Edith Stein (1891–1942) was a realist phenomenologist associatedwith the Göttingen school and later a Christian metaphysician.She was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in 1922 and was ordained aCarmelite nun in 1933. She died in Auschwitz in 1942. She wassubsequently declared a Catholic martyr and saint. She campaignedpublicly on issues relating to women’s rights and education.Stein is known philosophically primarily for her phenomenological workon empathy and affectivity, her contributions as research assistant toEdmund Husserl, and her philosophical anthropology. She was indiscussion with leading philosophers of her day, including Husserl,Scheler, Heidegger, Conrad-Martius, Ingarden, and Maritain. Her workcontains original approaches to empathy, embodiment, the emotions,personhood, the apprehension of values, collective intentionality, andthe nature of the state and social life in general. In her later work,Stein developed an original philosophy of being and essence thatintegrated Husserlian phenomenology and Thomist metaphysics.

• 1. Life and Work
• 2. Early Phenomenology
  • 2.1 Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Psychology
  • 2.2 Philosophy of Emotions
  • 2.3 Other Minds, Empathy and Social Cognition
  • 2.4 Collective Intentionality and Social Ontology
• 3. Phenomenological Ontology and Philosophical Anthropology
  • 3.1 The Question of Being
  • 3.2 The Nature of Persons
• 4. Political and Feminist Thought
  • 4.1 Philosophy of State
  • 4.2 On the Nature and Education of Women
• 5. Spirituality and Theological Works
• 6. Conclusion
• Bibliography
  • A. Stein’s Work (German and English)
  • B. Other References and Secondary Literature
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Work

Edith Stein was born on 12 October 1891 into a bourgeois Jewish familyin Breslau, Prussia (now Wroclaw, Poland). Her father died when shewas two, leaving her mother to run the family business—alumberyard—while raising seven children. Edith attended localschool and then the Victoria Gymnasium in Breslau. Having graduatedfirst in her class in the Abitur in 1911, Stein entered the Universityof Breslau to study psychology. Her professors included thepsychologist William Stern and the Neo-Kantian RichardHönigswald. Another professor, Georg Moskiewicz, introduced herto Husserl’sLogical Investigations and remarked thatin Göttingen the students philosophize day and night and talkonly of the phenomenon. Inspired, she transferred to Göttingen in1913. There she became an active member of the GöttingenPhilosophical Society, that included Reinach, Ingarden, andConrad-Martius. In Göttingen she also attended Scheler’slectures, which left a deep impression. Stein approached Husserl towrite a doctorate on phenomenology, and his initial reaction was torecommend instead that she sit the state teaching examination.However, encouraged by Reinach, she completed her thesis in summer1916 and graduatedsumma cum laude for her dissertation,Das Einfühlungsproblem in seiner historischen Entwicklung undin phänomenologischer Betrachtung (The Empathy Problem as itDeveloped Historically and Considered Phenomenologically), part ofwhich was published asZum Problem der Einfühlung(On the Problem of Empathy; Stein 1917). Part of hermanuscript, a historical survey of earlier treatments of empathy hasbeen lost.

When Reinach died in the Great War in 1917, Stein helped edit hiscollected writings. She then worked as Husserl’s first paidassistant from October 1916 until February 1918, when she resigned infrustration as he was unwilling to discuss his own work with her asher correspondence with Ingarden reveals. She transcribed and edited,with major interventions, Husserl’s research manuscripts,includingIdeas II (finally published in 1952), and hisLectures on the Consciousness on Internal Time(1905–1917), that was eventually brought to press by Heideggerin 1928 (with only the slightest acknowledgment of Stein’sinvolvement).

Stein campaigned to be allowed to register for a Habilitation,hitherto denied to women. She applied to Göttingen in 1919 butwas rejected. Husserl’s letter of recommendation of 6 February1919 (Husserl 1994: 548–549) was not particularly supportive.Nevertheless, she wrote a major study intended as her Habilitationthesis,Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung derPsychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften (1922), published inHusserl’sJahrbuch.

Failing to find a mentor for her Habilitation, Stein returned toBreslau to offer private philosophical tutorials. Stein’s closefriends there were the phenomenologists Theodor Conrad and HedwigMartius. At their home in the summer of 1921, Stein read St. Teresaof Avila’s autobiography and immediately felt she had found thetruth. She soon converted to Catholicism. Her conversion initiallydeeply disappointed her mother and many of her Jewish friends, but hersister Rosa eventually joined her.

She began studying Thomas Aquinas intensely and translated hisDeVeritate (Stein 2008a,b) as well as several works by John HenryNewman (Stein 2002). In 1930 she sought again to register for theHabilitation, contacting Heidegger at Freiburg, who was reasonablysupportive. By 1931 she had completed a new Habilitation thesisPotency and Act (1931). However, she was appointed to ateaching post at the German Institute for Scientific Pedagogy inMünster, which disrupted her Habilitation plans. She also thoughtthe work inadequate and embarked on a new study, Finite and EternalBeing, that was posthumously published (1950/2006).

Following the rise to power of the National Socialists in Germany, on19 April 1933 Stein, because of her Jewish descent, was dismissed fromher position in Münster. In October 1933, she entered theCarmelite convent at Cologne. In April 1934, she entered thenovitiate, taking the religious name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross(Teresia Benedicta a Cruce). In 1938, Stein was transferred for safetyto the Carmelite convent at Echt, Holland. There she wrote her twomost important theological treatises,The Science of theCross (2003) andWays to Know God (1993).

The condemnation of Nazi anti-Semitism by the Dutch bishops, on 26July 1942, provoked the German authorities to arrest non-Aryan RomanCatholics. With her sister Rosa, also now a Catholic convert, TeresaBenedicta was arrested in Echt by the Gestapo on 2 August 1942 andshipped to Auschwitz concentration camp, arriving on August 7. Shedied with her sister Rosa on 9 August 1942. Survivors of the deathcamp testified that she assisted other sufferers with greatcompassion. At a ceremony in Cologne on 1 May 1987, Pope John Paul IIbeatified Edith Stein, and canonized her on October 11, 1998. Herinterrupted autobiography,Life in a Jewish Family (1985),was published posthumously.

2. Early Phenomenology

2.1 Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Psychology

Stein developed her philosophy of psychology in theBeiträge around the time she was also editingHusserl’sIdeas II and it neatly ties in with thelatter’s aim of developing a transcendental phenomenologicalaccount of the human person. The systematic connection between the twomain parts of Stein’sBeiträge (“PsychicCausality” and “Individual and Community”) lies inthe overarching project of the work to carve out the ontological placeof the human person in relation to both the natural and the spiritualworlds, the latter of which is constituted by social and communalrelations (1922: 3[1], 110[129]).

Three issues sit at the center of Stein’s philosophy of mind andpsychology:

1. the connections between conscious experiences, (the stream of)consciousness and the mental and psychic domain;
2. the motivational laws of the mental, conative and volitionaldomain, and
3. the “intertwinement” (Ineinandergreifen) ofdifferent forms of causality and motivation.

All three issues cluster around Stein’s multilayered account ofcausality and her original conception of so-called “psychiccausality”. The notion of psychic causality is introducedagainst the background of the traditional determinism/indeterminismdebate, and aims to present an alternative toboth areduction of the psyche to physical natureand a completeseparation of the former from the latter (1922: 5[2]).

According to Stein, nothing in the emergence of an experiential phaseis determined. It does not make any phenomenological sense to inquireinto determining causes here; experiences simply “flowalong” in a “stream of consciousness” and constitute“an undivided and indivisible continuum” (1922: 11[9]).What constitutes their (diachronic and experiential) unity is the“originally generating” or “ultimatelyconstituting” (ursprünglich zeugend,letzt-konstituierend) stream itself (1922: 12[10]). This, inturn, is unified by the irreducible experiential fact that allexperiences “emanate fromone I” (1922:15[13]).

So far, then, natural causality seems to have no place in theexperiential life of subject. However, as Stein already claims in herEmpathy-book (1917: 66–68[49–51]) and elaboratesthroughout theBeiträge, a different form of causalityis at work on the experiential level. The causally efficaciousexperiential states in the psychic life of individuals are so-called“life-feelings” (Lebensgefühle) and asubject’s “life-power” (Lebenskraft; a termthat originates in Hermann Lotze (1843), but that we also find inTheodor Lipps (1883), from whom Stein probably takes the term).Life-feelings are, broadly speaking, best understood as the affectivedispositions of a psychophysical organism that bring about certaincognitive, conative or affective states. They determine the very way asubject is aware of and experiences these states. They also determineone’s own bodily awareness, i.e., one’s “bodilyattunement” (leibliche Befinden; 1917: 87[70]). Steincharacterizes life-feelings as the “momentary state(Beschaffenheit) of the I—its life-disposition(Lebenszuständlichkeit)” (1922: 22[22]). If thisdisposition is sedimented, it becomes a subject’s life-power(ibid.; seesect. 2.2; see Betschart 2009). Typical examples of life-feelings are weariness,freshness, vigor, and irritability. Such psychic-bodily dispositions“effectuate” (wirkend) experiential changes in“one’s feeling disposed (Sichbefinden)” andin turn “influence the whole course of the co-occurringexperiences”. If I feel weary, “everything that emerges invarious fields of sensation will be affected by it”, colors willappear colorless, sounds toneless, etc. (1922: 16[15]; see also 1922:65[75]; 75[86]).

In order to account for these effects, Stein introduces the notion of“causality of the experiential domain”.“Experiential causality”(Erlebniskausalität) is different from “mechanicalcausality” but may still be viewed as an “analogon ofcausality in the realm of physical nature” (1922:16–17[15]. According to Stein’s somewhat idiosyncraticdescription compared to the classical Humean conceptions, there is atripartite chain of events in mechanistic causation:

1. a “causing” (verursachendes; e.g., themovement of a ball) and
2. a “caused event” (verursachtes Geschehen), orthe effect (e.g., another ball moving), and
3. a sort of mediating “event” that is the proper“cause” (Ursache).

Thus, in mechanistic causation, two events are interconnected by athird, whereas in experiential causation, there are only twooccurrences, jointly causing experiential change. Here, the twoexperiences causally interconnected are both subject to“change”, and jointly effectuate a “change in thewhole course of the simultaneous experience” (1922: 16[15]).“The life-feeling corresponds to the causing event”, while“the course of the rest of the experience corresponds to thecaused event” (1922: 17[15]). But the event, referred to as“the cause” of the experiential change, “is notinserted between causing and caused event”. It is notindependent from the experiential change, but rather an intrinsicmoment of it. Accordingly, it is impossible for a subject to havecertain life-feelings that have no effect on the course of herexperiences. But what mechanistic and experiential causation share isthat there cannot be causally contradicting events or outrightincoherent requisite outcomes of the causal process. For example,

just as it is inconceivable that a ball that’s flung down risesup as a result of the pitch, it is inconceivable that weariness“enlivens” the stream of consciousness. (1922:17[15–16])

Stein distinguishes three aspects of experiences and asks whether andhow they are subject to psychic-causal influences:

(1) acontent that is taken up into consciousness (e.g., acolor datum or enjoyment); (2) the experience (Erleben) ofthat content, its being-taken-up (Aufgenommenwerden) intoconsciousness (the having of the sensation, the feeling of enjoyment);(3) the consciousness of that experiencing, which—in a higher orlower degree—always accompanies it and because of which theexperiencing itself is also called consciousness. (1922:18[16–17])

Importantly, she argues that all these dimensions are subject to thepsychic-causal influence of one’s life-feelings and psychicdispositions (1922: 19[19]). For instance,

with mounting freshness, the awareness of the experiencing increasesand so do the clarity, discriminateness, and, we might well say, the“liveliness” of the contents. (ibid.)

The psyche, then, is characterized by an “incessant occurring(Geschehen)” and “incessant effecting”(Wirken; 1922: 27[29]). Indeed, Stein puts forth the“general law of causality”, according to which“all psychic occurrences are caused (kausalbedingt)” (1922: 29[32]). Causality plays an ontologicallyconstitutive role. There is “no psychic reality withoutcausality” (ibid.); everything that enters the psychic domain“owes its existence” and is regulated by life-power, andlife-power alone (1922: 27[29]).

But where does this leave us with regard to individuals beingdetermined by psychic powers? Stein cautions us that with thelaws of psychic causation “nothing whatsoever is yetdecided” about the issue of determinism (1922: 29–30[32]).Stein concludes that we have only “probabilisticinferences” and “vague” laws here (1922: 33[36], seealso 80–81[92–93], 98–99[114–115]). Notice,however, that it doesn’t follow from the fact that the relationbetween psychic causes and their effects cannot be“exactly predicted” or “determined”that there are no “intuitively evident (einsichtige)correlations” to be discovered (1922: 33[36]). Quite thecontrary, and it is precisely the task of thephenomenological psychologist to explore these. Herein alsolies the originality of Stein’s conception of the laws ofpsychic causality vis-à-visboth Humean causality,where the issue is the temporal separateness and ontologicalindependence of cause and effect,and the conception of“vague” nomological correlations that non-exact empiricaland social sciences deal with, which for Stein are exemplified by“descriptive natural sciences and folk-psychology”(ibid.). Compared to both these traditional conceptions of causality,the distinctive feature of a phenomenological psychologicalexplanation of the causal laws of thepsychic domain is thatwe can in fact “infer from perceptually given [psychic]facts” of a given individual her future ones. Importantly,however, such inferences have only “empirical validity”,they are always “defeasible or corrigible” by theexperience of the respective subject (1922:33–34[36–37]).

