Potency and Act is the second of three works in which Edith Stein said she endeavored to fulfill her “proper mission’ in philosophy, her “life’s task”: relating the phenomenology of her teacher Edmund Husserl and the scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas. But more than “critically comparing” the two ways of thinking, she wished to “fuse” them into her own “philosophical system,” searching for that perennial philosophy lying “beyond ages and peoples, common to all who honestly seek truth.” More Information Edith Stein was a Jewish phenomenologist who became a Catholic after reading the autobiography of St. Teresa of Jesus and entered the order of Discalced Carmelites founded by the saint. Stein died in Auschwitz in 1942 and was herself canonized in 1998 as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Her philosophical thinking had been formed by Husserl, but she came to “find a home in Aquinas’s thought world.” In Potency and Act she “aimed to get from scholasticism to phenomenology and vice versa” and “allow the two ways of doing philosophy to come to resolution within herself.” The first of the three works in which she carried out her mission was a play where Husserl and Aquinas appear on stage to discuss their agreements and differences (in Knowledge and Faith, ICS Publications, Edith Stein’s Collected Works, vol. 8). The second, Potency and Act, was written in 1931 but published for the first time in 1998. The third was her major work, Finite and Eternal Being, written around 1935 and also published posthumously, in 1950 (Collected Works, vol. 9). Potency and Act is complementary to Finite and Eternal Being, for they are quite different in content. The approach to the study of being in Potency and Act is “modal” as the title implies; her treatment of possible worlds and of form prescribing possibilities relates to phenomenological themes and also to recent developments in logical semantics. Philosophy of religion, of course, is a central concern. We reach God not only through faith and contemplation, she says, but “by thinking,” using “logical reasoning” both from the world without (as in St. Thomas) and from the world within (“the way of St. Augustine”); indeed, God’s existence is also a “purely formal conclusion.” Her many searching analyses are suggestive in their own right: on human freedom, temporality, self-knowledge, individuality, evolution (which she “fits into the “scholastic world view”), atheism, eschatology.

"this volume, "written by a beginner for beginners" bears the imprint of the extraordinary intellectual and spiritual journey of its author, one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century. born in Breslau into a practicing Jewish family in 1891, Edith Stein abandoned her faith as a teenager and later became a key figure among the early disciples of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. ........." [from back cover]

Edith Stein lived an unconventional life. Born into a devout Jewish family, she drifted into atheism in her mid teens, took up the study of philosophy, studied with Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, became a pioneer in the women's movement in Germany, a military nurse in World War I, converted from atheism to Catholic Christianity, became a Carmelite nun, was murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, and canonized by Pope John Paul II. Renowned philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre here presents a fascinating account of Edith Stein's formative development as a philosopher. To accomplish this, he offers a concise survey of her context, German philosophy in the first decades of the twentieth century. His treatment of Stein demonstrates how philosophy can form a person and not simply be an academic formulation in the abstract. MacIntyre probes the phenomenon of conversion in Stein as well as contemporaries Franz Rosenzweig, and Georg Luckas. His clear and concise account of Stein's formation in the context of her mentors and colleagues reveals the crucial questions and insights that her writings offer to those who study Husserl, Heidegger or the Thomism of the 1920's and 30's. Written with a clarity that reaches beyond an academic audience, this book will reward careful study by anyone interested in Edith Stein as thinker, pioneer and saint.

Thine Own Self investigates Stein's account of human individuality and her mature philosophical positions on being and essence. Sarah Borden Sharkey shows how Stein's account of individual form adapts and updates the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in order to account for evolution and more contemporary insights in personality and individual distinctiveness.

Being Unfolded responds to the question, ‘What is the meaning of being for Edith Stein.’ In Finite and Eternal Being Stein tentatively concludes that ‘being is the unfolding of meaning.’ Neither Stein nor her commentators have elaborated much on this suggestive phrase. Thomas Gricoski argues that Stein’s mature metaphysical project can be developed into an ‘ontology of unfolding.’ The differentiating factor of this ontology is its resistance to both existentialism and essentialism. The ‘ontology of unfolding’ is irreducibly relational. Being Unfolded proceeds by testing a relational hypothesis against Stein’s theory of the modes of being (actual, essential, and mental being). From the phenomenological perspective, Gricoski examines Stein’s theory of the relation of consciousness and being. From the scholastic perspective, he examines Stein’s account of the relation of essence and existence in material being, living being, and human being. And from both perspectives he considers the relation of divine being to actual being and their essences. This book is limited to Stein’s theory of the meaning of being, without making an explicit confrontation with Heidegger. It offers two primary contributions to Stein studies: a systematic analysis of Stein’s modes of being, especially essential being, and an exposition and expansion of her overlooked concept of unfolding. Being Unfolded also contributes to the broader field of contemporary metaphysics by developing Stein’s theory of being as an experiment in fundamental ontology. While other relational ontologies focus on relations between beings, this exploration of unfolding examines being’s inner self-relationality.

