Abstract
This article contrasts Conrad-Martius’s Metaphysical Dialogues and Stein’s Potency and Act. Although Stein developed the foundations of her phenomenological metaphysics through a challenging dialogue with the ontology presented by her friend in the 1920s, the philosophical pictures that emerge from these works only partially overlap. Both Stein and Conrad-Martius start from a common description of the human being, arguing that spirit and soul are crucial elements for the determination of the essence of humans. Furthermore, they share a metaphysical view that aims at grounding human spirituality by tracing it back to a spiritual logos. However, unlike Stein, Conrad-Martius admits a second, non-spiritual origin that coincides with the abyssal ground of the human soul and all natural beings. Hence the two phenomenologists start from the same phenomenal assumptions but interpret them—both metaphysically and ontologically—by following a way which is only “half” common.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
As for the history of the work, see Stein (2009: xiff).
- 2.
Focusing on Stein’s reading of Conrad-Martius does not intend to diminish the influence that the former exerted on the latter in the following years. In Avé-Lallemant’s words: “Both exerted an influence on each other, but in a different way. In terms of systematic conception, Conrad-Martius was the leading personality. In terms of creation of connections between phenomenology and scholastics, however, Edith Stein was the trigger. It is thanks to Edith Stein that Conrad-Martius re-elaborated Thomas’ philosophy in her book on the Being. On the other hand, Edith Stein based her work Potenz und Akt on Conrad-Martius’s Die metaphysischen Gespräche. She then sent her friend her manuscript and asked her to comment on it. This inspired Conrad-Martius to go back once more to the question of Being, as it is treated in Aristotle and in Thomas. After these readings she wrote the first chapter of her book Das Sein” (Alfieri 2008, 525). What Avé-Lallemant declares with reference to Conrad-Martius’s work The Being is also valid for her philosophy of nature, where concepts belonging to Scholastic tradition are often used, among them the conceptual pair potency-act (see, for instance, Conrad-Martius 1960, 54).
- 3.
- 4.
See Stein (2009), Chap. 5.
- 5.
It is probably for this reason that Conrad-Martius was worried about the “blasphemy” of her work, as Stein confides to Ingarden in the above-mentioned letter.
- 6.
From the Latin words spiritus (“breath”) and spirare (“to breathe,” “blow,” “exhale”).
- 7.
The soul is defined as “substantial unity” in Stein’s dissertation on empathy as well (Stein 1989, 3: 3). She seems here to “invert” the relation between person and I that emerges from Husserl’s transcendental studies on constitution in the second volume of Ideas (Husserl 1989), to which, as editor, she contributed considerably while working as Husserl’s assistant (xff). On the development of the meaning of Stein’s terminology, see Knaup-Seubert (2017).
- 8.
The concept of soul also plays a crucial role in some ontological reflections of Roman Ingarden, who was probably influenced by Stein’s thought (see Ingarden 1965: Chap. 16; Ingarden 1983, 53ff; Bertolini 2020). The Polish phenomenologist defines the soul as follows: “It genuinely belongs to the essence of the soul to be conscious, to have experiences, but its manifestations must also pass the threshold of consciousness. The soul itself is, in its properties as well as in the transformations occurring in it, nothing specifically ‘consciousness-like’; it is itself not experience, but it expresses itself in experiences. And not everything that happens in the soul must at once or, in general, attain awareness. It seems that only acts of thought are consciousness-like or consciously performed. Perhaps it is also the same with acts of the will, especially with volitional decisions” (Ingarden 1983, 97–98).
- 9.
Both authors employ the word “entelechy” in the works we are considering (see, for instance, Conrad-Martius 1921, 198–199; Stein 2009, 327–328). The same notion also plays a crucial role in the philosophy of nature developed by Conrad-Martius in subsequent years, as she refers to both the organic and the inorganic realm (see Conrad-Martius 1944; Pfeiffer 2005, 135; Ales Bello 2012).
- 10.
“We see that material things presuppose ideas and, on the other hand, matter. The encounter of the two and their unification requires a third thing: a creative spirit” (Stein 2009, 111).
- 11.
We do not consider here spiritual entities (such as elementary and higher spirits), thereby restricting the discussion to the consideration of finite and natural beings. For a complete “map” of spiritual beings in Conrad-Martius’s Dialogues, see D’Ambra (2008, 497–498).
- 12.
- 13.
In this respect, Stein also speaks of the “soul of plants” and the “soul of animals,” employing the word soul in a wider, Aristotelian sense (Stein 2009, 247–249).
- 14.
- 15.