Moreover, Stein points to another consideration that speaks againstpsychic determinism. After all, whether or not a “given state isexactly determined by the series of preceding ones and can bemeasured” depends on whether there is something “otherthanmerely causal factors” at play (1922: 30[32]).Indeed, a large part ofBeiträge is devoted to exploringthese other factors and their interplay with the psychic and spiritualstates of individuals. Specifically, “the life of the psyche[is] the result of the interplay of different types of powers”(1922: 99[115]). Roughly, these are: (1) sensate and (2) spirituallife-powers, (3) the various motivational and non-motivational powersresulting from drives, strivings, impulses, inclinations, intentions,as well as cognitive, evaluative and volitional “stances”(Stellungnahmen), (4) the will-power of autonomousindividuals, and (5) the motivational forces of the spiritual domainand the laws of reason. Let us summarize their different roles andfunctions vis-à-vis the constitution and the determination ofpsychic and mental life.

Stein distinguishes “spiritual” (geistige) from“sensate” (sinnliche) life-power (1922:69–76[79–87]). Sensate life-power “roots the psychein nature” (1922: 99[115]), namely through the psyche’s“entrenchment” in the lived body (Leiblichkeit);and by virtue of the lived body’s dependence on what Stein callsPhysis, a dependence established by the sensate dimension,sensate life-power grounds the psyche also in “materialnature” (1922: 70[81]). Sensate life-power

transforms the reception of sensory data or to different capacitiesfor the reception of sensory data, as well as into sensual drives andtheir activities. (1922: 99[115])

Notice that the psychic and sensate dimension of the body at stakehere is partly determined by psychic causality and life-power and, atthe same time, is “experienced as bodily-lived states”(als leibliche Zustände erlebt). In this respect,Stein’s conception of the sensate dimension of bodily feelingscuts across the traditional phenomenological distinction between thelived or felt body (Leib), on the one hand, and the materialbody under a third-personal, physical description(Körper), on the other (see on Stein’sLeib/Köper-distinction esp. 1917:56–65[40–48]). While sensate life-power, then, grounds thepsyche in the lived body as well as the material body and nature,spiritual life-power, “makes the psyche accessible to the worldof objects”. It derives its powers from the “world ofvalues” as well as from the spiritual power of other individualsand the “spirit of god” (1922: 99[115]). It concerns allthe dispositions and capabilities of the subject that are required forengaging in cognitive and creative processes, with different sorts ofvalues, as well as with other persons andtheir values (1922:70–75[81–86]). Spiritual and sensate life-powers, in turn,are interwoven through psychic causality.

Psychic states and dispositions vary with regard to theirdetermined/indeterminate and motivational nature. Stein identifiesnumerous complex factors that affect the nature of a psychic state ordisposition, such as its teleological nature or purposefulness(zielgerichtet), whether it is triggered by rational motivesor pure sensory stimuli, or how the subject actively relates to it andregulates its influences (1922: 53–56[61–65];60–64[68–74]; 78–80[90–92]). Strivings, forinstance, are subject to psychic causation and affective or evaluative“stances of the ego” (e.g., delighting over thepleasantness of an alluring journey) but also to the forces of thevolitional domain (1922: 55[62]). The volitional domain is itselfcomplex, incorporating efforts (Sichbemühen), intentions(Vorsatz), volitional acts (Willensakt), volitionalstances (Willensstellungnahme), and the actual initiation ofan action (Einleiten der Handlung; 1922:48–53[55–60]; 61–64[70–74];76–80[87–92]). Volitions require, as all otherexperiential acts, a certain amount of life-power, and accordingly sapthe life-power of individuals (1922: 76[87]; 80[92]). Intentions, onthe other hand, mediate between volitional stances and actions (1922:76[88]). As such, intentions derive their force from their ownspontaneous impulses (1922: 78[90]); they constitute the “freemoment” in human psychology.

Motivation is the “enacting” of an experience“due to (auf Grund) the other,for thesake of the other” (1922: 36[41]). It is the“fundamental lawfulness of spiritual life” (1922: 35[39]),and “subjects the psyche to the rule of reasons” (1922:100[116]; see also 1917: 122–123[117]). Importantly, motivationis essentially anegoic activity, whereas psychic causalityworks on the pre-egoic level of “pure passivity” (1922:35[39]). As Stein aptly puts it:

The “fulcrum” by which motives are put into play is alwaysthe I. It performs one act,because it has performed another.(1922: 36[41])

On the one hand, there is a “radical”,“unbridgeable” difference between motives and causes(1922: 41[47]), as we don’t find any motives in non-biologicalphysical nature; on the other hand, the life of the psyche is infusedwith various causal processes, and psychic causality and motivationvariously intersect. Stein elaborates this “intermeshing ofcausality and motivation” on the level of sensate and spirituallife-power, and in the perceptual, affective, sensual, and volitiondomain (1922: 64–80[74–92]; see also 1917:66–68[49–51]). In order to see this, considerStein’s intriguing thought-experiment of a purely spiritualbeing, lacking a “life-sphere”: a being moved only by“intellectual motives” would be not so much inconceivableas literally driveless (1922: 75[87]). It might still grasp certainvalues in emotions (see below,sect. 2.2) and these might rationally motivate further evaluative or emotiveacts; but ultimately such a being would not have the necessaryinitiative required to enact those motives or act upon those values.Moreover, normally we have distinct, often conflicting, motives, whichare intermeshed with a sedimented history of evaluative reactions tothem. A purely spiritual being could not integrate those motives so asto arrive at any conclusive decision and would ultimately lackagency.

To summarize, we can best understand Stein’s theory ofautonomous personal agency, and indeed her overall analysis ofpersons, if we appreciate one of the leitmotifs running through herwhole early phenomenological work: the view that experiences can bemore or less “close” to their very anchoring, namely theiregoic or personal core. The idea is that experiential states ofwhatever sort (including beliefs, emotions, volitions, cognitivestates, etc.) canimpact the self. In turn, their initiationand their course are impacted more or less by egoic activity,depending on how much spontaneous engagement and control the I exerts,or is able to exert, on them (seesect. 2.2).

2.2 Philosophy of Emotions

Stein’s theory of emotions is propounded in herEmpathy-book (esp. 1917: 65–72[48–54],116–124[98–106]) and in theBeiträge (1922:21–29[21–32], 132–138[157–164],181[217–218]); see also 1920/2004: 128–129,136–140). It represents a complex elaboration of the role thataffectivity plays in the constitution of personhood, on how emotionsrelate to expression, motivation and volition, and how affectivestates of others can be empathically grasped. Accordingly,Stein’s philosophy of emotions intersects with both herphilosophy of psychology and her theory of empathy. While influencedby Scheler (esp. 1916/1926), Stein’s account is highly original,in particular regarding the analysis of moods and sentiments,different levels of affective depth, and a fine-grained elaboration ofthe “stratification” of the emotive live of persons.

Partly drawing on Scheler, Stein distinguishes five different strataof affectivity:

(1)Sensory feelings: On the most basic level, we have“feeling impressions” or “sensory feelings”(Gefühlsempfindungen, sinnliche Gefühle), such asitching, bodily pain, or the pleasure of the taste or texture of food(1917: 65–66[48–49]). Stein holds a version ofintentionalism regarding bodily sensations (Crane 1998, 78–88).This is the thesis that pain and other sensory feelings have properlyspeaking intentional objects and present parts of the body of theemoter under certain aspects to her. What is thus intentionally givento the emoter as an object, however, is not some“pain-object” but its bodily-felt location. Steincharacterizes such sensory feelings also as “bodily localizablesensations” (leiblich lokalisierte Empfindnisse; 1917:58[42]). Accordingly, the pleasure of a taste or texture is“felt where the food is tasted” or “where the pieceof fabric touches my skin” (1917: 65[48]. Moreover, Steinattributes to these low-level feelings an intrinsic relation to theself. In sensory feelings, “I experience my affectivesensitivity (sinnliche Empfänglichkeit) as the highestand most outer layer of my I” (1917: 118[100]). This concernsone of the core tenets of Stein’s phenomenology of affectivity:Different layers of affectivity have different “I-depths”(Ichtiefe), or different ways and degrees in which emotersare impacted by affective experiences (1917:119–124[101–105]).

(2)Common feelings: The next stratum of affectivity isall-pervasive. One of the key insights of Stein’s account ofemotions is that every conscious experience is always penetrated andmodulated by affectivity. Famously, Heidegger puts forth anexistential-ontological version of this claim, which has also beenfurther developed in neo-Heideggerian accounts of “existentialfeelings” (Ratcliffe 2019). All experiences, includingcognitions, conations, perceptions, and volitions, are“colored” or “lit up” by, or “submergedinto” what Stein calls “general” or “commonfeelings” (Gemeingefühle; e.g., 1917:65–66[48–49], 86[68], 118–119[100–101]; 1922:123[145]). They are essentially affective statesof the livedbody. For example, weariness, freshness or irritability are notintentional in the sense that they don’t present or evaluateparticular objects, events or persons. But, like sensory feelings,they are in a minimal sense intentional: they relate the emoter to herown overall bodily state and thus indicate the emoter’s“attunement” (Befindlichkeit), as Heidegger willlater call it. Accordingly, Stein aptly characterizes common feelings(together with moods) as forms of “self-experiencing”(Sich-erlebens) (1917: 118[100]). Moreover, like sensoryfeelings, common feelings occupy a “Janus-faced position”(Zwitterstellung): they are not only “in” mylived body, as it were, but also “in me, they emanate out of myI” (1917: 65[48–49]).

(3)Moods: The third layer of affectivity is constituted bymoods (Stimmungen). Like common feelings, they constitute anall-pervasive dimension of our affective lives:

every emotional experience bears [a] certain mood-component(Stimmungskomponente), in virtue of which emotions emanateand expand from their initial place and fill up the Ego. (1917:122[104])

There are two important differences to common feelings, however:first, moods do not have a “bodily nature” (leiblicherNatur), they do not “fill out” the felt body as thecommon feeling of sluggishness, say, does; hence a “purelyspiritual” being could in principle be subject to moods too(1917: 65[49]; note that the English translation wrongly states theexact opposite of the German here). Secondly, moods are intentional inthe sense that they have an “objective correlate: for thecheerful, the world is submerged into a rosy shimmer” (1917:108–109[92]; see also 1922: 181[217]). In line with her theoryof psychophysical causation (seesect. 2.1), Stein maintains that there are “reciprocal‘influences’” and interconnections between thespiritual and the bodily dimension of affectivity, or between moodsand common feelings:

suppose I make a recovery trip and arrive at a sunny, pleasant spot,[feeling] how a cheerful mood starts to take possession of me, butcannot prevail, because I feel sluggish and weary. (1917:65–66[49]; see also 1922: 65–66[75–76])

Moods can also interact with proper emotions, for example, I can havea “serious” or a “cheerful joy” (1917:122[104]).

(4)Emotions: “Emotions in the pregnant sense”(1917: 119[100]), or “spiritual feelings” (geistigeGefühle) (1917: 66[50]), as Stein also calls them, areproperly speaking intentional states: “[emotions] are alwaysfeelings of something. In every feeling (Fühlen), I amdirected at an object” (1917: 119[100]). Stein also concurs withwhat is sometimes called the “foundational thesis”, heldby Brentano, Husserl or Pfänder, according to which emotions aregrounded in or derive their intentionality from some presentational orrepresentational act (Vorstellung) or cognition (Drummond2018: 9ff.). This is the reason why a “purely feeling subject isan impossibility” (1917: 125[107]; see also 1917: 67[50]). Onthe other hand, Stein controversially contends that, just as in thecase of moods, a “pure spirit” or a “body-lesssubject” may become for example frightened, but will not“lose its mind”, as the fear will not exerting any psychiccausality. Such a creature will also “feel pleasure and pain inits full depth”, even if “these emotions don’t exertany [bodily] effect”. Spiritual feelings areas a matter offact bodily felt, but considered in their “pureessence” “not body-bound (leibgebunden)”(1917: 66–67[50]).

According to Stein, we must distinguish four affective dimensions withregard to proper emotions:

1. their “depth” (Tiefe), i.e., roughly theirimpact on the self (for contemporary reassessments, see Pugmire 2005;Vendrell Ferran 2008, 2015a,b);
2. their “reach” (Reichweite), which is“correlated to the level of the value” and“prescribes the layer, to which it is ‘sensible’ forme to let the emotions penetrate me” (vernünftigerweiseeindringen lassen darf). For example, I ought not let myannoyance over an overdue piece of news that I’m waiting forconsume the attention needed for another task that is actually moreimportant to me (1917: 122[104]);
3. their “duration”, i.e., the diachronic extension of anemotion in a subject’s experiential stream, which is dependentupon the emotion’s depth (ibid.);
4. the “intensity” of an emotion.

Whereas thefactual intensity of an emotion is not subject tothe laws of reason, we can andought to modulate anemotion’s impact on our volitions and behavior: I may very wellbe completely “filled out” by an actually mild irritation,which can also endure overly long, or “feel a high value lessintensively as a lower one and hence be enticed to realize the lowerone”. But Stein hastens to add that “being‘enticed’ (‘verleitet’) preciselyimplies that the laws of reason have been violated here” (1917:123[105]).