Nothing is more dangerous to be misunderstood than the question, "What is the human being?" In an era when this question is not only being misunderstood but even forgotten, wisdom delivered by the great thinkers and mystics of the past must be recovered. Edith Stein (1891-1942), a Jewish Carmelite mystical philosopher, offers great promise to resume asking the question of the human being. In Human and Divine Being, Donald Wallenfang offers a comprehensive summary of the theological anthropology of this heroic martyr to truth. Beginning with the theme of human vocation, Wallenfang leads the reader through a labyrinth of philosophical and theological vignettes: spiritual being, the human soul, material being, empathy, the logic of the cross, and the meaning of suffering. The question of the human being is asked in light of divine being by harnessing the fertile tension between the methods of phenomenology and metaphysics. Stein spurs us on to a rendezvous with the stream of "perennial philosophy" that has watered the landscape of thought since conscious time began. In the end, the meaning of human being is thrown into sharp relief against the darkness of all that is not authentically human.

Using both Father Kevin Wall’s eidetic matrix of “the relational unity of being” and Edith Stein’s remarkable synoptic view of intentionality in both Aquinas and Husserl, this book uncovers purely logical ground for a subalternate eidetic science called "convergent phenomenology," itself located at the inmost depths of Husserlian phenomenology. Convergent phenomenology emerges as a distinctively new discipline dealing with relation-like objectivity as opposed to the thing-like objectivity of traditional phenomenology. This has grand implications for the way we as humans conceive of God and being. The book thus benefits theologians, logicians, and phenomenologists by revealing the constitutive interrelationality of transcendental logic in an utterly new light as already flowering forth into formal ontology itself. What emerges is a rich conception of divinity and humanity.

For most philosophers, the work of Edith Stein continues to be eclipsed and relegated to obscurity. This work presents an excellent cross-section of Stein's writings and demonstrates the timeliness and relevance of her ideas for contemporary philosophical scholarship. Antonio Calcagno covers most of Edith Stein's philosophical life, from her early work with Husserl to her later encounters with medieval Christian thought, as well as a critical and analytical reading of major Steinian texts. Stein was an original thinker who challenged not only the direction in which Husserlian phenomenology was progressing but also sought to bring to philosophical light the relevance of certain key questions, including the meaning of what it is to be human, the relevance of metaphysics to science, and fundamental questions about the nature of God. Working to correct the perception that Stein is either an "unfaithful and distorting" phenomenologist or a pious Catholic mystic, Calcagno presents important work that has been neglected by both secular and religious scholars. The essays are not merely expository, but discuss the philosophical questions raised by Stein's work from a contemporary perspective, using Stein's original German texts. In its attention to the breadth and depth of Stein's philosophy from its initial development to its more mature form, The Philosophy of Edith Stein offers a new understanding of an individual who left behind an incredible philosophical and literary legacy worthy of scholarly attention. The book will be of interest not only to Stein scholars, but to feminists, phenomenologists, and Heideggerians.

Edited by Marianne Sawicki. Translated by Mary Catharine Baseheart and Marianne Sawicki. Edith Stein's analysis of the interplay between the philosophy of psychology and cultural studies, particularly psychoanalytic theory and behaviorism. "Do I have to?" is the most human of all questions. Children ask it when told to go to sleep. Adults ponder it when faced with the demands of the workplace, the family, or their own emotions and addictions. We find ourselves always poised between freedom and necessity. In this volume, her most profound and carefully argued phenomenology of human creativity, Edith Stein explores the interplay of causal constraints and motivated choices. She demonstrates that physical events and physiological processes do not entirely determine behavior; the energy deployed for living and creativity exceeds what comes to us through physical means. The human body is a complex interface between the material world and an equally real world of personal value. The body opens as well to community. Stein shows that, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a solitary human being. Communities are reservoirs of the meaning and value that fuel both our everyday choices and our once-in-a-lifetime accomplishments. This basic fact, she argues, is the starting point for any viable political or social theory. The two treatises in this book comprise her post-doctoral dissertation that Stein wrote to qualify for a teaching job at a German university just after the First World War. They ring with the joy, hope, and confidence of a brilliant young scholar. Today they continue to challenge the major schools of twentieth-century psychology and cultural studies, particularly psychoanalytic theory and behaviorism. Here, too, is the intellectual manifesto of a woman who would go on to become a Christian and a Carmelite nun, only to be killed at Auschwitz like so many others of Jewish ancestry.

Since being elected to the Chair of St. Peter on March 13, 2013, Pope Francis has given unique shape to the meaning of the new evangelization. With his emphasis on the concept of encounter, and his stunning expression of pastoral ministry in Evangelii gaudium, the present pontiff has breathed new life into the Christian vocation to evangelize. This book brings together the voices of fifteen American Catholic scholars around the theme of Pope Francis and the Event of Encounter. Inaugurating the new series, Global Perspectives on the New Evangelization, this book incorporates a variety of approaches and questions in order to amplify the theology behind the pontificate of Pope Francis and the most recent developments in the new evangelization. Among the topics treated in the book are mercy, ecology, doctrine, culture, and the life and ministry of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The reader will be delighted with an array of perspectives that promise to give inspiration for embarking on further frontiers of the new evangelization.