These are the working notes/handouts given to the resident philosophers and scholars for the de Nobili Endowment Lecture held at Chennai, on 27th October, 2022. These have been printed and circulated among the attendees before the lecture. The lecture itself will be published in a book form. The de Nobili Endowment Lecture was given by the author at Satya Nilayam International Jesuit Centre for Philosophical Excellence affiliated to the University of Madras and (...) which is part of Loyola (Autonomous) College, Chennai on 27th October, 2022 at 6.20 pm in an offline event. The main contention of the paper is that Dr. Edith Stein through her work on Empathy resolves problems of Empathy encountered in Advaita Vedanta. (shrink)

Originally published: New York: Random House, 1972.

I focus on empathy from an eidetic perspective, that provided by Edith Stein in her work On the Problem of Empathy and which I call eidetics of empathy. I suggest that the eidetics of empathy allows us to inquire efficaciously into the structure of empathy, and therefore into the relation between empathy on the one hand, and embodied personal identity and intersubjectivity on the other. I argue that the eidetics of empathy sheds light on the complexity, heterogeneity and (...) also fragility of the acts of empathy that we perform in our everyday life with respect to others, and provides us with the conceptual tools to address crucial questions such as: What is the specific and distinctive structure of empathy? What are the conditions of possibility of the performance of acts of empathy? Are there different fulfilment degrees of empathy? What role do living bodies play in the performance of acts of empathy? How is it possible to prevent and correct mistakes of empathy? I deal with these issues in making three points on the eidetics of empathy. My first point is that the eidetics of empathy allows us to understand empathy as one type of acts of perceiving others and their experiences directly and as a whole that is subject to variations of its parts – the limits of possible co-variations of its parts correspond to the essential structure of empathy. Secondly, I focus on the eidetic issue of the possible co-variations of parts of the empathy-type: the content and the degree of fulfilment and accomplishment of empathy acts, the layer of the person they address, the varieties of living beings with whom we can empathize. Thirdly, I argue that the eidetics of empathy exemplifies very well the ontologically qualitative issue of degrees of existence of any entity in relation to its eidetic paradigm, and it is a prime example of how phenomenological eidetics can be a qualitative ontology dealing with qualitative issues that are crucial in our everyday life. (shrink)

The problem I wish to address here is how Edith Stein‘s theory of shared empathy and psychotherapeutic group therapy are required condition for any successful work with patients in medical and clients in philosophical praxis. Moreover, a theory of shared empathy must also account for the arguably more intricate issue of how group members might properly share an own mental domain with its distinctive phenomenology, and its distinctive attitudes toward one another, so that the necessarily self-testimonies of clients (...) does not rest on a previous pathological state. In the following, I aim to offer some steps towards solving this problem. I will do so by outlining what methodology lies behind the theory of shared empathy, and showing how, on the results of a case study, it can be applied in a way whereby it still accommodates all requirements for what counts as valid coherence of self-testimony and successful client’s healing. (shrink)

Resumen El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar que Edith Stein, en su tesis de doctorado, pone las bases de una interpretación filosófica religiosa y filosófico política de la “empatía”, tomando distancia de las investigaciones y críticas de Max Scheler a dicho concepto en el Sjmpathiebuch. En otras palabras, al entender Edith Stein la empatía como la experiencia del sujeto ajeno y de su vivencia y extenderla no sólo a la relación con los otros seres humanos, sino que (...) también a Dios, pone los fundamentos de un rendimiento filosófico religioso de esta problemática cardinal de la fenomenología que no se encuentra, al menos expuesto de esa manera, en el Sjmpathiebuch de Scheler. Además, es posible identificar algunas aplicaciones de la empatía al ámbito político que permiten entender la relación entre individuo y comunidad.The aim of this article is to show that Edith Stein, in her doctoral thesis, establish the ground-work for a philosophical-religious or philosophical-spiritual interpretation of "empathy", taking away the research and criticism o/Max Scheler to this concept in the Sjmpathiebuch. In other words, as Edith Stein understands the empathy as the experience of the strangers and extends it not only to the relationship with other human beings, but also to God, it establish the foundations of a philosophical-religious performance of this main problem of phenomenology that is not found, at least exposed in this way, in the Sjmpathiebuch Scheler. In addition, it is possible to identify some applications of empathy to the political sphere that allow understanding the relationship between individual and community. (shrink)

In[aut]Stein, EdiththeOntologysocial 1930s essays, SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith develops a theory of vocationVocation closely resembling Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund’s ethicsEthic of the “true selfSelftrue” as he was developing it in the 1920s, but may also be found in the conclusion to the 1920/24 lecture course, Einleitung in die Ethik, and in numerous manuscript studies from the 1920s and 1930s recently published in Husserliana Vol. XLII.) as well as Scheler[aut]Scheler, Max’s thought on personal destiny in the essay “Ordo Amoris\”Ordo Amoris”, by Scheler, (...) Max”. For all three thinkers, vocationVocation is specific both to individuals and to one’s humanity in general in setting before us a particular moral calling to become who one truly is. While SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith’s ideaIdea of vocationVocation, here, seems to refer to an individualIndividual’s “personal naturePersonpersonal nature” and how this nature sets forth a particular course of life, nonetheless SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith indicates that this “personal naturePersonpersonal nature” and the particular vocational call of the individualIndividual is itself conditioned by essentially social processes. I will argue that SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith had already worked out the description of the constitutionConstitution of the moral self and its vocationVocation through belonging to a communityCommunity sufficient to support this later position in her early work in phenomenologyPhenomenology, and in particular On the Problem of Empathy\”On the Problem of Empathy”, by Stein, Edith as well as her Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities\”Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities”, by Stein, Edith. SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith’s argument is that the moral self is not and cannot be radically individualIndividual, nor constituted wholly individually, but is brought to givenness only in the context of a social realityReality, disclosing a constitutive connection between individualIndividual and communityCommunity in moral contexts. Finding the phenomenological resources for developing an account of the selfSelf, the in this way heads off a certain danger, potentially implicit in a phenomenological account of the moral task as a “personal” vocationVocation, to think of the moral task as radically individualIndividual, i.e. as constituted independently of one’s belonging to a communityCommunity. Likewise, Timothy Martell[aut]Martell, Timothy sees a similar problem at work in Heidegger[aut]Heidegger, Martin’s conception of the authentic self, which seems to see the authentic self as somehow independent of and in tension with social realityReality. While I take no position here, on the adequateness of these as authentic readings of either Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmundor Heidegger[aut]Heidegger, Martin, it seems nonetheless that SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith’s approach to the problem of social ontologyOntologysocial and her later work on the theory of vocationVocation offers an escape from the temptation present in phenomenological readings of moral selfhoodSelfhood to take the moral self and the moral vocationVocation in purely individualistic terms.). Thus, if SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith can show, phenomenologically, that and how one’s moral self is constituted within a social context, then her thought can make an important contribution to the growing field of literature on phenomenological ethical theory. I will attempt to lay bare here the general outlines of SteinXE „[aut]Stein, Edith’s social ontologyOntologysocial as developed in her early works and its applicability to the discussion of the sources of personal moral identityIdentitymoral. (shrink)

ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH OF EDITH STEIN (translated by Inna Savynska)The main Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden in his lecture presents a cross-section of Edith Stein writings and demonstrates the shot timeliness of her ideas. Roman Ingarden was a Stein’s friend from the time of her studies in Göttingen;he knew her ideas and conceptions. He wrote that hers was a search for ananswer to the main question: «What is the structure of man?» That is why she proposed a (...) phenomenological analysis by «Empathy». Stein’s theses «On the Problem of Empathy» is the central object in this lecture. In that work, Stein first focuses on such phenomena as the human body, soul, spirit, experience, consciousness. While discussing Stein’s concepts, Ingarden presents also the evolution of her ideas from realistic phenomenology to mystical theology of Saint John of the Cross’ and Saint Theresa of Avila’s. Roman Ingarden did not enter as firmly as Stein into the mystical range, but he opened a path into the transcendence by creating an idea of metaphysical qualities. In her dissertation, Stein first focuses on the phenomenon of the human body and soul. Ingarden considers pairs of phenomenological notions «Leib- Körper», «Seele-Geist». Their relationships form an ontology of a Person. The anthropological questions, which Edith Stein raised in her academic research, bring about a constitutive element of man – Geist. Empathy is an instrument that help to recognize Geist and Personal experience – truth about man. (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)

I will discuss Stein’s first major philosophical work, On the Problem of Empathy. I’ll first present some of the background context to the composition of this work and then discuss some of the themes of the work that I find intriguing.

This paper deals with phenomenological distinctions concerning empathy with real persons and empathy with fictional characters. We will introduce both contemporary accounts of our perception of others and Edith Stein’s account of empathy. These theories will turn out to be fruitful in defending our main thesis, i.e. that the differences between empathy with real people and empathy with fictional characters are not structural but just qualitative. We will argue that in both cases empathy is a direct act of perceiving (...) others and their lived experience. However, stemming from Stein’s work, we will underline that empathy with real persons is in principio more vivid and intense than empathy with fictional characters. In order to identify similarities and differences between empathy de vivo and empathy in fiction, we will focus on the following issues: the quality of perception; the motivational context and the “life-world context”; the ontological status of persons vs. characters. (shrink)

This paper presents and explicates the theory of empathy found in Edith Stein’s early philosophy, notably in the book On the Problem of Empathy, published in 1917, but also by proceeding from complementary thoughts on bodily intentionality and intersubjectivity found in Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities published in 1922. In these works Stein puts forward an innovative and detailed theory of empathy, which is developed in the framework of a philosophical anthropology involving questions of psychophysical causality, social (...) ontology and moral philosophy. Empathy, according to Stein, is a feeling-based experience of another person’s feeling that develops throughout three successive steps on two interrelated levels. The key to understanding the empathy process á la Stein is to explicate how the steps of empathy are attuned in nature, since the affective qualities provide the energy and logic by way of which the empathy process is not only inaugurated but also proceeds through the three steps and carries meaning on two different levels corresponding to two different types of empathy: sensual and emotional empathy. Stein’s theory has great potential for better understanding and moving beyond some major disagreements found in the contemporary empathy debate regarding, for instance, the relation between perception and simulation, the distinction between what is called low-level and high-level empathy, and the issue of how and in what sense it may be possible to share feelings in the empathy process. (shrink)

In this chapter, Edith Stein offers an analysis of empathy with others, which she sees as a fundamental trait of the human being. In her view, empathy is a condition of possibility for sociality and sympathy, rather than the other way around. She grounds empathy in human embodiment, more precisely in the way in which the human being is embodied mind and minded body. Stein’s work on empathy represents a pathbreaking contribution to phenomenology and shows how she makes active (...) use of and goes beyond the works of Edmund Husserl, Alexander Pfänder, and others. (shrink)

Gerda Walther[aut] Walther, Gerda has no developed account of empathyEmpathy; rather, she draws from the writings of early phenomenologists and psychologists on empathy. Generally, for Walther[aut]Walther, Gerda, empathy is an act of mind that permits the understanding of another’s consciousnessConsciousness and experienceExperience. Edith Stein[aut]Edith Stein, in many respects, lays the ground for a phenomenological account of empathy. Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s treatment of intersubjectivityIntersubjectivity and the nature of intersubjective acts such as empathy draws greatly from Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund. There exist (...) three primary sources for Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s analysis of empathy, all of which were written while Stein[aut]Stein, Edith was still in direct contact with Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund either as his student, assistant or as a private researcher attempting to habilitate. The primary and better known source is Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s doctoral dissertation published originally in 1917, titled On the Problem of Empathy\”On the Problem of Empathy”, by Stein, Edith. The text, which is the only extant portion of her doctoral dissertation, sets the stage for Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s later work on the subject. Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund was pleased by Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s selection of the topic, but he wanted her to give more of a historical overview, with special reference to Lipps[aut]Lipps, Hans’ work. Hence, the text is replete with discussions of notable philosophers like Scheler[aut]Scheler, Max, Dilthey[aut]Dilthey, Wilhelm, and Lipps[aut]Lipps, Hans. The second major work that addresses empathy is to be found in Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities\”Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities”, by Stein, Edith. This work was published in Volume V of Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund’s Jahrbuch and consists of two principal texts: PsychicCausalityCausalityPsychic and Individual and Community. This text comes from Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s period during and after her assistantship with Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund. The text is largely, but not exclusively, based on her work on Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund’s Ideen II. The last source is Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s research manuscript titled, Einführung in die Philosophie. (shrink)