Crucially, for Stein, emotions can be “rationally”appropriate, and “right” or “wrong”. Whatmakes emotions subject to rational and normativecorrectness-conditions is, once again, their “being anchored inthe I”. Indeed, Stein claims that there are “essentialconnections between value-ranking” (Rangordnung derWerte), depth-ranking of value-feelings (Tiefenordnungder Wertgefühle) and the ranking of layers of a person(Schichtenordnung der Person), the latter of which is“disclosed” by the two former hierarchies. And it is thesecorrelations that allow for the pervasive rational and normativelawfulness of emotions in a person’s life (1917:119–120[100–101]). To illustrate, Stein considers someonewho is “‘overcome’ by the loss of his wealth, i.e.,impacted in the core of his I”. The irrationality then consistsof an “inversion of value-ranks” or even “a loss ofemotionally sensitive insight (fühlende Einsicht) intohigher values and the lack of correlative personal layers”.(1917: 120[101]). Another example is somebody who enjoys her aestheticenjoyment itself more than the disclosed aesthetic values of anart-piece (1917: 121[102]), a narcissistic self-indulging withone’s own feelings that Pugmire (2005) conceptualizes assentimentalism. Finally, there is another type of inappropriatenessthat fits into Stein’s overall account, but which doesn’tpresuppose a problematic (Schelerian) realist theory of value (seealso below): Thus, some have suggested distinguishing the moral,practical and prudential appropriateness of emotions from their“fittingness”. Roughly, an emotionE of a subjectS is fitting ifE’s target has the evaluative featureswhichE pertains to affectively present to S (d’Armsand Jacobson 2000; cf. Mulligan 2017; De Monticelli 2020). Putdifferently, an emotion is fitting, if it picks outthoseevaluative features of the target that really matterto the emoterherself (see Szanto 2021b). Fittingness so understood is anessentially subject-relative notion. It doesn’t concern anyobjective (axiological or moral) properties. Consider Stein’sexample again: if the loss of wealth really matters to the ruinedstock-broker, her utter despair will indeed fit, notwithstanding themoral status of speculative money; if she, on the other hand, actuallyhas long hoped that she rids herself of the burden of spending therest of her life in figuring out ways of investing her capital, thenher utter despair over the loss will be unfitting.

(5)Sentiments: the final layer of affectivity is constitutedby “sentiments” (Gesinnungen) or affectiveattitudes directed toward persons. Stein lists a number of examples,some of which contemporary philosophers typically subsume underdifferent classes of affective phenomena, such as love and hatred, orgratitude, resentment and vindictiveness. While love or hatred areindeed best characterized as sentiments (as did already Pfänder(1913), who had a strong influence on Stein), gratitude and resentmentwould today be rather subsumed under the class of reactive attitudes,and vindictiveness is better characterized as an affective charactertrait (Deonna and Teroni 2012: 8–9). What unifies this class ofsentiments, according to Stein, however, is that they are“emotions having other persons as their objects”. Like allother dimensions of affectivity, they are also “anchored ondifferent levels of the I (e.g., love deeper than affection)”and “have personal values as their correlates” (1917:120[101f.]).

It is an open question whether Stein thinks that all of these fivedimensions of affectivity are intentionally directed at and disclosevalues. Emotions and sentiments are fully-fledged intentional statesgrasping values, but it is less clear whether sensory feelings andcommon feelings or moods (which she also occasionally discusses) do sotoo. But what does it mean that emotions “grasp values”?Stein concurs with early phenomenological views of theepistemic-evaluative function of feelings: Feelings not only haveevaluative properties of things, persons and state-of-affairs as theirproper intentional objects; they are our most direct, and indeed best,access to values. It is, however, not clear how to conceive of theontological and phenomenological status of values. Stein, like allearly phenomenologists, including not only the so-called“realist” phenomenologists such as Scheler, Reinach, Steinor Hildebrand but also the transcendental-idealist Husserl, hold someform of value realism. But again, it is far from clear whatphenomenological value realism exactly entails, and Stein is rathersilent on that issue. The most charitable reading of Stein’srealist theory of values seems to be one that cuts across thefollowing alternative: Either values are first constituted by emotiveacts or they are independent properties of things, persons or eventsthat emotions merely respond to. According to Stein’s middle-wayaccount, though value-properties are but intentional correlates ofemotions, in having emotions, we can appropriately or inappropriatelytrack values. Values, thus, retain a certain ontological autonomyvis-à-vis emotive acts, but they are not fully independent fromthose acts, as it is precisely in having emotions that objects areproperly disclosed as valuable.

In order to understand this position, we must consequently understandthe disclosive function of emotions, or what Scheler, Stein and otherphenomenologists call “value-feeling”(Wertfühlen). To begin with, it is crucial not tomisunderstand the term “value-feeling” by reifying thevalues and value-properties of the evaluated objects upon whichemotions are directed. Furthermore, value-feelings do notindependently track values. Just like “emotions in the pregnantsense”, they are dependent upon the “knowledge” ofor an intentional acquaintance with the object to which a certainvalue pertains. This knowledge is typically constituted by perceptionor some other intuitive act, such as imagination. Furthermore, avalue-feeling is an affective phenomenon. But it is not a distincttype of affective act or feeling (cf., however, Mulligan 2010a,b,2017).

How, then, are value-feelings and the experience or the feeling of anemotion related? Stein’s position is again ambiguous. We find afew ambivalent passages that are sometimes cited to show that she doesnot identify value-feelings and feelings (see Mulligan 2010a:236; 2017: 235; cf. Vendrell Ferran 2015a). For example, Steinexplicitly distinguishes between “value-feeling”(Wertfühlen) and “the feeling of the existence ofa value” as well as between “value-emotion”(Wertgefühl) and “the depth of a feeling”(1917: 120[102]). At another central passage, however, Stein claimsthat

attempts to distinguish “feeling” (Fühlen)and “emotion” (Gefühl)

are futile, since they

don’t denote distinct types of experiences, but only different“directions” (Richtungen) of one and the sameexperience. (1917: 117 [98–99]; see also116–121[98–103])

The systematically most plausible interpretation is to construe thephenomenological relation between the felt and the evaluative orappraisal function of emotions in terms of a double-aspect theory (seefor a similar account De Monticelli 2020). According to this, Steindoes not contrast the act of value-feelings with the feeling or theemotional reaction that is triggered by those values; rather, they arejust two aspects of the affective intentionality of emotions (see1917: 116–121[98–103].

And yet, it is true that Stein doesn’t simplyidentifythe act of value-feeling and the feeling-state; instead, shedistinguishes the two aspects to accommodate cases in which a value isdisclosed but precisely doesn’t affectively impact me(“leaves me cold”), or doesn’t elicit acorresponding emotion (see 1922: 133–136[159–163]; cf.Vendrell Ferran 2018).

Considering such cases, there are analytic and phenomenologicalreasons to distinguish value-feelings and intentional feelings. In theformer, we are facing and acknowledging values. In such“value-acknowledgments” (Wertkenntnisnahme) weare not just perceiving, say, the beauty of a landscape, as in anordinary perception (a so-called “object-acknowledgement”;Sachkenntnisnahme) but we have “the feeling ofbeauty.” In intentional feelings, then, the value triggers anaffective reaction or an “emotive acknowledgment”(Gemütsstellungnahme), the “enjoyment” ofthe beauty (1922, 133[159]). As Vendrell Ferran (2022) elaborates,while value-feelings are punctual, homogenous, and direct acts ofapperception, intentional feelings have a temporal extension as wellas affective intensity and depth. However, Stein is rather clear thatin an a “completely fulfilled value-ception” (vollerfülltes Wertnehmen) these two moments of the affectiveintentionality of emotions are “conjoined” (1922:134[159]).

Emotions, then, not only disclose evaluative properties but alsosomething about the appropriateness and the depth of the feltevaluation, or the emotional experience as such. In other terms, Steinseems to hold the following view: When I have a feeling (e.g., joyover x), what is disclosed to me is not only the evaluative property(joyfulness) of x butthat andhow xmatters tome or impacts me in a certain way (as meriting a joyful responsefrom me). A contemporary equivalent of this view can be found inBennett W. Helm’s account of emotions. According to Helm,

emotions are evaluative feelings: feelings of evaluative content,whereby import impresses itself upon us. (…) we might also saythat emotions arefelt evaluations: evaluations that we makeby feeling them. (Helm 2001: 74)

Like for Helm and some other contemporary accounts of affectiveintentionality (e.g., Goldie 2000), Stein conceives of the intentionaland evaluative component, on the one hand, and the (bodily) feelingcomponent, on the other, not as distinct but as inextricablyintertwined (1917: 117[99]).

Emotions also bear an intrinsic evaluative relation tooneself and indeed a constitutive relation to one’spersonality and personhood. Emotions are essentially self- andpersonhood-related. To understand this claim, again without appealingto problematic conception of a hierarchy of values, consider howI-depth and the depth of a value-feeling are correlated and howvalue-feelings have an intrinsic self-evaluative dimension. In anemotional experience, a subject is not only directed upon theevaluative features of an object, but also “experiences herself,the feelings as coming from the ‘depths of her I’”.(1917: 117[98]) This self-experience is not a bare affective awarenessof ourselves, but of our specific personality:

In emotions, we experience ourselves not only as existing but also asbeing such-and-such, the emotions manifest personal characteristics.(1917: 117[99])

To rephrase in Helm’s terminology: Emotions are felt evaluationsor “feelings of value”, whereby the import impressesitself upon us. But import can only impress itself upon oneself ifthose values are expressive of one’s concerns or of what isimportant for oneself.

But there is even more to the relation between emotions and the self.Emotions not only appraise objects, indicate import for one andmanifest our personality—moreover, and by the same token, theyalways have a self-evaluative dimension. Emotions evaluate meas the subject for whom those objects have value. My emotions thusalways calibrate and recalibrate my “self-esteem”(Selbstwertgefühl; 1917: 121[103]).

Emotions are also essentially connected to expression, volition andaction. Emotions “motivate” both their expression andvolition (1917: 68–70[51–53];123–124[104–105]). Stein stresses that there is anecessary relation between feeling and expression, which is not a“causal” but “a nexus of essence and sense” or“an essential relation and a relation of sense”(Wesens- und Sinnzusammenhang) (1917: 70[53]). The relationholds even if there is no direct “outer”, facial orbodily, expression, and the feeling only results in a“‘cool’ reflection”. How we can then“see”, “read” and interpret the emotions ofothers based on their expressions and actions, is a matter ofsustained analysis of Stein, developed in her account of empathy.

2.3 Other Minds, Empathy, and Social Cognition

Stein is best known for her work on empathy, understood broadly as theapprehension of other subjects. Her contemporaries, such as Scheler orWalther, repeatedly refer to her dissertation (1917), which waspublished at a time when Husserl’s own writings on empathy werenot available in print. In her dissertation, she reviews criticallythe positions of other psychological accounts of empathy, inparticular of Theodor Lipps, Max Scheler, and Wilhelm Dilthey, butalso of others such as Hugo Münsterberg. Today, too, it is hernotion of empathy that is increasingly discussed and viewed as one themost nuanced phenomenological accounts, on a par with Husserl’sand Scheler’s analyses.

Most generally defined, empathy, for Stein, is the basic form in whichother embodied, experiencing subjects are given to us. Empathy is notmerely an epistemological tool for accessing other subjects or merelyregistering their existence as minded beings; rather, empathy is adistinctive intentional experience. Whereas much of theepistemological debate of the knowledge of other minds is preciselybased on the mootness of the question of whether there are other mindsor how our knowledge of their existence and their content can bejustified, Stein observes that any debate revolving around the natureof empathy rests on the tacit assumption that other minds (but notmerely as “minds”) are indeed experientially given to us(1917:11–13[3–5]).

Stein conceives of such empathetic acts as asui generis typeof intentional experience directed at the experiential life of otherpersons. Empathic acts aresui generis; they are neithercomposed of nor reducible to other types of intentional acts (Stein1917: 16–20[8–11]). They are also distinctive in the waythey present their object and content: even though the intentionalexperiences of the other are not first-personally “livedthrough” in empathy (or, in phenomenological jargon,“originarily” (originär) or“primordially” given to the empathizer), empathic acts areexperienced first-personally. In that sense, empathy is anoriginary intentional act, however, it presentsnon-originary(nicht originär) contents (1917: 15–16[7–8];51[34]). And yet, the non-originary contents givento me arenot non-originarysimpliciter, but rather the originarycontents ofanother subject (1917: 24[14]; 28[17]). It is dueto this peculiar nature of intentional presentation of another’sexperiences that empathy always preserves a self-otherdifferentiation, and, indeed, involves an awareness of such on thepart of the empathizing subject (1917: 27–29[16–18]).

Importantly, the fact that empathy is asui generis form ofintentional experience doesn’t preclude it having amulti-layered structure, sharing characteristic features with otherintentional acts (notably, perception, imagination, memory, and evenanticipation of own future experiences), amounting to more complexforms of interpersonal understanding. Quite the contrary: One of thechief merits of Stein’s account is that she offers amulti-dimensional account of empathy that doesn’t stop short atdescribing empathy as

the experience of foreign consciousness in general, irrespective ofthe kind of the experiencing subject or of the subject whoseconsciousness is experienced. (1917: 20[11])

Specifically, Stein argues for the following three claims:

1. there is a basic form of empathy that shares key features withordinary (outer-)perception without being reducible to it;
2. our empathetic experience is not limited to its basic form butincludes more complex forms of empathetic understanding;
3. empathy must be markedly distinguished from further types ofother-directed acts, such “fellow feeling” or“feeling-with” (Mitfühlen) (as in “Ifeel your grief”) or sympathy (“I feel with yourloss”) and compassion, as well as from imitation or mimicry,emotional contagion, affective unification or“feeling-one-with” (Einsfühlen), and finallyfrom forms of “feeling together” or emotional sharing(Miteinanderfühlen) (“We grieve for ourloss”).

Let us briefly unpack these claims and point to some connectionsbetween them.

(1)Basic empathy: Stein holds a nuanced version of whattoday is called the “direct perception” account of socialcognition. According to this account, in typical interpersonalencounters, we can directlyperceive that another is in aparticular mental, psychological or affective state (Dullstein 2013;for some recent accounts, see Gallagher 2008; Smith 2010; Zahavi 2011;Krueger 2012; Krueger & Overgaard 2012; Varga 2020). In order tograsp, say, that my interlocutor is embarrassed, I do not need toactivate any cognitive processes other than perceptual ones. Inparticular, I do not need to engage in complex inferential processes,explicit recollection drawing on one’s own experiences, or inany conscious imaginative perspective-taking or non-conscioussimulation process. Rather, I can directly “see”another’s embarrassment in her blushing or her change of voice.I thus grasp the other’s experience in and through hercommunicative or bodily comportment, including her gestures,modulations in tonality of speech, or facial expression. Steinrestricts her analysis to those forms of comportment that the otherenacts with a communicative intention and which express experiencesthat she actually lives through and is aware of. However, Steinsuggests that it might also be possible to have an empathic grasp ofthe other’s “personality” by apprehending her“whole outerhabitus, her manner of moving and herposture” (see also below) (1917: 96[78]).

