Person in the World: Introduction to the Philosophy of Edith Stein

by Mary Catherine Baseheart

Edith Stein has become almost a legend in recent years largely because of her heroic personality and her death in Auschwitz at the hands of the Nazis. She is known also as an eminent German-jewish-Christian intellectual and feminist, but more in the realm of the sacred than of the secular. Both are essential to understanding her. To know the real Edith Stein one must have some knowledge of her as philosopher, for philosophy was central to her very being. For this reason the present work is designed to be of interest to the general reader as well as to philosophers. Many of the latter have given evidence of interest in Stein's phenomenology and may welcome an introduction that gives clues to its substance and quality. Those who knew Edith Stein personally and professionally--Edmund Husser!, Roman lngarden, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Peter Wust, and other friends at the universities of G6ttingen and Freiburg--affirm her genius and her passionate pursuit of truth in philosophy. james Collins, distinguished American historian of philosophy, who discovered some of her works about the time she died, wrote that "we may expect critical studies on her philosophy to multiply rapidly with the issuance of her collected works and the recognition of her high philosophical genius."l The fact is that this has not happened, although fourteen of her major works have been published posthumously by Nauwelaerts and Herder, and many are available from other sources.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 1899

Reviews

[Christopher Blosser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent survey of the philosophical thought of Edith Stein (“St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross”). Just an introductory encounter with her thought — initially as a disciple of Husserl, but moving beyond — brought to my mind a sense of loss suffered by her perishing in the Holocaust.

One can only speculate what she might have gone on to do academically had she lived. Even so, her accomplishments are many as indicated here, in substantial detail.

The last chapter on her work on “Finite and Infinite Being” is gold: particularly beneficial reading for me. Whereas many see a gulf between the two schools of phenomenology and Aristotelian-Thomist epistemology and metaphysics, she aptly demonstrates how her schooling in the former nourished a genuine appreciation and exploration of the latter. (Some parallels here with her journey and that of Karol Wojtyla / John Paul II).

I also enjoyed the insightful chapter on “Community and State” with her conceptual analysis “the mass”, “society”, community” and “state” and their behavior, anticipating as well some theoretical pitfalls of National Socialism’s own understanding of the same.

[Laura Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit I didn't read every single chapter but I read a good chunk of this for my essay and I was so impressed. This woman is so smart she could translate Stein's dense philosophy into something I could understand!! A beautifully integrated look at Stein as a person and her philosophy.