RESUMEN En su primera investigación, Edith Stein se propuso definir la esencia de la Einfühlung (empatía) como experiencia de la conciencia ajena; pretendía así fundamentar que, como había indicado Husserl, ese acto abría la posibilidad de una intersubjetividad trascendental como solución al solipsismo de la conciencia. Stein halló la clave de esa esencia en la idea de originariedad, pero intentó evitar el problema de la empatía estética, sirviéndose de Los ídolos del autoconocimiento de Scheler. ABSTRACT In her first research (...) project, Edith Stein set out to define the essence of Einfühlung (empathy) as an experience of another's consciousness. Her objective was to justify the fact that such an act opened up the possibility of a transcendental subjectivity as a solution to the solipsism of consciousness, as Husserl had indicated. Stein found the key to that essence in the idea of originariety, but she tried to avoid the problem of aesthetic empathy by resorting to Scheler's Idols of Self-Knowledge. RESUMO Em sua primeira pesquisa, Edith Stein se propôs a definir a essência da Einfühlung (empatia) como experiência da consciência alheia; pretendia assim fundamentar que, como tinha indicado Husserl, esse ato abria a possibilidade de uma intersubjetividade transcendental como solução ao solipsismo da consciência. Stein encontrou a chave dessa essência na ideia de originalidade, mas tentou evitar o problema da empatia estética ao se servir de Os ídolos do autoconhecimento de Scheler. (shrink)

The question of how other consciousnesses appear via media has forced us to re-think the classical phenomenological accounts of sociality. However, as the phenomenological account of empathy is very much centred around the perception of the other’s living body, it has faced challenges in discussing the empathic experience in media-based contexts, where we cannot perceive the other’s body, but something else, such as a screen or a text. In this article, I provide the concept for describing the perceived object in (...) media-based empathy: a living textual body, based on Edith Stein’s concept of Wortleib (a living word body) referring to words as “living,” as bearers of meaning in her early work On the Problem of Empathy [Zum Problem der Einfühlung]. I divide the term Wortleib in two different cases—the empathic and non-empathic object—and thereby argue that, while the object of media-based empathic experience cannot be the other’s body, it is an empathic Wortleib, a communicative empathic object. While Stein herself discussed media-based empathy merely in paper media, I demonstrate the unique usefulness of these concepts in analysing any media-based communication and thus the timeliness of her work in this respect. (shrink)

The chronological proximity of the Marburg neo-Kantian school and Edith Stein's phenomenological philosophy, and - related to this - the existence of common philosophical problems allow us to approach the question of the relationship between Edith Stein and the Marburg neo-Kantian school not looking for similarities, but rather comparing the points of view of Edith Stein and Paul Natorp (the author chosen to represent this School) on the same problems.

Written more than a hundred years ago, Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy is, today more than ever, essential reading material for anyone interested in social cognition. In this book – which still inspires current research – Stein provides a systematic account of the empathic experience. Stein’s view of empathy as a process, and her understanding of its main forms and functions in presenting the other as a spiritual being, provide valuable insights on the intersubjective nature of the human (...) being. Yet, it is not only from the perspective of social cognition that Stein’s book is relevant today. In fact, the book approaches a wide range of issues, from the idea of personhood to social ontology and ethics, and it exemplifies the power of phenomenology to shed light on the basic structure of human consciousness (for an overview: Calcagno 2007; Lebech 2004; MacIntyre 2006; Moran 2004). In this chapter, my aim is to explore the relevance of Stein’s book on empathy for contemporary research by focusing on three main issues which, in my view, can enrich current scholarship. The first issue concerns Stein’s understanding of empathy as a three-step process through which we become conscious of the other’s experience. The second relates to her views of the intentional structure of the emotions as revelatory of the realm of value. The third is her idea that not only emotions but also moods might have correlates, e.g., the fact that the world appears to be bathed in black for the depressive person. These three issues are not exhaustive of the ways in which Stein’s early work can be an inspiration for today’s researchers, but they are illustrative of how her insights can advance three central debates of contemporary philosophy: on social cognition, on the relation between emotion and value, and on the intentionality of moods. (shrink)

This paper compares Edith Stein’s phenomenological approach to empathy in On the Problem of Empathy (1917) with that of more recent neurological explanations of empathy, broadly exemplified by Tania Singer’s (2006) work. Given that we are dealing with two different methodologies that reflect the general debate that exists between phenomenology and natural science (neurology), a consideration of ‘method’ will be discussed prior to our comparative analysis of Stein and Singer’s account of empathy. In conclusion, we argue that Stein’s (...) phenomenological understanding of empathy provides the most comprehensive description of the act of empathy to date for neurologists to ‘reflect ’ on. (shrink)

Edith Stein is considered a leading figure in the early phenomenological movement and the disciple who performed in the best way the phenomenological method proposed by Husserl, and yet her relationship to phenomenology remains unclear in the literature. This article seeks to add clarity to her relationship to phenomenology while considering three inescapably related questions. (1) What did Stein conceive phenomenology to be? (2) How should we understand Husserl’s influence on Stein? (3) Was Stein an original phenomenological thinker? I (...) argue that Stein conceives of phenomenology as an epistemological critique that aims to clarify the essential foundations of knowledge. It involves intentional analysis that proceeds by way of essential-seeing (Wesensschau), which can be brought about through the method of free imaginative variation, and its intentional analysis involves close attention to the relationship between meaning-intention and meaning-fulfillment. I argue that the primary influence Husserl exerts on Stein is in the development of phenomenology as conceived in his Logical Investigations. Finally, I offer an understanding of how Stein conceived of her differences with Husserl on the issue of idealism in order to argue that Stein’s phenomenological writings in On the Problem of Empathy and “Sentient Causality” offer us a novel phenomenological account of the human being that begins with the ego but escapes being a mere egology. (shrink)