Now, in the contemporary theory of mind debate on mindreading (Davies& Stone 1995a, 1995b), the direct perception account has beenpitched against the “theory theory of mind” and“simulation theory”. According to the theory theory ofmind, roughly, one infers another’s mental life by attributingto her certain beliefs and desires on the basis of a(folk-psychological) “theory of mind” (e.g., Baron-Cohen1995). According to simulation theory, to explain and predictother’s behavior, social cognizers run certain simulationprocesses and create so-called “pretend states” (beliefs,decisions, etc.) in their own representational working model (theirown mind), and project this mental model onto the other’s mind(Gordon 1995), or automatically “replicate” theother’s behavioral expression and tendencies by innatemirror-neurons (Gallese & Goldman 1998). Some have also proposed“hybrid” explanations, combining elements of the theorytheory of mind and simulation theory (e.g., Goldman 2006). Asdefenders of the direct perception account have rightly pointed out,both accounts rely on the general, and problematic,assumption that other minds are inherently opaque and not directlyobservable; only if we assume such an unobservability thesis, do weneed to refer to either conceptual inferences or mental simulation (orboth) for mindreading (Gallagher 2008; Zahavi 2011).

But how exactly is, say, the distress of another subjectperceptible or given in a bodily countenance? Stein analyzesthe precise nature of the relation between expression and what isexpressed (1917: 93–103[75–84]) and concludes that it mustnot be conceived as any sort of referential, symbolic, associative orinferential relation. Rather, what empathic perception directly graspsis the “unity” between the bodily expression of anexperience and the experience itself (a unity that is also given to,and indeed experienced as a unity, by the other). The underlyingphenomenological claim is that the other’s body is not givenpurely as a physical entity (Körper), a meaningless“container” of experiential items, but as a lived body(Leib), as the visible field of always alreadyexpressive phenomena. Accordingly, the distress is“co-given” in the distressed countenance, and the two“form a natural unity” (1917: 95[77]). The unobservabilitythesis only follows if we assume that the only directly visibleproperties of another person are the meaningless physical events thatthe body is displaying. Once we appreciate that we are directlygrasping the sense of another’s expressive bodily behavior inempathy, the need to refer to conceptual inferences or simulationprocesses to penetrate some allegedly opaque bodily barriers loses itsmotivation.

In endorsing the direct perception account, Stein aligns with mostclassical phenomenologists such as Scheler (1913/26), Husserl (e.g.,1952, 1973) or Merleau-Ponty (1945). Like these authors, she rejectsboth the core tenet of one of the most influential theories of empathyof her time, namely Lipps’ theory of empathic mimicry orimitation, which can be viewed as a forerunner of the simulationtheory, and also of Lipps’ opponents, the so-called“theory of inference by analogy” account, that sheattributes to John Stuart Mill (1917: 41[26]).

According to the theory of inference by analogy, we infer from theobservation of the correlation of our own experiences to our ownphysical body and its modifications that another’s bodilymodifications, expressions and behavioral output must be alsocorrelated with (particular) experiences. In contrast, Stein againclaims that it would be phenomenologically “absurd” todescribe our encounter with others as if we first perceive mindlessbodies. Rather, perception-like empathy acquaints usab ovowithembodied minds.

Stein’s argument against simulationist accounts and Lipps’proto-simulationist account is more complex (see Stueber 2006 andZahavi 2010). For Lipps, when perceptually faced with a bodily gestureor the countenance of another, the empathizer feels a tendency to(inwardly) imitate the bodily contortion, a sort of innate“inner imitation” (Lipps 1903: 121; 1907: 718–719;1909: 228). For Lipps, empathy, however, typically doesn’tterminate in such mimicry. Rather, the automatically reproduced andprojected affect usually exerts an affective pull upon oneself, suchthat one eventually comes to feel the other’s emotion“with her”. Lipps claims that empathic mimicry lies at theorigin of the affective transference process and also that“empathy directly involves a tendency to co-experience(Miterleben)” (1907: 721). Moreover, he holds that in aproper act of empathy there is onlyone I given, namely theempathizer’sown experience that she projects upon theother. Only after stepping out of the empathic stance, does theempathizer cease to be “bound” to the empathic target. Shethen faces the other as an object, whereby a “division” ofthe initially unique I (Teilung jenes einen Ich) and an“awareness of a plurality of individuals” ensues (Lipps1909: 231). Stein clearly rejects this view: For, if we actually wereto “put ourselves in the place (an die Stelle von) ofthe foreign subject”, by way of “suppressing” thatthere is another I and only eventually ascribe our own surrogateexperience to the other, we would only have a “surrogate ofempathy” (1917: 24[14]). Grasping another’s experiencesentails a clear self/other distinction, which cannot be established bythe projection of one’s own (reproduced) affects onto another,but precisely involves empathy as another-directed act.Relatedly, a “taking over” of foreign affects by emotionalcontagion—which may or may not lead to an affective unification(Einsfühlung) with the other (cf. Stueber 2006:8)—rather than facilitating empathic understanding actually“prevents our turning toward or submerging ourselves in theforeign experience, which is the attitude characteristic ofempathy” (1917: 36[23]; 1917: 35–36[22–24]).

(2)Beyond basic empathy: For Stein, empathy is not limitedto a direct-perceptual grasp of another’s bodily comportment orexpression. Rather, a more detailed empathic explication involves aform of experiential reenactment of the other’s experiencing anda form of perspective-taking that is similar to, but not reducible to,imagination. Another’s experiences have their own thickqualitative and motivational contents, which exert a certainmotivational “pull” on me, namely to“explicate” them further, in order to properlyunderstand them.

Stein conceives of the empathic encounter as a three-step-process. Theempathizer need not run through all of them, and may repeat any of thesteps, depending on the situation or her interest in dwelling deeperon the experiential life of the other. The process involves:

1. the emergence or appearing of the other’s experience(Auftauchen des Erlebnisses) in and through her bodilycomportment and expression; here, the experience is immediately givento the empathizer in direct perception but is still largelyunspecified as to the other’s further dispositions, motivations,etc.;
2. the empathizer may then bring this unspecified experience to anexplicative fulfillment (erfüllende Explikation);and,
3. to a “synthesizing objectification (zusammenfassendeVergegenständlichung) of the explicated experience”(1917: 19[10]), which can then be reflected and dwelled upon.

First, I encounter the other’s sadness, apprehended directly inher posture, her facial expression or her tears, which are given to meperceptually; building on this apprehension, I eventually explicatethe experience, the mood, etc., that has led the other to experiencingthe sadness, and I myselfexperientially fill out thenecessary details; finally, the explicated experience is given to meas the experience of another subject, and thus “faces me”as a proper intentionalobject (1917: 19[10], 51[34]).

Stein describes the second step “as being at the foreign I andexplicating her experience by reliving it through” (1917:51[34]). Importantly, as Stein maintains in her criticism of Lipps, weshould not understand this in a way that compromises theself/other-distinction presupposed in empathy and amounts to anaffective unification or fusion with the other(Einsfühlung) (1917: 22–23[13–14];27–29[16–18]). In empathically reenacting another’sexperiences, I am “‘alongside’ the other”(“bei”ihm) but never “onewith” (eins mit) her (1917: 28[16]).

However, Stein holds that proper empatheticcomprehension ofthe other’s experiences requires athird step, and inthis regard her account is not altogether different from Lipps’.For it is only with the third step, the “synthesizingobjectification”, that the sadness of the other is again givento me as an intentional object properly speaking, and which I caneventually reflect upon (1917: 51[34]).

An important issue that remains unaddressed by Stein is whether weshould interpret the explicative, objectifying and reflective stepstwo and/or three as some form of imagination or imaginativeperspective-taking. Stein nowhere explicitly characterizes either ofthe two as imagination (unlike Adam Smith, for instance); the onlyhint we have to this effect is that, in dismissing Scheler’s(1913/1926) notion of empathy as “inner perception”(innere Wahrnehmung), she suggests rather to use, if at all,“inner intuition” (innere Anschauung), as thislatter notion would capture the non-originality of foreign experiencesas well as that of one’s own recollected, anticipated andimagined experiences (1917: 51[34]). Presumably, Steinfollows Husserl who believes wemay imaginatively fill outthe empathized experience but we do not necessarily have to do this(similar to the case of other “empty intentions”). (Fordetailed analyses of this three-step process, see Dullstein 2013, Shum2012; Svenaeus 2016 and 2018; for an often ignored, but interestingalternative procedural description of the different steps of theempathic process of Stein, see Stein 1920/1924: 149–175).

What is, at any rate, beyond doubt is that none of the empathic stepsentails simulation in Lipps’ sense or in that of standardcontemporary simulationist accounts. (For a neo-Lippsiansimulation-theorist, however, that comes close to Stein’saccount, see Stueber 2006; cf. Jardine 2015 and 2022.)

Stein’s multi-dimensional account attributes to empathy thepower to grasp not only another’s dispositions and motivationsbut also the social context of a person’s motivational nexus, aswell her personal character (1917: 132–134[114–116]; seeJardine 2015; Taipale 2015a,b; Jardine & Szanto 2017). What ismore, Stein argues that empathy—precisely in cases when theother’s experiential life is markedly different from one’sown—(epistemically) contributes to the “constitution ofone’s own personhood” (1917: 134[116]) and to one’s“self-evaluation”. The reason is that

we not only learn to make ourselves into objects (…) by empathywith differently composed personal structures we become clear of whatwe are not, what we are more of less than others. (1917: 134[116])

(3)Distinguishing empathy: Stein not only rejects Lippsiansimulation theories but would also reject a neo-Lippsian understandingof empathy that has lately gained much currency, namely the view thatempathy entails a form of affective sharing. According to a prominentversion of this account, empathy

1. is itself an affective state and specifically one that involves,amongst other features,
2. a certain “interpersonal similarity”, i.e., somerelevant similarity or isomorphism between the affective state of thesubject and that of the target of empathy, and
3. a form of “care” for the affective state of the other,which brings it closer to what is usually called sympathy (though itcannot be reduced to sympathy)

(see Jacob 2011; De Vignemont & Jacob 2012; De Vignemont &Singer 2006).

Indeed, we can find resources in Stein’s work for developing, asSvenaeus (2018) suggests, a notion of “sensual” and“emotional” empathy, and empathy, at least typically, hassome “sensual basis” (cf. 1920/1924: 164–165; 1917:108[92], 127[109]). And yet, there is nothing to suggest that weshould characterize Steinian empathy generally as a“feeling”, even if one were to distinguish(non-intentional) feelings from (intentional) emotions, as Svenaeus,albeit in different ways as Stein proposes (seesect. 2.2, Stein 1917: 117[98]). Rather, according to Stein, we need to properlydistinguish the sensual basis, the perceptual and more complexcognitive components of empathic understanding, as well as empathygrasping another’semotions and empathy grasping, say,another’s motivations or doxastic attitudes.

Moreover, Stein and her fellow phenomenologists are careful not toconflate empathy with other forms of interpersonal and collectiveengagements—be they empathy-based (such as sympathy, collectiveintentionality, fellow-feeling or shared emotions) or notempathy-based, pre-intentional or subpersonal forms ofintersubjectivity (such as mimicry or emotional contagion). Havingsaid this, there are a number of points of agreement between Stein andthe emotional empathy account. In particular, three points should beborne in mind:

1. Stein would certainly not contradict the point raised by Svenaeusthat empathy of the emotional type facilitates sympathy. Yet, there isnothing to indicate in Stein that only affectively poised empathicstance towards the other (what Svenaeus (2018) calls “sensualempathy”) or empathy with an emotion of the other (what he calls“emotional empathy”) will result in sympatheticfeeling-with.
2. Stein probably would also agree that “sharing” theothers’ emotional state, in the sense of affectivelyre-experiencing it, might enhance our understanding of the other.However, again, empathic understanding doesn’t necessarilyrequire such sharing. Moreover, to refer to (affectively)re-experiencing another’s emotions as “sharing”unduly deflates properly joint- or “we”-forms of emotionalsharing. This brings us to the final point,
3. It is certainly true that Stein acknowledges various forms of“we”-intentionality, including experiential and emotionalones (seesect. 2.4), and she also holds that the latter necessarily presuppose some formof empathy (see Zahavi 2014, 2015). But that just reiterates the pointthat the two forms of relating to others are not identical.

2.4 Collective Intentionality and Social Ontology

Stein’s contribution to the philosophy of sociality goes farbeyond her investigation of interpersonal or empathic relations.Though empathy is a necessary basis for any form of sociality, it iscertainly not sufficient for all forms of being-together. Accordingly,in her two books,Beiträge zur philosophischenBegründung der Psychologie and Geisteswissenschaft (1922)andEine Untersuchung über den Staat (1925), Steindiscusses a complex range of social entities and facts and themechanisms that constitute them. Initially, Stein follows herphenomenological contemporaries (Scheler 1916/1926), as well asearlier social psychologists (Le Bon 1895) and sociologists(Tönnies 1887/1935; Simmel 1908; Litt 1919) in distinguishingthree general “types of socialization”(Vergesellschaftung) (1922: 110[130]): the “mass”or “crowd” (Masse), “society”(Gesellschaft), and “community”(Gemeinschaft) (1922: 230–246[283–295]; seeSzanto 2021a). But Stein not only adds to this her systematic analysisof the state (1925) (seesect. 4.1), in her treatise on “Individual and Community” (1922), sheoffers an unprecedentedly fine-grained phenomenological analysis ofthe cognitive, experiential, intentional, volitional, affective andmoral life of communities in general. Before elaborating the nature ofcommunities, let us briefly demarcate it from the crowd and societiesor associations.

