands up at the relationship between the sovereignty of the state and the sovereignty of God) she has quite a few interesting ideas to share. She seems to provide a better explanation of the origins of the state than social contract theory (arising from a community to form a culture), she fascinatingly claims that a state could exist entirely without land (for all the organizational needs of a state could be met without it, so long as the needs of the non-physical citizens were met) and most fascinatingly of all, proposes that the chief value of the state is its personal and inherent value. Sure, a state can help meet the human ends of life or achieve justice, but its chief value lies in being what it is, a component of the "person" of a culture. There is something deeply right about this, and it begs further reflection.