This paper presents a phenomenological account of empathy inspired by the proposal put forward by Edith Stein in her book On the Problem of Empathy, published originally 1917. By way of explicating Stein’s views, the paper aims to present a characterization of empathy that is in some aspects similar to, but yet essentially different from contemporary simulationist theories of empathy. An attempt is made to show that Stein’s proposal articulates the essential ingredients and steps involved in empathy and (...) that her proposal can be made even more comprehensive and elucidating by stressing the emotional aspect of the empathy process. Empathy, according to such a phenomenological proposal, is to be understood as a perceptual-imaginative feeling towards and with the other person’s experiences made possible by affective bodily schemas and being enhanced by a personal concern for her. To experience empathy does not necessarily or only mean to experience the same type of feeling as the target does; it means feeling alongside the feeling of the target in imagining and explicating a rich understanding of the experiences of the very person one is facing. (shrink)

The paper presents a semiotic interpretation of the phenomenological debate on the notion of person, focusing in particular on Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Edith Stein. The semiotic interpretation lets us identify the categories that orient the debate: collective/individual and subject/object. As we will see, the phenomenological analysis of the relation between person and social units such as the community, the association, and the mass shows similarities to contemporary socio-semiotic models. The difference between community, association, and mass provides an (...) explanation for the establishment of legal systems. The notion of person we inherit from phenomenology can also be useful in facing juridical problems raised by the use of non-human decision-makers such as machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence applications. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the study of the emotions in Edith Stein’s early work On the Problem of Empathy. After presenting her work embedded in the tradition of the early phenomenology of the emotions, I shall elaborate the four dimensions of the emotional experience according to this authoress, the link between emotions and values and the phenomenon of the living body. I argue that Stein’s account on empathy remains incomplete as long as we ignore the complex phenomenology (...) of emotions underlying her work. (shrink)

If the possible ends of art criticism are taken to include not only the provision of a detailed evaluation of the artwork, but, cognately, an elaboration upon how one has been, or believes oneself to have been, changed by a particular artistic encounter, then the very praxis of art criticism stands to benefit from a theoretical elucidation of the possible nature of the subjective transformations that may flow from the critical appreciation of art. We are entitled to enquire, in particular, (...) into the conditions under which, and indeed the extent to which, such putative change at the personal level can be explicated in moral epistemological terms. It is pertinent in this context also to investigate the phenomenal character of the experiences that have been operative and their essential structures; to enquire, in short, into the phenomenology of the transformative artistic encounter. In this thesis, the bearing, in particular, of intersubjectivity upon the content and modalities of disclosure in a literary context will be investigated. It will be shown how an understanding of the relevance of intersubjectivity to the phenomenology of literary experience can inform an assessment of the claims of literary aesthetic moral cognitivism. Yet the intention to clarify the connection between literary experience and intersubjectivity also requires reflection upon what it is in the first place to encounter someone else, and to apperceive a foreign subjectivity and its motivations. For this reason, the contributions of Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein to the investigation of the phenomenology of empathy will be discussed and evaluated. This discussion will in turn be shown to be of assistance in clarifying the role of the imagination in the apperception and comprehension of another person’s mental life. The thought of Jean Starobinski will prove to elucidate the question of why the insights of the phenomenological tradition are highly pertinent to the investigation of literary experience, and to the development, in particular, of a conception of an imagined ‘Other’ who is (in a sense that will be clarified) embedded within the literary text, a person, that is, to whom one might coherently refer as the “implied author”. For reasons which will emerge in the course of this study, it will be argued that authentic empathy, in its fulfilling explication (in the Steinian sense), is given to the empathising consciousness in the manner of a semblance, and, consonantly, that the phenomenological structure of authentic empathy is characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to pictureconsciousness. The epistemological significance of literature’s capacities for moral suggestion will be explicated principally in terms of the unfolding of values within the human personality, and in terms of the disclosure of the phenomenal character and structures of virtuous experience. It will be explained why the structure of empathy has implications for the aesthetic value of literature. The question of the relation between aesthetic and ethical value will be clarified. In this context, it will be argued on phenomenological grounds that the appresentation of moral virtue in an implied author could contribute to the aesthetic value of a literary work, although it will also be shown that implied authorial moral virtue could conflict irremediably with other qualities like moral doubt and uncertainty, which may themselves be important sources of aesthetic value. For this reason, the thesis will conclude by challenging the ethicist view that an aesthetically relevant ethical flaw in a literary work must count as an aesthetic flaw. (shrink)

This initial volume of the Collected Works of Edith Stein offers, for the first time in English, the unabridged biography of Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), depicting her life as a child and young adult. Her text ends abruptly because the Nazi SS arrested, then deported, her to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. Edith Stein is one of the most significant German women of the 20th century. At the age of twenty-five she became the (...) first assistant to Edmund Husserl, the founder of Phenomenology. She was much in demand as a writer and lecturer after her conversion from atheism to Catholicism. Later, as a Discalced Carmelite nun, she maintained her intellectual pursuits until she, like so many others, became a victim of the Nazi persecution that raged across Eastern Europe. By making this landmark work available in English, the Institute of Carmelite Studies provides an eye-witness account of persons and activities on the scene at the time when psychology and philosophy became separate disciplines. In addition to photographs and a map, this volume is enhanced with a preface, the foreword and afterword, notes, and a list of places associated with Edith Stein’s life. It is our aim that these, together with Edith Stein’s text, may help bring into relief the many background details of the rich autobiographical work she has left us. (shrink)