Roughly, crowds are ad-hoc and temporary social formations, chieflycharacterized by automatic mimicry of one another’s emotionalexpression and behavior. These eventually converge, not by beingcentered on a common goal or by sharing collective intentions, but byso-called “psychic” or emotional “contagion”(1922: 148–159[175–191]). Typically, individuals will noteven be aware of the psychodynamics at play. This makes them prone to“mass contagion” and “mass suggestion”(Stein1922: 201–212[241–261]).

In sharp contrast to crowds stand the two main “types ofliving-together” (1925: 5[2]): society, with its various formsof institutional associations, and community. Both involve what todayis usually called “collective intentionality” (Jankovic& Ludwig 2017). Though they are not exclusive and typically comein “mixed forms”, there are crucial differences betweenthe two: Societal formations are essentially instrumental associationsof individuals who treat each other “asobjects”;whereas, in communities, individuals encounter each other “assubjects” and as “livingwith one another”(1922: 111[131]; cf. 236–243[283–291]). In associationsindividuals are bound together bycommon, but often purelyegoistic, interests and pursue their common goal by way of“rational” and “mechanistic” planning. Incontrast, communities are bound by “the bond ofsolidarity” (ibid.). This entails that the members are“open” (geöffnet) towards each other and“let each other’s attitudes and evaluations penetrate oneanother and deploy their mutual influence on each other”. Thus,solidarity is not some “static” bond but must bedynamically maintained (1922: 177–178[194]).

For Stein, the solidarity required for communal life isexperientially grounded. Members of a community can onlyconstitute a true community of solidarity if they are bound togetherby so-called “communal experiences”(Gemeinschaftserlebnisse), and jointly constitute a so-calleda “supra-individual” (überindividuell) or“communal stream of experiences” (Erlebnisstrom derGemeinschaft) (1922: 112–122[133–145]). This streamhas its own motivational and psychic-causational laws (1922:140–148[167–175]) and its own life-power (1922:167–174[201–210]).

Communities, according to Stein, can shareintentions andvolitions and jointly performactions (1922:159–163[191–196]). Moreover, communities can also“feel together”, i.e., shareemotions. Further,communities can sharevalues (1922:189–191[226–228]) and are “moved by commonmotives” (1922: 178[215]). Their members can take“evaluative and practical stances”(Stellungnahmen) that pertain to the community (1922:176–179[211–214], 244[292]). They may even engage incollective practices ofimagination (1922:126–127[147–148]; cf. Szanto 2017). And they bear, thoughonly in a restricted sense (see below), “commonresponsibility” (1922: 162–163[195]; see Szanto2015b). Finally, communities even exhibit certain intellectualcapacities and virtues (e.g., having a distinctiveesprit)(1922: 188–189[225–226]), and indeed, as Stein discussesin detail, bear a certain “personality” or personal“character traits” (1922: 199[238];219–221[262–264]; 227–236[272–283]).

For Stein, then, communities can exhibit the same types ofintentional experiences that individuals can, and beattributed all the same spiritual, axiological, psychic, and indeedpersonal features. In order to see the full implication of this boldclaim, and in particular, the genuinelycollective dimensionof communal experiences, consider the following example:

1. I empathize or sympathize withyour grief foryour dead child.
2. I (individually/personally) grieve forour child.
3. I,as a parent, grieve forour child.
4. We, parents, grieve forour child.

In (a), we have aninterpersonal relation founded on empathy,with no form of sharing whatsoever (seesect. 2.3). In (b), there is a shared intentionalobject, but no sharedexperience of relating to it. With (c), we are getting closerto the phenomenon, but we still only have a shared object and whatmight be called “social identification”, whereby anindividual’s experience is in some sense affected by the factthat she conceives of herself as a member of a group.

In Stein’s account, communal experiences are experiences in thesense of (d). Stein offers a multi-dimensional account of communalexperiences. Following three core aspects of intentional acts, it hasbecome customary to distinguishcontent orobject,subject andmode accounts of collectiveintentionality (see Schweikard & Schmid 2013). A distinctivefeature of Stein’s account is that she refuses to locate theseat of sharedness in any of these three dimensions in isolation.Instead, she investigates their interconnections. What’s more,she offers an elaboration of themechanisms responsible forconjoining both individual experiencesinto a communal streamand their various interconnectionswithin that stream.Specifically, Stein discusses the distinctively collective natureof

1. supra-individualobjects;
2. the collective intentionalacts directed upon theseobjects and their sharedness;
3. the irreducibly communalcontent of collectiveexperiences; and
4. the nature and mechanisms underlying their integration into acommunal stream of experiences.

Let us elaborate these in turn:

(1)Supra-individual objects: The first requirement forcollective experiences is fairly straightforward; as Stein putsit,

the essence of communal life [lies] precisely in the fact that thesubjects are not directed at one another, but jointly turned toward anobjectivity (einem Gegenständlichen zugewendet). (1922:225[270])

This delimits the range of possibly shared experiential states: Onlyexperiences that haveintentional objects can be shared.Concerning affective experiences, only those that appraise objects,events, etc. with evaluative properties can be shared, viz.intentional feelings (e.g., grief, joy, fear, etc.), moods andsentiments (e.g., confidence, trust, admiration). Purely sensoryfeelings (e.g., pain, sensory pleasure or bodily excitement), tied toindividuals’ felt body location and lacking extra-bodilyintentional objects, cannot be shared (1922:137–139[163–165]). However, as we will see, communitiescan indeed be attributed life-feelings and psychic and spirituallife-power of their own.

(2)Collective intentional acts: The second distinctivefeature of communal experiences for Stein is what might be calleddouble-direction of collective intentionality. First, thereis the ordinary intentional focus upon the shared, supra-individualobject. Second, in every communal experience, individual membersinstantiate an “intention upon the communal experience”(Intention auf das Gemeinschaftserlebnis) (1922: 116[137]).For example, when grieving together, my experience is not only aboutor directed upon “our loss” but at the same time on thefact thatwe share the experience of the loss.

(3)Communal content: That individual intentions are jointlydirected upon the same object means also that they have a“content of communal experience” (Gehalt desGemeinschaftserlebnisses) (1922: 116[137]): “a unity ofsense.” (1922: 117[138]). The unitary sense does not exclude,however, fine-grained individual variations in the experientialcontent. All that is required of the individuals is that theirexperiences have the same “core of sense”(Sinnkern) (1922: 117[136–137];138–139[164–165]). This allows for “manifold”individual “experiential coloring”(Erlebnisfärbung) (1922: 113[134f.], 115[136]). On theother hand, individuals’ experiences are just as much colored bythe fact that they don’t have the respective experienceprivately, but preciselyas members or “in the nameof” (1922: 114[134]) the community. This “reciprocalfeedback” (Rückwirkung; 1922: 132[157]) orcoloring of the personal by the communal can be best understoodcounterfactually: Individuals would not have the (same) experiencesthey have if they were not members of a given community, or if therewere no community (at some time or another). And there is a normativedimension to this unity: shared intentionality has conditions offulfillment that are determined by what is an appropriate intentionalresponse, given (a) the specific intentional object and (b) thespecific community at stake (see Szanto 2015a):

The intention to realize the communal experience can be fulfilled muchmore extensively than the intention to do justice to what is demandedby the object –for instances in cases where the content of thecommunal experience falls considerably short of what is required ofit. On the other hand, the content of the individual experience canvery closely approximate what is required by the supra-individualobject, and yet by no means does it need to coincide with the contentof the communal experience. This can be the case because (…),for example the event in question (…) can be falsely evaluatedby single members as to its significance for the community. (…)[In that case there is] divergence of the individual contents from theintended collective content (…). (1922:116–117[137–138])

(4)Communal stream of experiences: What about thesubject of the communal experiences and the notoriouscommunalstream of experiences into which individualmembers’ experiences are embedded? To begin with, notice thatthe communal stream is founded upon the “contribution”with which the individual experiences “furnish” it (1922:138[164–165]; see also 119[141], 121–122[143–145]);it does not exist above and beyond these contributions.“Contribution” must not be understood as a sort ofsummative piling-up or aggregation of individual experiences (see alsoKrebs 2020): “the relation between individual and communalexperiences is constitution, not summation” (1922: 122[144]).Moreover, Stein warns us not to misunderstand her notion of“communal subject” (Gemeinschaftssubjekt) as ifthere were some supra-individual “owner”, or some“super-ego”: “a community-subject, as analogue ofthe pure ego, does not exist” (ibid.). Similarly, there isalways also aplurality ofsupra-individualexperiential streams, which do not unite into one single communalstream constituted by some “super-community” or the entirecommunity of all conscious beings. (1922:139–140[165–166]).

Now, the supra-individualstream must not be confused with acollectiveconsciousness. For consciousness is aconstituting rather than a constituted phenomenon;following Husserl, Stein holds that the constitutingconsciousness—the “ultimately constituting stream”of experiences (letztkonstituierender Fluß)—isessentially egoic, and ipso facto individual in nature (1922:118–119[140–141]). Accordingly, the communal stream is asa constituted stream, constituted by individual’s“pure egos”. And yet, in communal experiences, therespectivesubjects of experience and the “individualpersonality” of the members are modified in a certain way andimpacted by the very communal experience. In terms of the modifiedsubject of communal experiences, we must assume a certain“collective personality”(Gesamtpersönlichkeit; 1922: 114[135], see also227[272]). A good way to understand this claim is by considering thedistinction between the “phenomenal” and the “onticsubject” of shared experiences (Schmid 2009: 65ff.). While thephenomenal subject of the communal stream is a communal one, its onticbearers are the individual members (1922: 114[134]). (This certainlyshould not imply that Stein holds thatall constitution, andin particular the constitution of the shared values and objects, orthe life-world, is reducible to individual processes. Quite thecontrary: Like virtually all phenomenologists, Stein stresses theimportance of intersubjective constitution, which is accomplishedprecisely by communities of individuals acting together; 1922:139–140[165–166].)

Large parts of Stein’s treatise are devoted to furtherspecifying the “structure” of communal experiences (1922:112–122[133–145]), the “elements” it contains(such as imaginations, categorical acts, intentional feelings, etc.)(1922: 122–139[145–165]), the mechanisms integrating theindividual experiences into the unified communal stream (1922:139–147[165–175]; 159–163[191–196]), andfinally its own personal, psychic and spiritual life (1922:163–199[196–238]) (see also Burns 2015; Caminada 2015).Roughly, the communal stream has a temporally structured internalcoherence, with its own “associative”,“motivational”, and “causal” mechanismsconjoining the individual experiences into an experientially coherent“integrate” (1922: 141–147[167–175]).Experiences also affect one another by “psychic” and“volitional causation” (1922:159–163[191–196]). Accordingly, the communal streamexhibits its own life-feelings as well as psychic and spirituallife-power (1922: 145–147[172–175];167–185[201–203]). Communities can be more or lessproductive, energized, etc., depending on the contribution of thelife-power of the participating individuals. In turn, the communallife-power feeds back on the individuals’ life-power (seeMüller 2020).

Though the individuals’ mental and psychic life (incl. theirattitudes, life-power) are variously influenced—and indeed, intheirsocial identity, oras members of a communityco-determined—by communal life, their autonomous(affective and moral) psychology is never “outflanked” or“overridden” (Pettit 1993) by the community (1922:234[280], 247[296], 224–227[268–271]). Just as they neverlose their “individual distinctiveness” (1922: 226[271]),individuals are never “cleared” of their (moral)responsibility for their individual or communal deeds by thecommunity. Communal responsibility for Stein doesn’t simply“suspend” individual responsibility (1922:162–163[194–196]; 225[269]) Thus, despite occasionalappearances to the contrary, which may result from misleading notionssuch as a “character”, or “personality of thecommunity” (1922: 227[272]), Stein’s account of communitysteers clear of any problematic form of collectivism (see Szanto 2015band forthcoming).

In conclusion, Stein’s account of collective intentionality isof continued interest to the contemporary landscape. In particular,she offers a middle-way between the Scylla of methodologicallyindividualist or reductionist accounts and the Charybdis ofcollectivist or fusional accounts (e.g., Schmid 2014; Krueger 2016) ofshared experience. At the same time, she specifies different types andlayers of experiential sharing, their normative dimension and thevarious (intentional, cognitive, affective, etc.) mechanismsresponsible for integrating them.

3. Phenomenological Ontology and Philosophical Anthropology

3.1 The Question of Being

Following her conversion in 1922, Stein immersed herself in Christianphilosophy, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, translatingDeVeritate (Stein 2008a,b). Having “found a home inAquinas’s thought world” (Stein 1931: 4[3]), but remainingloyal to Husserlian phenomenology, she sought to integratephenomenology with Thomism which she did in an original way,connecting Husserl’s concept ofGeist (spirit) with theChristian personal God. Stein is aware of the challenge: Husserlproceeds from the transcendental standpoint of the meditating ego;Aquinas’ position is naive realism. Stein wants to start fromrealism about being, therefore she criticized Husserliantranscendental philosophy for seeking to establish objectivity fromwithin subjectivity (1993: 33[32]). Her phenomenological ontology,furthermore, offered a Christian alternative (“infiniteBeing”) to Heidegger’s account of being as finitude.Stein’s ontology is found primarily inPotency and Act(1931) andFinite and Eternal Being (1950/2006), both ofwhich contain original discussions of essence (Wesen) and ofbeing (Sein) that deserve fuller examination over and againstHeidegger or Conrad-Martius’s accounts.