La psicología es una rama científica relativamente nueva y a la que todavía le faltan bases metodológicas consistentes para fundamentar sus investigaciones. Dada su inmadurez, tal ciencia tiene dificultades para delimitar su estatuto ontológico, lo que genera diversos equívocos epistemológicos y metodológicos. Así, se impone una cuestión fundamental para la aclaración del objeto de la psicología: el problema mente-cuerpo. En ese sentido, el objetivo de este artículo, basado en la fenomenología de Edith Stein, es analizar algunos trabajos de la (...) filósofa, a saber: “Causalidad Psíquica” e “Introducción a la Filosofía”. De esa manera, a través de las investigaciones de Stein acerca de la psique y del cuerpo, se concluye que es posible concebir la cuestión psique/mente-cuerpo como una unidad-dual que se instancia en el Leib.Psychology is a relatively new scientific branch that still lacks consistent methodological foundations to support their investigations. Given their immaturity, that science still faces difficulties to delimit its ontological status, which raises various epistemological and methodological misconceptions. Thus, there is a fundamental question for an elucidation of the object of Psychology: the mindbody problem. The proposal of this article, in this sense, is to discuss the mind-body problem in the light of the Phenomenology of Edith Stein, seeking from there lay the fundation of Psychology. For this, some works of the philosopher was analysed, namely: “Psychic Causality” and “Introduction to Philosophy”. In this way, through the investigations of Stein about the psyche and body, concluded that it is possible to conceive the psyche/mind-body issue while a dual-unit that instantiates in the Leib. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to make use of Edith Stein’s phenomenological analyses of empathy, emotion, and personhood to clarify and critically assess the recent suggestion by Axel Honneth that a basic form of recognition is affective in nature. I will begin by considering Honneth’s own presentation of this claim in his discussion of the role of affect in recognitive gestures, as well as in his notion of ‘elementary recognition,’ arguing that while his account contains much of value (...) it also generates problems. On the basis of this analysis, I will try to show that Stein’s account of empathy demarcates an elementary form of recognition in a less problematic fashion than does Honneth’s own treatment of this issue. I will then spell out the consequences of this move for the emotional recognition thesis, arguing that Stein’s treatment lends it further credence, before ending with some remarks on the connection between recognition and emotional personality. (shrink)

This companion is both an introduction to and a guide through Edith Stein's On the Problem of Empathy. The opening essays demonstrate the work's historical significance and its relevance for contemporary philosophical discussions, while the subsequent chapters provide a clear and detailed summary of each section of Empathy.

In this paper we will try to reconstruct, starting from Husserl’s path, the genesis of Edith Stein’s philosophical itinerary and to show that, just in her detachment from Husserl’s orthodoxy, Stein will end up opening new paths to phenomenology and to reckon with questions left open by the father of phenomenology. Therefore, we will try to show that one of the most interesting aspects of the husserlian legacy revolves around the concepts of empathy and intersubjectivity developed in Edith (...) Stein’s reflection. Moreover, we will try to refute Paul Ricoeur’s remark that speaks of an illusion arising from all attempts of phenomenology to account for the existence of the other and, in doing so, we will see that the solution proposed by Stein is not only not disappointing at all but contributes to open the way to a phenomenology of otherness that does not merely flatten and confine the other to one’s self. (shrink)

RésuméJe défends que la théorie de l'empathie d'Edith Stein représente une solution de remplacement aux théories de l'empathie fondées sur la simulation. Les théories simulationnistes impliquent l'utilisation de ses propres ressources cognitives pour reproduire les états mentaux des autres en imaginant être dans leur situation. Je soutiens que cette compréhension de l'empathie est problématique dans le contexte des soins de santé mentale, car elle peut conduire à la cooptation et à l'assimilation des expériences d'une autre personne. En réponse, je (...) soutiens que la théorie de Stein est préférable parce qu'elle implique l'appréciation des expériences de l'autre telles qu'elles sont pour lui, et que cette explication alternative de l'empathie évite l'assimilation des expériences des autres. (shrink)

In an effort to reassess the status of Phenomenology of Perception and its relation to The Visible and the Invisible, this essay argues that Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's text and his discussion of the “field of presence” in La temporalité are intended to think through the field in which time makes its appearance as one of passage. Time does not show itself as presence or in the present but manifests itself as Ablauf, as lapse or flow, an écoulement that is (...) simultaneously an explosion, an éclatement. Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in these pages is thus legible as recovering the primordial experience of time as a self-differentiating déhiscence in its dual power of articulation and erosion. Time is thus simultaneously the vehicle of the world's appearance and of its “disarticulation”, the passage of a rhythm of affirmation and disintegration. Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in Phenomenology of Perception is oblique, somewhat fragmentary and circuitous.11 References to Merleau-Ponty's works cite the French followed by the English translation. I will use the abbreviation PhP for Phenomenology of Perception and VI for The Visible and the Invisible. Other texts by Merleau-Ponty will be referenced by the title. References to Husserl and Heidegger use the German followed by the translation. I will use the abbreviations ZB for the Zeitbewußtsein lectures; FT for Formale und transzendentale Logik; EU for Erfahrung und Urteil; and SZ for Sein und Zeit. View all notes While of course this phenomenon comes under close scrutiny in La temporalité, a brief inspection of this text as a whole finds it to be virtually everywhere.22 The theme of temporality is introduced as early as the Preface to Part I, “Experience and Objective Thought” and appears again in almost every subsequent chapter: the first chapter of Part I ; in his discussion on number blindness and Goldstein's patient known as Schneider in La spatialité du corps et la motricité ; in the sexuality chapter ; in the discussion of memory in La corps comme expression et la parole ; in Le sentir ; in the discussion of depth in L'espace ; in La chose et le monde naturel ; in Autrui et le monde humain and in Le cogito. Rather than providing the perhaps much called for synopsis of these scattered accounts of time or trying to locate a unified account in Phenomenology of Perception through such a synopsis, this essay will focus only on La temporalité, particularly the discussion of Husserl's diagram from the Zeitbewußtsein and the “champ de présence”. View all notes It is this apparent ubiquity that will motivate scholars such as Renaud Barbaras to claim that “… the entire structure of Phenomenology of Perception rests on a chapter devoted to temporality”.33 Barbaras The Being of the Phenomenon, 218. View all notes In spite of this ubiquity and apparent centrality, however, the treatment of temporality seems to neglect a systematic and thoroughgoing approach, and whether this work manages to address this theme with a sufficient degree of rigor remains open to debate. Furthermore, beyond the scattered and fragmented appearance of temporality in the text, the chapter devoted to its exploration contains numerous, well-recognized problems.44 Merleau-Ponty's misinterpretation of Bergson in this chapter has received much warranted attention. Alia Al-Saji, for example, has criticized Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in this chapter of Phenomenology of Perception for this misreading as well as its perhaps too uncritical infatuation with Husserl and his emphasis on presence. See Lawlor Thinking Through French Philosophy, Al-Saji “The Temporality of Life” and “A Past Which Has Never Been Present” and Barbaras “The Turn of Experience”. View all notes Among these difficulties, Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's lectures on time-consciousness, the Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins,55 The 1928 publication of the Zeitbewußtsein, edited by Heidegger, is what appears in the bibliography of Phenomenology of Perception. This version, from the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologishe Forschung, as Brough notes, appears as “Part A” of Husserliana X. The notes that constitute this version of the text, furthermore, as Heidegger mentions in his preface to the Jahrbuch version and which Brough repeats were heavily edited by Husserl's assistant at the time, Edith Stein. Merleau-Ponty's references to the Zeitbewußtsein cut across various moments of the text and do not focus on one section in particular, and in fact, he actually references section 11, “Urimpression und retentionale Modifikation”/“Primal impression and retentional modification” in his discussion of the field of presence. As Al-Saji has noted, the extent to which Merleau-Ponty's account of time in La temporalité centres the account of time on “the living present” can be shown to be at play behind the misreading of Bergson. While I do not wish to dispute the specifics of her compelling reading, it is nonetheless worth noting that Al-Saji's reading of the Zeitbewußtsein only focuses on Appendix V, “Gleichzeitigkeit von Wahrnehmung und Wahrgenommenem”/“Simultaneity of Perception and the Perceived”. View all notes looms large, as it seems that his discussion of what he designates as le champ de présence or “field of presence” commits him to the ontological primacy of the present in his account of time. As a result, this earlier work appears to confine itself to a metaphysics organized around the privilege and authority of the present in establishing the structure of time.66 Leonard Lawlor has convincingly argued against this interpretation. Following the famous remark at the end of Le Sentir about “a past which has never been present”, Lawlor argues that precisely because Merleau-Ponty's critique of Bergson is a straw man – that is, because his critique of Bergson is based on a misreading – a closer inspection of Le Sentir and La temporalité shows Merleau-Ponty to be committed to the ontological primacy of an “originary” past. See Lawlor Thinking Through French Philosophy, 89. Marratto, following Lawlor, takes up the charge of a metaphysics of presence in Phenomenology of Perception in dialogue with Derrida. Marratto argues that Derrida's reading selectively overlooks “the very imporant dimensions of difference, discontinuity, and delay and non-self-presence in Merleau-Ponty's descriptions”, located particularly in the latter's theory of subjectivity. I agree with Marratto's assessment, and my aim here is to deepen it by turning in more detail to La temporalité. View all notes This apparent commitment to the ontological primacy of the present, for some readers, has also functioned as an index for tracking the revision of Phenomenology of Perception that is said to figure in The Visible and the Invisible, where a metaphysics of the present is replaced with a commitment to the primacy of an original past, signalling a significant break in the development of Merleau-Ponty's thought.77 This has bearing on the debate mentioned above as the question of temporality and Merleau-Ponty's evolving relationship with Bergson are also cited as part of the index for tracking the differences between Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and the Invisible. What we see, according to this reading, is Merleau-Ponty move away from a more strictly phenomenological orientation of Phenomenology of Perception, an orientation that is said to adversely mediate his early, critical stance with respect to Bergson, toward a progressively less Husserlian and more Bergsonian stance in The Visible and the Invisible. While he does not specifically address Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Bergson, Marratto's reading also places a special emphasis on the significance of the past, specifically Merleau-Ponty's reference to a “past which has never been present”. It is also not my intention to enter into the question of Merleau-Ponty's relationship with Bergson. Rather, I will restrict my remarks specifically to Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl and the Zeitbewußtsein in La temporalité in order to show that there are grounds for at least questioning one of the premises of the interpretation mentioned above, namely that Phenomenology of Perception is unequivocally legible as committed to the ontological primacy of the present. As will become clear later in the essay, I also dispute interpretations that would place the emphasis on the ontological primacy of an original past. For my own views on the significance of a “past which has never been present”, see Whitmoyer “The Primary Silence of the Past”. View all notes In considering the manner in which the Zeitbewußtsein figures in La temporalité and Merleau-Ponty's discussion of the field of presence, it will do to think about the parameters in which his engagement with Husserl is staged more generally. It seems that Merleau-Ponty never considered his task in terms of the perhaps false alternative of fidelity and heresy, because “any commemoration is also a betrayal”, and because the task of the interpreter is, as he famously notes, thinking through that “unthought-of element … which is wholly his [Husserl's] and yet opens out on something else”.88 Merleau-Ponty, Signes, 203/160. This methodological dictum is developed in more detail in the notes to the course offered on Husserl's Origin of Geometry in 1959–1960. “We are saying not that Husserl was that, but that Husserl was not only what they say, was also another, bearer of an unthought”. View all notes Following Merleau-Ponty's own indications, we could suggest that Husserl's text, rather than a source of orthodoxy, functions as a point of orientation through which Merleau-Ponty marks out his own theory of temporality.99 I will not, therefore, address the question of the “accuracy” of his interpretation of Husserl because, according to Merleau-Ponty himself, this question presupposes that the author, in this case Husserl, has a privileged access to his thought, as if there is some kernel or essence of what a philosopher thought that interpreters can either get right or wrong. As the remarks in “The Philosopher and His Shadow” make clear, interpretation can never really avail itself of this presupposition and in this manner the question of accuracy is precisely the wrong question. View all notes This essay argues that his discussion of the Zeitbewußtsein in Phenomenology of Perception does not offer an account of time that “centers around the living present”, as some have argued,1010 Al-Saji “A Past Which Has Never Been Present”, 42–44. View all notes but that the discussion of the field of presence and what follows are rather intended to account for the field of temporal phenomenalization – not as a presence – but as écoulement, passage and flux. Time, therefore, does not appear in the present or as presence, but manifests itself as a flow and movement that is simultaneously an éclatement, an eruption, and a self-differentiating “dehiscence”.1111 A favorite word of Merleau-Ponty, borrowed from botany, where it designates the splitting open of a seed-pod or flower as well as medicine, where it refers to the splitting open of a healed or partially healed wound. The idea here is that, in its flow and passage, time splits open in a process of differentiation – which is simultaneously a process of degeneration, decay, and what Merleau-Ponty will term in The Visible and the Invisible, “disarticulation”. View all notes Time's passage is not determined, organized and oriented in advance in accordance with a transcendental synthesis that would give it shape and form, privileging one temporal dimension over another, so much as it is understood in terms of a splitting open, or to use another favoured locution of Merleau-Ponty, a “deflagration”.1212 In Eye and Mind, Merleau-Ponty speaks of the “deflagration of being”. Metaphors of explosiveness and dissonance populate his attempt to think being otherwise than as structure, form, and stability. Here I will focus particularly on écoulement, flux and éclatement, eruption, because these are the terms he uses in his discussion of time in La temporalité. See Merleau-Ponty L’Œil et l'esprit, 64/369. View all notes To this extent, Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in Phenomenology of Perception cannot be said to orient itself in terms of the ontological primacy of any one temporal dimension – past, present, or future – but is more accurately understood as an attempt to recover the primordial experience of time as the simultaneity of écoulement and éclatement – an account that thinks time in its dual power of phenomenalization and erosion, the “pulse [pulsation] of my existence, its systole and diastole”.1313 Merleau-Ponty PhP, 337/332. View all notes Time is the vehicle of the world's appearance, and at the same time of its “disarticulation” [désarticulation],1414 This is a term Merleau-Ponty uses in The Visible and the Invisible in a well-known working note entitled “ Transcendence – forgetting – time”. See Merleau-Ponty VI, 247/197. View all notes the vehicle through which “becoming” – rather than being – shows itself. This process of phenomenalization, precisely because it is temporal, never achieves the density of fully realized being – the sense of this becoming is never fully articulate – but is perpetually subject to a temporal erasure that necessitates its repetition and reiteration. Time, in other words, is the principle of the world's eloquence – it is that thanks to which things have and make sense and simultaneously the principle of the world's murmuring stutter, the principle through which the sense of things remains incomplete and even erodes, decays, and degenerates. To begin, I will turn to Merleau-Ponty's reading of Husserl's diagram from the Zeitbewußtsein, which opens his attempt to “arrive at authentic time”.1515 Merleau-Ponty PhP, 477/483. View all notes Rather than simply rehearsing Husserl's discussion of primal impression, retention and protention, Merleau-Ponty's analysis of the diagram provides an opportunity for raising two problems: the problem of time's representability and the problem of its synthesis. Rather than through an “act intentionality” carried out by a transcendental subjectivity, time appears in accordance with an “operative intentionality” always already under way. Turning to the section of La temporalité aptly entitled “Passive Synthesis”, we see that Merleau-Ponty's analysis of the diagram leads him to the paradox of passive synthesis and what he calls, following Husserl, “transition synthesis”. Time does not show itself punctually – time appears neither as presence nor in the present – but only in the dual movement of its flux, its écoulement, and its éclatement, its explosive, self-differentiating unfurling. These reflections, finally, bring Merleau-Ponty into dialogue with Heidegger on what the latter called the Zusammenhang des Lebens. The “unity of a life”, accordingly, is not a question of any “resolution”, but is a function of our immersion in this temporal dehiscence. The important lesson to be learned from Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's Zeitbewußtsein is not something about the ontological primacy of one temporal dimension over another but what Merleau-Ponty famously calls in The Visible and the Invisible the “passivity of our activity”1616 Merleau-Ponty VI, 270/221. View all notes and our immersion in time's power of disarticulation. (shrink)