Stein defines ontology as the science of the “basic forms ofbeing and of beings” (2000c: 161[182]). In agreement withAquinas and Husserl, she holds that ontological concepts can bediscovered by “logical reasoning” (1931: 17[22]). Being isintrinsically intelligible. She begins from Husserl’sdistinction between formal and material ontologies. Formal ontology,for Stein, considers being simply as “being”, that whichis. Thus it arrives at the formal notion of “something thatis” or just “something” (1931: 22[28]). Formalontology, for Stein, following Husserl, studies formal principles suchas “act”, “potency”, “object”,“individual”, and so on. Formal ontology identifies apriori conceptual truths such as: “only a perfectly simple wholecan be absolutely actual” (1931: 38[52]). Stein identifies threefundamental ontological forms: “object”(Gegenstand), “what” (Was), and“being” (Sein; 1931: 99[147]). In line withHusserl, Stein also distinguishes between the species and the concreteindividual. Individual entities have “thisness” orhaeccitas (1931: 29[39]). Invoking Dun Scotus, Stein speaksofhaeccitas, and of “individual essence”(Einzelwesen; 1950/2006: 79[81]), a concept she also finds inHusserl. Paradoxically, there is an essence that is responsible forsomething being an individual, a particular “this”. Thingshave a “possibility of essence”(Wesensmöglichkeit, Stein 1950/2006: 80[83]), thecapacity to actualize their nature. For Stein, from consideration ofone’s own being and non-being, one can grasp the notion ofactuality and possibility and then argue for the possibilityof full actuality as is found in divine being.

For Stein, “God is pure spirit and the archetype of allspiritual being” (2003: 127[153]). The essence of divine being,moreover, is to be “tri-personal” (1950/2006: 352). God is“Being-in-Person, indeed theBeing-in-three-Persons” (1950/2006: 307[359]). Spirit ingeneral, furthermore, is “superabundant, diffusive life”(1950/2006 351[380]). The life of spirit as such is non-spatial“movement” (1931: 117[169]). Spirit is active and dynamicand divine being is “a movement from the inside out (…) agenerating being (…) eternal self-drawing andself-creating” (Sich-selbst-schöpfen; 1950/2006:300[351]). All forms of spirit possess “innerness”(Inneres; Stein 1950/2006: 307[360]) and “goes out fromitself”. Spirit as such has “self-shaping” power(Gestaltungskraft; 1931: 122[175]) and its essence is to be“self-giving”. Spirit, for Stein, then, is“being-in-itself” (Sein in sich selbst),“for itself”, and “from itself” (ase). All other beings that are spiritual are founded in thisdivine spirit and have their “archetypes” there(Urbilder; 1950/2006: 307[360]). Ultimately, all forms ofspirit form a unity.

Stein defends the reality of essences but not their actual existence.An essence is not just a name, rather a name is anexpressionof an essence. Concepts are human inventions; essences are not(1950/2006: 62[66]). The formation of concepts is based on graspingthe essences (Stein 1950/2006: 72[73]). The being of essences,however, is inefficacious and potential. What is actual is theindividual. Stein’s example of essence is “joy”. Joybecomes actual and efficacious because of its essence, which istimeless (1950/2006: 91[95]). There exists an individual’s joy.There is no such thing in the real world as “joy ingeneral” (1950/2006: 75[76]); nevertheless, joy has an“essentiality” (Wesenheit; 1950/2006: 77[78])that defines it and distinguishes it from other emotions. Stein claimsessences belong to objects (e.g.my joy) but“essentialities” are ideal and are independent of objects(e.g., joy as such) (1950/2006: 72[73]). An object without an essenceis unthinkable (1950/2006: 77[78]).

Stein, following both Husserl and Scheler, distinguishes between thegeneric or universal essence of a human being (the“species” – what all humans have in common) and theindividual essences of individual human beings such as Socrates.Explicitly departing from Aquinas, and deeply inspired by Jean Hering(1921), Stein defends the concept of the essence of the individual,the differentiation of individuals through spiritual matter, and theidea of the “unfolding” or “blooming”(Entfaltung; 1931: 139[209]) of the soul from its core orseed (Kern). InFinite and Eternal Being, Steindiscusses the “individual essence” (individuellesWesen) of Socrates (1950/2006: 142[157]), a determinate formdistinct from the general, specific form of being-human. The form ofSocrates unfolds within specific possibilities contained in its quitedeterminate essence. The real Socrates may be different from the mandepicted by Plato. “Being-Socrates” and“being-the-Platonic-Socrates” are distinct essences,different possible “forms” of unfolding of what Socratesis (1950/2006: 142–143[157–158]). The essenceunfolds itself in its faculties and capacities (later calledits “potentiality”). Stein distinguishes between“unfolding” (Entfaltung) and“development” (Entwicklung). A personunfolds from an essence that is already there. Developmentrefers to other kinds of movement, including the Darwinian idea ofevolution, with which Stein (and also Scheler) was broadly familiarand which she discussed in her anthropology.

Stein further distinguishes between “species” (understoodas Aquinas’ “forms” which are permanent andunalterable categories (2000c: 151[173]), and what she calls,following Husserl, “types”. Types can vary within thelimits defined by the species. A single person can exemplify manytypes, e.g., by age, social status, etc. Stein maintains thateach entity—from a plant to an animal or human being—hasan inner “form” (Gestalt) that determines it tobecome the thing it is—just as individual seeds become beechtrees or fir trees (2000c: 32[130]).

The subject is the “bearer of spiritual life” (1931:87[124]). Intentionality is thebeing of subjective spirit(1931 85[121]), i.e., it constitutes subjective spirit as such. Thereare two sides to spiritual being: “being illumined”(durchleuchtet) and “being open”(geöffnet) (1931: 104[154]). Intelligibility(intelligibilitas) is “being illumined” (1931:84[123]). “Knowledge is something proper to spiritualbeing” (1931: 111[165]) but spirit cannot be just knowing; itmust also have freedom of will (Stein 1950/2006: 341[402]). Steinclaims already in theBeiträge that spirit is openness(1922: 296[295–296]; see also 1950/2006: 307–308[360]):openness for an objective world, which isexperienced; andopenness for someone else’s subjectivity, someone else’sspirit. InPotency and Act, she maintains that

being open for oneself and for what is other is the highest and hencealso the most proper form of spirit whereto all other spiritual beingharks back. (1931: 175[255])

“Being open” means being able to engage what is other thanoneself, stand over against it, turn toward it intentionally. (1931:175[254])

Stein’s concepts of blooming, unfolding and openness are crucialfor understanding her “essentialism” in respect to genderor sex, as we shall discuss inSection 4.2 below.

3.2 The Nature of Persons

Stein was concerned with the nature of the “person” fromthe beginning of her career, inspired by her teachers Stern, Husserl,and Scheler. InEmpathy, she argues for the“constitution” of the person in emotional experiences;feelings “announce personal attributes” (Stein 1917:117[99]), whereas mere bodily sensations do not (seesect. 2.2). Persons are complex but intrinsic unities and each person is both avalue and correlated to a “value-world”(Wertwelt) (1917: 136 [108], Stein 1922: 63, 117, 144). Her1922Beiträge extended her discussion of persons,developing a layered ontology of body, soul, and spirit, anddiscussing her concept of “life-power” in detail (seesect. 2.1). In her later works, Stein embeds her phenomenological account ofconscious life into a more Thomistic metaphysical, but alsoexistential, conception of the person. Of particular importance areher lectures in Münster in 1932 on anthropology, especiallyThe Structure of the Human Person (Stein 2004a), where shecharacterizes the human person as “body-soul-spirit.” Thehuman being is at once “living being”(Lebewesen), “ensouled being”(Seelenwesen), and “spiritual person” (Stein2004a: 30–31). Only the human can say “I” (Stein2004a: 78). As Stein will explain in herFinite and EternalBeing:

The I is capable of viewing the multitude of external impressions inthe light of its understanding and of responding to them in personalfreedom. And because the human I is capable of doing this, people arespiritual persons, i.e., carriers of their own lives in a preeminentsense of a personal “having-oneself-in-hand”(In-der-Hand-habens). (Stein 1950/2006: 316 [370])

Stein agrees with Scheler that a person is“value-sensitive,” “value-valent,” or“value-tropic” (werthaftig; 1922: 190[227]) andhas “permeability for values in general” (1922: 190[227]).Persons, in other words, are intrinsically value-dependent,value-recognizing, and value-producing beings: “we see what aperson is when we see which world of value she lives in” (1922:190[227]). Love, for example, is an apprehension of the value of theloved person. Emotions have the greatest effect on the inner form ofthe self (1931: 260[381]). Emotions reveal reality in its“totality and in its peculiarity” (2000c: 87[96]). Theperson is in part constituted through emotions; a non-emotive personis, for Stein, an impossibility. The emotions, furthermore, enable usto grasp other persons as value-beings (see alsosect. 2.2 andsect. 2.3).

Humans also choose to allow themselves to be motivated by certainvalues. The apprehension of a value (Wertnehmung) calls foror motivates an appropriate response. We are sensitive to many valuesat the same time and our openness to other persons means we alsoapprehend their values as perhaps different from our own. Communitybuilds from negotiating between values, perhaps adopting some of theother persons values but also asserting our own (e.g., Stein notesthat young people may value being in a community over being in afamily, Stein 2004a: 24). The apprehension of value, like perception,has both passive and active dimensions. As Stein writes, values notonly motivate a progress in the context of knowledge, they alsomotivate a determinate emotional response, a determinate posture ofwilling and a corresponding action (Stein 2004a: 82). Indeed, Steinrecognized the close relation between valuing and willing and here wasinfluenced by Dietrich Von Hildebrand.

Following Husserl, Stein maintains that the person actualizes itselfin his or her uniquely personal acts, either self-directed acts, suchas making a firm decision, or expressing oneself creatively, orother-directed acts, such as promising, forgiving, that recognizeother persons as persons). Spiritual acts are acts that personsaddress to each other as persons (something found also inHusserl’sIdeas II). The whole person, however, is notexhausted in any of these acts (1931: 260[381]), but they spring fromthe person’s “core”. A person has a depth beyond hisor her acts. Having “depth” is characteristic of the humansoul (1931: 266[390]). The soul can receive something at the depthappropriate to it; it has “depth-reception”(Tiefen-Aufnahme, Stein 1931: 255[391]).

Stein also maintains that human beings are “beings in theworld” (2000c: 155[177]). Persons are integrated into both thematerial and the immaterial, spiritual worlds (1931: 147[221]):“The being of human beings is a composite of body, soul, andspirit” (1950/2006: 310[363]). The person is a complex unity ofpassively received sensations, impulses and drives, vital feelings,emotions and dispositions, rational states, judging, willing, and‘position-takings’ or ‘stances’(Stellungnahmen) – cognitive, evaluative, and volitional. Humanspirits exhibit “being-tied-to-the-body”(Leibgebundenheit; 1950/2006: 333[392]).

Following Aristotle, she maintains that the body receives its vitalitythrough the soul (2000c: 86[94]). For Stein, the soul is the principleof formation, animateness, nutrition, and reproduction. The soul,furthermore, grows primarily from its affective nature; the soul isconditioned by the body, but the spirit can also condition and curbthe emotions and transform them by lifting them up to higher spiritualgoals. In humans, the spirit is dependent on the senses for itsnatural activity. “The soul cannot live without receiving”(Stein 1950/2006: 318[373]). Human persons as spirits areintentionally influenced and formed “from above” (i.e.,from purely spiritual motivations) and also “from below”(1950/2006: 310[364]), i.e., from bodily drives. Spirit arises from a“dark ground”, an “obscure depth” (1950/2006:310[364]). Having “depth” is characteristic of the humansoul (1931: 266[390]) – an idea Stein takes from ConradMartius’s metaphysical dialogue on the soul. The soul canreceive something at the depth appropriate to it; it has“depth-reception” (Tiefen-Aufnahme, Stein 1931:255[391]). To live superficially is to betray the deep essence of theperson. The more a person lives at depth, the more their‘core’ unfolds, the more they are capable of attainingheights.

For Stein, the soul is not static and complete but evolving anddeveloping (Stein 2000c: 85–6[94]), fulfilling its innatecapacities. It is a living “root” (Wurzel) whoseinnate capacities have to be activated and constantly nourished. Thehuman being actualizes itself in the acts that come from itssubjectivity. Ordinary daily existence conditions the soul and thespirit (Stein 2000c: 89[98]; 1931: 261[383]). Humans can repressactions and shape them. Stein maintains that the soul has its owninner “openness” (1931: 266[390]): openness to othersubjects but also, following Scheler in particular, openness tovalue. The soul, however, must be open to values in order toreceive them (1922: 193[230]). The soul is more important than thepure ego:

The pure ego is, as it were, only the portal through which the life ofa human being passes on its way from the depth of the soul to thelucidity of consciousness. (1950/2006: 420[501])

The ego is at most one part of the soul. Overall, soul and ego have tobe understood as dimensions of the full human spirit, which is theconcrete person in its unfolding. Stein speaks of‘forming’ (Formung) of the person throughrepeated acts. Making a decision makes it easier to make that decisionagain (2004a: 84).

Persons are embodied psychic wholes or totalities that must beapproached as such. “Every I is unique” (Jedes Ich istEinmaliges, 1950/2006: 294[343]) with its own“peculiarity” (Eigentümlichkeit), that isincommunicable, even though it also has a nature or“quid” that it shares with other egos. Everyhuman being has “unrepeatable singularity” (2000c:161[182]). In the human ego, there is a contrast between“ego-life” and “being” (1950/2006 296[345]).The ego is “transparent” (durchsichtig) to itself(1950/2006: 296[345]). For Stein, every person is an ego, but notevery ego is a person. A person must be aware of itself and there maybe egos (e.g., animal egos) that do not have this self-awareness andtransparency. In this regard, to be a person requires a degree ofdeveloping self-awareness.

Stein maintained throughout her work that each human being has anindividual personal “core” (Kern der Person, see1931: 122[183];Persönlichkeitskern; 1922: 80[92]) thatremains unchanged and that contains potentiality that can beactualized. For the personal core, Stein drew on Teresa of Avila(“castle of the soul”,die Seelenburg, Stein1950/2006: 315[370]), John of the Cross, Max Scheler, and HedwigConrad-Martius, especially her essayOn the Soul (ConradMartius 1921; Calcagno & Miron 2022). The person“unfolds” or “ripens” but the personal core isnever completely “disclosed or disclosable” (1931:139[200]). This core is directly knowable only by God. We onlyactualize some of it in our finite lives, but, in contrast toHeidegger, we actuallyare this deeper core. Our being has awholeness which our finite life does not exhaust.

The person’s character properties are its capacities forapprehending values, and in them the core unfolds itself outwards(entfaltet sich in ihnen nach außen; 1922: 193[231]).Kindliness as a character trait doesn’t just show itself in kindactions; a person can be kindly even if he doesn’t get to dokind actions (1922: 193[231]). Not everything in the person comes fromthe core. Some experiences are “proper to the I”(ichlich) whereas others are “foreign to the I”(ichfremd, 1931: 129[186]). Here Stein draws heavily fromHusserl. There are emotional and other sentient traits that are“indifferent” to the core (1922:191–92[228–29]). External impressions do not penetratedeeply into my soul and have little personal involvement (1931:128[185]). The same sound can slip by me, but if I am concentrating,it can disturb me and make me angry (1931: 130[187]). It penetrates myperson and affects me inwardly. There are “depths of theI” (1931 129[186]; also discussed inEmpathy (1917) andBeiträge (1922) (seesect. 2.1 andsect. 2.2). People live at different depth dimensions (1931: 130[188]). The morea person lives at depth, the more his or her core will unfold. Steindistinguishes not just between “surface” and“depth” of the self but also between center and periphery.I may be concentrating and open a window to get air but don’tfully notice myself doing it. Penetrating things with understanding isa work of depth and is an “achievement of the will” (1931:131[190]).

Stein appropriated the notion of “life” (Leben)from Husserl, Scheler, Dilthey, and Bergson (mediated through the workof her friend Roman Ingarden). Indeed “life” is one of herkey notions and she even developed a philosophy of life that sought toincorporate insights from biology. Development of the person continuesthrough life but the person does not cease after death (1931:140[202]). The person enters eternity “as what s/he hasbecome” (was sie geworden ist; 1931: 135[195]). In ourinnermost feeling of being alive we remain the same—from childto adult to old age (1931: 2[21]).

4. Political and Feminist Thought

4.1 Philosophy of State

Stein’s treatiseAn Investigation Concerning the State(1925) completes her preoccupation with social reality(1917–1925). The aim of the book is to provide an“ontic” determination of the state as a form of sociality.The guiding question Stein sets out to answer is what “type ofliving together of subjects” is distinctive of the state.

According to Stein, the state cannot be grounded in either“society” or in “community” alone. Unlikesocieties or associations, a state cannot be brought into existence byany act of collective intentionality or “volition”.Political entities, founded solely on such rational associations,would at best be “artificial” quasi-states, permanently indanger of dissolving, like the artificial territories drawn up on mapsof colonial powers (1925: 81[107]). Stein aims to show that stateswill be “peculiarly hollow and schematic” if they are notin some sense or another grounded in communal forms of living together(1925: 32[37]). However, no “community of thepeople”—be it an ethnically defined “people”or “folk” or some other cultural community founded onshared values or languages—is a necessary or sufficientcondition to constitute a state either. Accordingly, Stein argues bothagainst classical contractualism à la Rousseau, Locke or Hobbes(1925: 40[51]), that asserts a rational but decisionist creation ofthe state (Schöpfung kraft eines Willküraktes), andagainst traditionalist conceptions of some organic emergence of astate. For Stein, there is no “either-or” here: thoughstates may be factually “grounded” in a community or asociety, statehood is notconstituted by either (1925:7–9[4–6]). The “gravitational force [of a state]rests on its own” (1925: 81[108]). Less metaphorically, a stateconstitutes itself by its own sovereign act

The central thesis of the book, then, focuses on the“equivalence of statehood and sovereignty” (1925: 17[16]).Sovereignty is not only “theconditio sine qua nonof the state” (1925: 51[66]), it also represents its definingnature. A state is essentially a “sovereign sphere ofpower” (Herrschaftssphäre) with its own“governing state-power (Staatsgewalt)”.Specifically, the sovereignty of a state is a (self-)constitutivepower, instituting not just the state as such, but also its law orrights (Recht). Hence, “state and law come to life atthe same time” (1925: 48[62]). A state thus bears the exclusive“right to institute laws” (Recht, Recht zusetzen) and determines the sphere of persons (and specific formsof their behavior) for whom those laws apply (1925: 34[40]).

Stein spends a considerable portion of the treatise specifying thenature of rights and law at stake. In particular, she differentiatesbetween positive and pure law, subjective, natural, human and civilrights, discusses the function of the state in interpreting,enforcing, or adjudicating rights as well as the legal and ontologicalstatus of the state itself as a subject of law (1925: 40[51],56–73[73–96]). Drawing on Reinach (1913), she firstdistinguishes “pure” and “positive law”. Purelaw is a-temporal and applies universally “at all times and forall peoples” (1925: 33[39]); whereas positive law is created byspontaneous decisions and hence can vary socio-historically. Based onthis distinction, Stein argues that, “wherever there is no ideaof a positive law, the idea of a state can (…) neither begrasped” (1925: 64[84]).

But in what sense is the state, as a sovereign entity, the originator(Urheber) of its own (positive) rights and powers and in whatsense is it a unitary “subject of right”(Rechtsubjekt) of its own? The gist of Stein’s complexand somewhat ambivalent discussion (1925: 52–62[68–83]) isthat “being a statemeans being a subject ofrights” (1925: 119[172]), namely in the sense of a“juridical person”. Juridical persons are persons only ina derivative sense; they derive their ability to perform “freeacts”, from fully-fledged individual (natural) persons (1925:37[46]). The state, then, is the

non-personal entity, the subject, to which all [individual] rights,inasmuch they are of a positive-legal source, point back to as theirultimate originator. (1925: 59[77])

On the other hand, Stein applies her account of collectiveintentionality (seesect. 2.4) to the theory of the state as a “collective person”(“Kollektiv-Person”). A key assumption is thatthe state can only be a unitary, sovereign subject

if there is a sense, in which it can be claimed that it is, as atotality (als Ganzes), author (Urheber) ofits own acts. (1925: 37[46])

The state, as a collective subject of right, represents individualsand communities, whichempowers individuals, associations orinstitutions to act on behalf of the state. But they can only act onbehalf of the state if they are, in turn, “offered” to doso (angetragen) and thus legitimized by the state itself(1925: 38[47]). Moreover, individuals and communities must acknowledgeor recognize (anerkennen) the state’s self-institutionand its executive and legislative powers.

With her detailed analysis of the sovereignty of the state and thespecific workings of its rule of law, Stein contributes in an originalway to later—and very different—attempts to clarify theconcept of the state: in particular, Carl Schmitt’s definitionof politics in terms of state’s unique sovereignty and abilityto lead war (Schmitt 1932), and Hannah Arendt’s account of therole of nation states in integrating pluralities of individuals andcommunities into a single body politic, namely bytheir—ever-vulnerable—sovereignty to establish and enforcethe rule of law (e.g., in Arendt 1951).

Stein also discusses the ethical value and possible moral obligationsof the state, as well as its role “as a bearer of historicalevents”. For Stein, the state doesn’t have any properethical value; rather, values can only be attributed to theirunderlying communities (1925: 111[152]). Accordingly, the state cannotbe an ethical subject (1925: 119[172]). The reason is that values andthe obligation to realize or facilitate them can only be“acknowledged in acts of feeling” (see alsosect. 2.2); “the state is not capable of such acknowledgment(Kenntnisnahme), and in particular incapable offeeling” (ibid.). Ultimately, then, the state can act freely,and indeed remain a lawful or rightful state, without giving anyconsideration to ethical norms. However, that doesn’t excludethat, via individual state representatives, the state remains“in touch” with the moral domain and is affected byethical demands.

Against the German Idealist tradition, Stein argues that the ethicalidea of the state does not lie in the historical development ofindividual freedom (1925: 122[177]); freedom cannot“develop” but is either given or not, and can at best beonly secured by the state. Rather, the only ethical role of the statelies in the “formation of a sensitivity” for positivespiritual and ethical values and the facilitation of the freedom torealize those values, or the “creation of culture” (1925:124–125[181]). This partly resonates with Arendt’s famousdictum that “freedom is theraison d’êtreof politics” (Arendt 1961: 146). Yet, and this is where Arendtand Stein would arguably part ways, the state has only a facilitatingrole, even if the historically most powerful one, in “realizingvalues”—which is the very “sense of history”(1925: 126[184]). For Stein, there is nothing in the ontic nature ofstate that could ethically demand this role.

4.2 On the Nature and Education of Women

Stein’s writings on the nature of woman (Stein 2000c) areconsistent with her overall anthropology. A committed feminist fromher youth, she was aware of the “great cultural upheaval”(2000c: 133[152]) in which she, following the suffragettes in Englandand similar movements in Germany, was participating. She vigorouslydefended the right of women to enterall professions andbranches of education without exception (2000c: 132[105]). Sherejected descriptions of women as “the weaker sex” (2000c:136[157]) and defended their capacity to work in physically demandingjobs. But women also had special expertise and should also, forinstance, be involved in framing laws that affected women or children.Stein personally campaigned for women to be admitted to highereducation, especially for the Habilitation required for universityteaching. As an educator of women at the Dominican boarding school inSpeyer, she wrote on the nature, status, and calling of women. Most ofher public addresses were given to the Catholic Women TeachersAssociation.

Stein criticized the one-sided development of women in contemporarysociety (2000c: 87[96]). The demand for equality has sometimes meantthat the unique nature of women is neglected or downplayed. Steincriticized the early twentieth-century suffragettes, who, in theirgoal to establish equality between men and women, were driven to denythe distinctiveness of the feminine nature (2000c: 2[254]). Women havenatural vocations to be spouse and mother, but they also haveother talents: scientific, technical, artistic, and so on. All must benurtured. She recognized that women of her time had “the doubleburden of family duties and professional life” (2000c: 26[54])which challenged the possibility of personal fulfillment.

Women are essentially different from men. For Stein, women’srelation of soul to body is different from man’s; thewoman’s soul is more intimately connected to the body (2000c:86[95]). Moreover, women have deeper and fuller emotional lives(2000c: 87[96]); accordingly, women have a crucial political-socialrole as the educators of humanity. Stein insists that all educationmust take cognizance of the specific nature of woman (2000c:141[162]), their specific spirituality. She claims, whereas men can beabstract, women are more interested in the concrete totality:“abstraction in every sense is alien to the femininenature” (2000c: 19[45]). Women, furthermore, are uniquelyoriented to thepersonal dimension—something that canbe a virtue or a defect. Women have a unique sensitivity to moralvalues. Women also live more intensely through their bodies (2000c:86[95]). But there is a danger of the body controlling the soul.Stein, following Aquinas, argues that the soul is the form of thebody, and as men and women have different bodies, so they must havedifferent kinds of souls (2000c: 18[45]). It is not the case, as somemaintain, that men and women differ in bodies only and that theirminds are unaffected by this difference (2000c: 162[183]). Men, forStein, are focused on their own concerns, women are primarily focusedempathetically on others.

Stein discussed the meaning of “profession”(Beruf) and “calling” (Ruf), discussionswe also find in the later Husserl. For Stein, the essence of alleducation is religious. Men and women are called, in the firstinstance, by God. She defends the specifically religious professionfor women—a “supernatural” vocation, requiringgrace. Entrusting the soul to God frees religious women of theirburden; participation in the divine life is “liberating”.Indeed, she supported the idea that married women could practice theirreligious vocation (2000c: 92[102]). In public talks, Stein eventackled the contentious topic of women priests (2000c:76–77[83]). The contemporary Church, Stein maintained, has needof “feminine energies” (2000c: 77[83]), and there is nodogma preventing women’s ordination (2000c: 77, 139[83,160]).

Stein also endorses the traditional account of woman as serving andobedient to the spouse who protects her (2000c: 19[46]). Every soul isunique (Stein 2000c: 80[88]). Yet there are also different“types” (Arten) of “women’ssoul”. While she acknowledges that the historical relationshipbetween the sexes (since the biblical Fall) has been one of lordshipand bondage (2000c: 67[72]), Stein defends the essential differencebetween men and women (attested, she believes, in the Genesis story ofAdam and Eve). Male and Female are equal in that both made in theimage of God. For her the prototype for men was Jesus, for women itwas Mary (2000c: 176[198]). Yet, she was aware that “modernyouth has proclaimed its sexual rights” (2000c: 130[149]) andbelieved it urgent for Catholics to have a broadminded approach tosexuality to answer these demands (2000c: 131[150]). Therefore, sexeducation should be provided in school for boys and girls alike(2000c: 131[150]).

In summary, Stein held firm views about women’s and men’sspecific natures. But woman’s role is not limited to beingcaretakers of the young and “helpmate” to man. Women havetheir own specific talents which may contribute to social and publiclife in many different ways, based on their individuality. She alsoheld that women were by nature not just public actors but also had aspecific responsibility for children. Moreover, women were more intune with their affective lives, and the highest expression of theiressence was in self-giving love. Thus, she believed in the equal butcomplementary status of males and females.