Empathy is a topic of continuous debate in the nursing literature. Many argue that empathy is indispensable to effective nursing practice. Yet others argue that nurses should rather rely on sympathy, compassion, or consolation. However, a more troubling disagreement underlies these debates: There’s no consensus on how to define empathy. This lack of consensus is the primary obstacle to a constructive debate over the role and import of empathy in nursing practice. The solution to this problem seems obvious: Nurses (...) need to reach a consensus on the meaning and definition of empathy. But this is easier said than done. Concept analyses, for instance, reveal a profound ambiguity and heterogeneity of the concept of empathy across the nursing literature. Since the term “empathy” is used to refer to a range of perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral phenomena, the presence of a conceptual ambiguity and heterogeneity is hardly surprising. Our proposal is simple. To move forward, we need to return to the basics. We should develop the concept from the ground up. That is, we should begin by identifying and describing the most fundamental form of empathic experience. Once we identify the most fundamental form of empathy, we will be able to distinguish among the more derivative experiences and behaviors that are addressed by the same name and, ideally, determine the place of these phenomena in the field of nursing. The aim of this article is, consequently, to lay the groundwork for a more coherent concept of empathy and thereby for a more fruitful debate over the role of empathy in nursing. In Part 1, we outline the history of the concept of empathy within nursing, explain why nurses are sometimes warry of adapting concepts from other disciplines, and argue that nurses should distinguish between adapting concepts from applied disciplines and from more theoretical disciplines. In Part 2, we show that the distinction between emotional and cognitive empathy—borrowed from theoretical psychology—has been a major factor in nurses’ negative attitudes toward emotional empathy. We argue, however, that both concepts fail to capture the most fundamental form of empathy. In Part 3, we draw on and present some of the seminal studies of empathy that can be found in the work of phenomenological philosophers including Max Scheler, Edmund Husserl, and Edith Stein. In Part 4, we outline how their understanding of empathy may facilitate current debates about empathy’s role in nursing. (shrink)

This article provides an analysis of the phenomenology of affectivity underlying the work of Edith Stein. Taking as point of departure two of her works, The problem of Empathy (1917) and Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities (1922), the paper focuses on the idea that emotions fulfil a cognitive function: they make us accessible the realm of values. The argument of the paper is developed in two sections. The first section offers an overview of Stein’s main theses about (...) emotions, feelings, moods and sentiments and places them within the larger framework of the early phenomenological accounts on affectivity. The second section examines the claim that emotions are responsible for grasping values concentrating on two facets of this thesis: the first regards the epistemological question according to which values are grasped by affective phenomena, while the second regards the ontological question about the nature of these grasped values. (shrink)

왜 돌봄은 지속적으로 우리 사회의 쟁점이 되고 있는가? 돌봄의 부재와 무관심(carelessness)이 지배하는 곳에서 돌봄은 우리 사회를 돌봄 위기 상황으로 진행시키고 있다고 판단된다. 그렇다면 돌봄 위기 사회는 어떻게 해결될 수 있을까? 이러한 문제의식을 바탕으로 이 글은 돌봄 제공자와 돌봄 대상자의 상호관계성을 통한 실천적 행위로서의 돌봄철학을 제시하는데 목표를 두고 있다. 돌봄 활동에서 가장 중요한 주체는 인간이며, 인간의 삶이다.다시 말해서 인간과 삶, 돌봄에 이르는 철학적 관점과 방법으로 관계성을 강조하며 인간존재라는 토대 하에서 재해석 하려는 입장을 ‘돌봄 철학’(The philosophy of Care)으로 제시한다. 그 과정에서 돌봄 (...) 관계성이 어떻게. (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.