5. Spirituality and Theological Works

Stein’s deep interest in spirituality was initiated by herreading of Teresa of Avila’sBook of Her Life, butdeepened through her reading of Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross,John Henry Newman, and Dionysius the Areopagite. Studying Aquinasconvinced her that it was possible to serve God and also dointellectual work, and she combined her spirituality with intellectualendeavors. She wrote several mystical studies, most notablyScience of the Cross (Stein 2003).Science of theCross studies John of the Cross’s mysticism, his search forspiritual oneness, and his devotion to love. Stein engages in apersonal meditation on the symbolism of the cross and of night (thedominant symbol in John of the Cross, Stein 2003: 31[38]). Night issomething natural, invisible and formless, yet not nothing (2003:32[39]); it is like a foretaste of death (2003: 32[40]). For Stein,“the night denotes the profound darkness of faith”(1950/2006: 35[27]). The mystical night comes not from without butfrom within (2003: 34[41]). Only by feeling the weight of the crosscan one learn the “science of the cross” (scientiacrucis) which is “buried in the soul like a seed”(2003: 5[9–10]). The soul must be educated to know God and thespiritual side of human being must detach itself from the senses(2003: 95[115]). Surrendering to God in faith makes us pure spirits,freed from all images and thus in darkness (2003: 97[118]).“Dark contemplation” is the secret ladder to God.

One of Stein’s posthumous publications was a scholarly essay,“Ways to Know God”, (in Stein 1993) on the Christianmystic, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. For Stein, Dionysius’mystical theology is not a scientific discipline but a way to speakabout God. Just as perception always points beyond itself, similarlyour experience of the world points beyond itself to its divine source(1993: 27[99]). This world is the basis for natural theology. God isthe “primary theologian” (Ur-Theologe; 1993:27[100]) and the whole of creation is his symbolic theology.Affirmative theology is based on theanalogia entis; negativetheology is based on the dissimilarity between creatures and God. ForStein, negative theology “climbs the scale of creatures”to discover that at each level God is not found there: “We drawnear to God by denying what he is not” (1993: 19[88]).

But Stein defends human freedom: “the soul has a right to makedecisions for itself” (2003: 134[161]). She was aware that veryfew people live in their inner depths and even less from out of theirinner depths (2003: 132[159]). In herWays to Stillness shewrote: “Each of us is perpetually on the razor’s edge: onone side, absolute nothingness; on the other, the fullness of divinelife” (1987: 12).

6. Conclusion

The publication by Herder of the 28-volumeEdith SteinGesamtausgabe has confirmed Stein as an independent, creative,and highly productive philosopher, who made original contributions onsuch diverse topics as the constitution of personhood and theapprehension of others in empathy, collective intentionality andshared experiences, emotions and values, the nature of the state, theeducation of women and women’s rights, anthropology (Wallenfang2017) and the metaphysical issues of the nature of being and essence.Stein was not only in critical discussion with her contemporaries,including philosophers such as Pfänder, Scheler, Reinach, orHusserl, psychologists such as Lipps, Münsterberg, or Stumpf, andsociologists such as Tönnies, Litt, or Simmel, but her work alsoharbors rich conceptual, methodological and systematic resources thatare of continued relevance for a number of recent philosophical andinterdisciplinary debates. While in her earlier writings Stein pursueddetailed phenomenological analyses, in her later work she engaged inmetaphysics, but also in philosophical and theological anthropologyand mysticism. Integrating eidetic phenomenology and Thomisticmetaphysics, Stein ultimately developed a novel systematic account ofsocial life that is the produce of the actions of free, individualpersons, whose experiences and volitions are rooted in cognitions aswell as emotions and who can attain the level of rational and communallife that is open to the possibility of a transcendence, liftinghumans beyond their finitude.

Bibliography

Throughout this article the consulted English translations, which areoften misleading and sometimes outright erroneous, or leave outrelevant notions altogether, have been modified. Wherever relevant,original German terms are mentioned in brackets and italics. Whereverpossible, both German and English references are provided: the firstreference is to the pagination of the German edition of Stein’scollected works (Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe, ESGA, 28 volumes,Freiburg, Basel, Wein: Herder), followed by references in squarebrackets to the English translations in theCollected Works ofEdith Stein (CWES, Washington, DC: ICS Publication).

A. Stein’s Work (German and English)

• 1917,Zum Problem der Einfühlung; reprinted ESGA,Volume 5, 2008; translated asOn the Problem of Empathy,Waltraut Stein (trans.), CWES, Volume 3, 1989.
• 1922,Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung derPsychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften; reprinted ESGA, Volume6, 2010; translated asPhilosophy of Psychology and theHumanities, Mary Catherine Baseheart and Marianne Sawicki(trans.), CWES, Volume 7, 2000.
• 1925,Eine Untersuchung über den Staat; reprintedESGA, Volume 7, 2006; translated asAn Investigation Concerning theState, Marianne Sawicki (trans.), CWES, Volume 10, 2006.
• 1920/1924,Einführung in die Philosophie; reprintedESGA, Volume 8, 2004.
• 1929, “Husserls Phänomenologie und die Philosophie desheiligen Thomas von Aquino. Versuch einerGegenüberstellung”, inFestschrift Edmund Husserl zum70. Geburtstag gewidmet, (Jahrbuch für Philosophie undphänomenologische Forschung 10), Ergänzungsband, Halle:Max Niemeyer, 315–338.
• 1931,Potenz und Akt: Studien zu einer Philosophie desSeins; reprinted ESGA, Volume 10, 2005; translated asPotencyand Act: Studies toward a Philosophy of Being, Walter Redmond(trans.), CWES, Volume 11, 2009.
• 1950/2006,Endliches und Ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Aufstiegszum Sinn des Seins. Anhang: Martin Heideggers Existenz-philosophie& Die Seelenburg; reprinted ESGA, Volumes 11–12, 2006;translated asFinite and Eternal Being. An Attempt at an Ascent tothe Meaning of Being, Kurt F. Reinhardt (trans.), CWES, Volume 9,2002.
• 1985,Aus dem Leben einer jüdischen Familie und weitereautobiographische Beiträge; reprinted ESGA, Volume 1, 2002;translated asLife in a Jewish Family: An Autobiography,1891–1916, Josephine Koeppel (trans.), CWES, Volume 1,1986.
• 1987,Wege zur inneren Stille, W. Herbstrith (ed.),Aschaffenburg: Kaffke.
• 1993,Erkenntnis und Glaube, Freiburg: Herder, 1993;translated asKnowledge and Faith, Walter Redmond (trans.),CWES, Volume 8, 2000.
• 2000a,Selbstbildnis in Briefen I. 1916 bis 1933, ESGA,Volume 2; translated asSelf Portrait in Letters,1916–1942, Josephine Koeppel (trans.), CWES, Volume 5,1993.
• 2000b,Selbstbildnis in Briefen II: 1933 bis 1942, ESGA,Volume 3.
• 2000c,Die Frau. Fragestellungen und Reflexionen, ESGA,Volume 13; translated asEssays on Woman, Freda Mary Oben(trans.), Lucy Gelber and Romaeus Leuven (eds), CWES, Volume 2, firstedition 1986, second edition, revised, 1996.
• 2001a,Selbstbildnis in Briefen I: Briefe an RomanIngarden, ESGA, Volume 4; translated asSelf-Portrait inLetters: Letters to Roman Ingarden, Hugh Candler Hunt (trans.),CWES, Volume 12, 2014.
• 2001b,Bildung und Entfaltung der Individualität,ESGA, Volume 16.
• 2003,Kreuzeswissenschaft. Studie über Johannes vomKreuz, ESGA, Volume 18; translated asThe Science of theCross, Josephine Koeppel (trans.), CWES, Volume 6, 2002.
• 2004a,Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person. Vorlesung zurphilosophischen Anthropologie, ESGA, Volume 14.
• 2004b,The Hidden Life: Essays, Meditations, SpiritualTexts, Waltraut Stein (trans.), L. Gelber and Michael Linssen(eds), CWES, Volume 4.
• 2008a,Thomas von Aquin: Über die Wahrheit 1, ESGA,Volume 23.
• 2008b,Thomas von Aquin: Über die Wahrheit 2, ESGA,Volume 24.
• 2010,“Freiheit und Gnade” und weitere TexteBeiträge zu Phänomenologie und Ontologie (1917 bis1937), ESGA, Volume 9.

B. Other References and Secondary Literature

• Arendt, Hannah, 1951,The Origins of Totalitarianism,revised and expanded edition, New York: Harcourt, 1973.
• –––, 1961, “What is Freedom?” in herBetween Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought,New York: Viking Press.
• Alfieri, Francesco, 2014 [2015],La presenza di Duns Scoto nelpensiero di Edith Stein. La questionedell’individualità; translated asThe Presenceof Duns Scotus in the Thought of Edith Stein: The Question ofIndividuality (Analecta Husserliana 120), George Metcalf(trans.), Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015.doi:10.1007/978-3-319-15663-7
• Baring, Edward, 2019,Converts to the Real. Catholicism andthe Making of Continental Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.
• Baron-Cohen, Simon, 1995,Mindblindness: An Essay on Autismand Theory of Mind, Cambridge, MA, London: MIT Press.
• Baseheart, Mary Catharine, 1966, “On Educating Women: TheRelevance of Stein”,Continuum, 3(1):197–207.
• –––, 1989, “Edith Stein’s Philosophyof Woman and of Women’s Education”,Hypatia,4(1): 120–131. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1989.tb00871.x
• –––, 1992, “Edith Stein’s Philosophyof Community”,The Personalist Forum, 8(1):163–173.
• –––, 1997,Person in the World: Introductionto the Philosophy of Edith Stein (Contributions to Phenomenology27), Dordrecht: Kluwer. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-2566-8
• Betschart, Christof, 2009, “Was ist Lebenskraft? EdithSteins erkenntnistheoretische Prämissen inPsychischeKausalität (Teil 1)”,Edith Stein Jahrbuch,15: 154–183.
• Beckmann-Zöller, Beate and Hanna Gerl-Falkovitz (eds.), 2006,Die “unbekannte” Edith Stein: Phänomenologie UndSozialphilosophie (Wissenschaft Und Religion 14), Frankfurt amMain: P. Lang.
• Beer, Laura Judd, 2016, “Women’s Existence,Woman’s Soul: Essence and Existence in Edith Stein’s LaterFeminism”, in Calcagno 2016b: 35–45.doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21124-4_4
• Bello, Angela Ales, 2018, “The Role of Psychology Accordingto Edith Stein”, inThe Oxford Handbook of PhenomenologicalPsychopathology, Angela Ales Bello, Giovanni Stanghellini,Matthew Broome, Andrea Raballo, Anthony Vincent Fernandez, PaoloFusar-Poli, and René Rosfort (eds.), Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 19–24. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198803157.013.2
• Borden, Sarah, 2006, “Edith Stein’s Understanding ofWoman”,International Philosophical Quarterly, 46(2):171–190. doi:10.5840/ipq20064623
• –––, 2003,Edith Stein, London:Continuum.
• –––, 2010,Thine Own Self. Individuality inEdith Stein’s Later Writings, Washington, D.C.: The CatholicUniversity of America Press.
• Brenner, Rachel Feldhay, 1994, “Edith Stein: A Reading ofHer Feminist Thought”,Studies in Religion/SciencesReligieuses, 23(1): 43–56.doi:10.1177/000842989402300103
• Burns, Timothy, 2015, “On Being a ‘We’: EdithStein’s Contribution to the Intentionalism Debate”,Human Studies, 38(4): 529–547.doi:10.1007/s10746-015-9359-z
• Calcagno, Antonio, 2007,The Philosophy of Edith Stein,Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
• –––, 2014,Lived Experience from the InsideOut: Social and Political Philosophy in Edith Stein, Pittsburgh,PA: Duquesne University Press.
• –––, 2016a, “A Place for the Role ofCommunity in the Structure of the State: Edith Stein and EdmundHusserl”,Continental Philosophy Review, 49(4):403–416. doi:10.1007/s11007-015-9363-z
• ––– (ed.), 2016b,Edith Stein: Women,Social-Political Philosophy, Theology, Metaphysics and PublicHistory (Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and PublicLife), Cham: Springer International Publishing.doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21124-4
• –––, 2018a, “Edith Stein’s Challengeto Sense-Making: The Role of the Lived Body, Psyche, andSpirit”, inThe Oxford Handbook of the History ofPhenomenology, Dan Zahavi (eds.), Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
• –––, 2018b, “Edith Stein and GerdaWalther: The Role of Empathy in Experiencing Community”, in Luftand Hagengruber 2018: 3–18. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-97861-1_1
• –––, 2020, “Edith Stein”, in Szantoand Landweer 2020, 123–132.
• Calcagno, Antonio & Ronny Miron (eds), 2022.HedwigConrad-Martius and Edith Stein: Philosophical Encounters andDivides, Dordrecht: Springer.
• Caminada, Emanuele, 2015, “Edith Stein’s Account ofCommunal Mind and Its Limits: A Phenomenological Reading”,Human Studies, 38(4): 549–566.doi:10.1007/s10746-015-9373-1
• Collins, James, 1942, “Edith Stein and the Advance ofPhenomenology”,Thought: Fordham University Quarterly,17(4): 685–708. doi:10.5840/thought194217412
• Conrad-Martius, Hedwig, 1921,MetaphysischeGespräche, Halle: Niemeyer.
• Crane, Tim, 1998, “Intentionality as the Mark of theMental”, inCurrent Issues in the Philosophy of Mind,Anthony O’Hear (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
• D’Arms, Justin and Daniel Jacobson, 2000, “TheMoralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’ ofEmotions”,Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,61(1): 65–90. doi:10.2307/2653403
• Davies, Martin and Tony Stone (eds.), 1995a,Folk Psychology:The Theory of Mind Debate, Oxford: Blackwell.
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Other Internet Resources

• The International Association for the Study of the Philosophy of Edith Stein (IASPES)
• The Edith-Stein-Gesellschaft Deutschland (The Edith Stein Society Germany)
• A Bibliography of English Language Commentaries on the Philosophy of Edith Stein (until 2008) [PDF]
• Philosophical Bibliography of Edith Stein in French [PDF]
• Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, (Yearbook for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research), founded in1912 by Edmund Husserl, hosted at The Open Commons of Phenomenology,with two key works of Stein in German

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to James Jardine, Lucy Osler, Alessandro Salice,and an anonymous reviewer for their comments and suggestions onearlier versions of this entry.