Illuminated by the writings of Edith Stein, this paper presents a model of empathy as a very particular intersubjective understanding. This is commonly a view absent from psychology literature. For Stein, empathy is the experience of experientially and directly knowing another person’s experience, as it unfolds in the present, together with the awareness of the ‘otherness’ of that experience. It can be conceptually distinguished, in terms of process and experience, from current models that propose that empathic understandings are ‘intellectual’ (...) experiences or sympathetic experiences. As such, she provides an additional or alternative aspect to understanding other people’s experiences. Our paper provides a summary of Stein’s key analytic claims about three key facets of empathy. Her views are discussed in the light of debates relevant for contemporary psychology and social cognition. (shrink)

One striking feature of Finite and Eternal Being is Edith Stein’s exceedingly rare use of the term “metaphysics.” She uses the term “formal ontology” numerous times, but the term “metaphysics” only appears a handful of times in the body of the text, and even those references are themselves a bit surprising. This could be explained in several ways, some of which may be quite innocent and have nothing to do with whether she understands her project as metaphysical. In the (...) following, however, I would like to explore a differing explanation and argue that (at least, in part) her reason for avoiding describing her work as metaphysical is connected with the type of philosophical critique she wants to make of traditional metaphysics. I will not argue that Finite and Eternal Being should ultimately be read as a phenomenological analysis of being rather than any sort of metaphysical treatise, but I will argue that Stein has explicitly phenomenological reasons for being cautious about using the term “metaphysics.”. (shrink)

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)

This paper offers an assessment of some of the central aspects of Edith Stein’s conception of intentional acts proposed in Potency and Act. Studies Towards a Philosophy of Being. Her account hinges upon a combination of Thomistic and Husserlian concepts. She borrows from Aquinas two conceptual pairs that are central to his metaphysics and theory of knowledge: the actuality-potency dichotomy; and the distinction between sensible and intelligible species. The distinction and relevant articulation between sensible and intelligible species provide Stein (...) with the basis to present her own conception of intentionality (with special focus on perception): the sensible species is regarded as the correlate of the object’s Gestalt; by contrast, the intelligible species is mobilised to account for what Husserl labels noesis-noema correlation. But Stein’s ambition is also to inscribe her account of the species sensibilis within an overall (critical) interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation, financing the project “Intentionality and Person in Medieval Philosophy and Phenomenology” (GAČR 21-08256S). (shrink)

This paper emanates from the concept of empathy as understood by the German philosopher Edith Stein. It begins by highlighting different interpretations of empathy. According to the German philosopher Martin Buber, empathy cannot be achieved as an act of will. In contrast, the psychologist Carl Rogers believes that empathy is identical with dialogue and is the outcome of a cognitive act of active listening. The empathy concept of Edith Stein, philosopher and follower of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, goes beyond (...) these conflicting views and offers a more complex interpretation, with relevance for both healthcare and nursing education. When studying Stein's three‐level model of empathy, a field of tension between perspectives of closeness and distance becomes apparent. The paper concludes by suggesting Stein's model of empathy as a strategy to overcome the tension and meet the demands of empathy. (shrink)

The problem of human unity lies at the heart of Edith Stein’s investigation of the structure of human nature in her mature works. By examining her resolution of this problem in Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person and Endliches und ewiges Sein, I show how Stein incorporates two foundational teachings of Thomistic anthropology, namely, the substantial unity of the human being and the soul as form of the body, while reinterpreting the meaning of these teachings through performing a (...) fresh phenomenological investigation. Though this investigation leads Stein to propose a conceptually different explanation of human unity and bodily formation than that given by Aquinas, I argue that this conceptual difference should not be understood as if Stein and Aquinas stand squarely opposed on these important anthropological questions, but rather that Stein’s presentation lies in decisive continuity with the adopted teachings of Aquinas and represents an expanded conception of these teachings that also includes some contrast and disagreement. (shrink)

This paper presents a systematic discussion of Edith Stein’s critical understanding of Husserl’s transcendental-phenomenological idealism. After a brief explanation of the way in which, according to Stein, Husserl’s idealism should be framed, this paper offers an evaluation of her criticism with a special focus on her Introduction to Philosophy lectures of 1920. I argue that if, ultimately, Stein’s rejection of Husserl’s idealism in the text in question is deemed unsuccessful, we must examine the premises on which her own per-spective (...) on the eidetics of nature is based. (shrink)

Summary Heidegger’s jeremiads against metaphysics are amongst the most influential and iconoclastic in the annals of continental philosophy; and none is more trenchant than the Destruktion of Descartes’ ontology of self with which Sein und Zeit begins. Yet for all the intellectual energy he expends on attempting to uncover the social texture of Dasein’s being-in-the-world, many remain convinced that Heidegger simply transposes the Cartesian ego into a phenomenological key. One of the first thinkers to arouse these suspicions was an erstwhile (...) colleague of Heidegger, the Jewish-born phenomenologist and Carmelite spiritual writer, Edith Stein, in an unjustly neglected work, Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie. What sets Stein’s critique apart from more influential treatments is that in the course of diagnosing weaknesses in Heidegger’s account from within his own methodological constraints, she reaches some strikingly theological conclusions. The task of the present study is to offer an assessment of her dissection of the status and function of sociality in the Daseinsanalytik. After setting out Stein’s early phenomenology of empathy, I examine Stein’s argument that Heidegger’s tacit and mistaken appeal to theological categories ironically collapses his account of sociality back into the very subjectivism his Destruktion had been directed against. I conclude that Stein deftly reverses Heidegger’s strategy of atheological expropriation strategies by taking up a central theme in his own thought to articulate the theological unity of all finite existents. For Stein, unity at the level of fundamental ontology is most plausibly analysed by reference to the creaturely participation in the plenitude of Trinitarian being. (shrink)