It is obvious that the term Seele does not bear an anthropological meaning in this work, referring rather to a foundational ontological dimension (to which the last part of Metaphysical Dialogues also refers). As we shall see, the origin of the human soul coincides, for Conrad-Martius, with this same dimension.
- 16.
Conrad-Martius will always maintain this sort of “secondary,” albeit essential, relation between the human being and spirit. In The Spiritual Soul of the Human Being, published in 1960, we read for example: “The human being is not spirit, it has a spirit” (Conrad-Martius 1960, 11).
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
From an eidetic viewpoint, Stein expresses this difference as follows: “We may call what the word ‘man’ entails a species of the genus ‘animal,’ insofar as man is an animal.... But this distinction is not just one specific difference alongside those of other animal species; it rather makes ‘man’s essence’ a self-sufficient ontic shaping principle” (Stein 2009, 392).
- 20.
References
Albert, K. (1995). Lebensphilosophie. Von den Anfängen bei Nietzsche bis zu ihrer Kritik bei Lukács. Freiburg: Alber.
Ales Bello, A. (1993). Edith Stein und Hedwig Conrad-Martius: Eine menschliche und intellektuelle Begegnung. Phänomenologische Forschungen, 26/27, 256–284.
Ales Bello, A. (2001). The study of the soul between psychology and phenomenology in Edith Stein. In The Philosophy of Edith Stein: The Eighteenth Annual Symposium of the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, pp. 3–17. Pittsburgh, PA: Silverman Institute for Phenomenology at Duquesne University.
Ales Bello, A. (2012). What is life? The contributions of Hedwig Conrad-Martius and Edith Stein. Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, 16(2), 20–33.
Alfieri, F. (2008). Hedwig Conrad-Martius: A philosophical heredity. Illustrated by Eberhard Avé-Lallemant. Axiomathes, 18(4), 515–531.
Alfieri, F. (2015). The presence of Duns Scotus in the thought of Edith Stein. The Question of Individuality. Analecta Husserliana 120. Cham: Springer.
Avé-Lallemant, E. (2003). Edith Stein und Hedwig Conrad-Martius. Begegnung in Leben und Werk. In Edith Stein: Themen-Bezüge-Dokumente, edited by Beate Beckmann-Zöller and Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, pp. 55–77. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
Bertolini, S. (2017). Ist der Mensch auch ein Tier? Zwei Antworten der phänomenologischen Tradition. Studia Phaenomenologica (Phenomenology of Animality), 17, 119–149.
Bertolini, S. (2020). The influence of Edith Stein on Ingarden’s concept of person and soul (Controversy over the Existence of the World, § 78). Horizon, 9(2), 579–600.
Boethius. Liber De Persona et Duabus Naturis Contra Eutichen et Nestorium.
Calcagno, A. (2007). The philosophy of Edith Stein. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Calcagno, A. (2019). Soul in Edith Stein (1891–1942). In Encyclopedia of Concise Concepts by Women Philosophers. Paderborn: Universitätsbibliothek. https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/ecc/#hwps.
Conrad-Martius, H. (1921). Metaphysische Gespräche. Halle: Niemeyer.
Conrad-Martius, H. (1923). Realontologie. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, vol. 6, pp. 159–333. Halle: Niemeyer.
Conrad-Martius, H. (1938). Ursprung und Aufbau des lebendigen Kosmos. Salzburg-Leipzig: Müller.
Conrad-Martius, H. (1944). Der Selbstaufbau der Natur. Entelechien und Energien. Hamburg: Goverts.
Conrad-Martius, H. (1960). Die Geistseele des Menschen. Munich: Kösel.
D’Ambra, M. (2008). Spirit and Soul in Hedwig Conrad-Martius’s Metaphysical Dialogues: From Nature to the Human Being. Axiomathes, 18(4), 491–502.
Gehlen, A. (1988). Man: His Nature and Place in the World. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ghigi, N. (2008). The real-constitution in Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Realontologie. Axiomathes, 18(4), 461–473.
Husserl, E. (1989). Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Ingarden, R. (1965). Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt, vol. 2. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Ingarden, R. (1983). Man and Value. Munich: Philosophia Verlag.
Klages, L. (1921). Vom Wesen des Bewußtseins. Leipzig: Barth.
Klages, L. (1922). Vom kosmogonischen Eros. Munich: Müller.
Klages, L. (1929–1932). Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (three volumes). Leipzig: Barth.
Knaup, M., & Seubert, H. (eds.) (2017). Edith Stein-Lexikon. Freiburg: Herder.
Miron, R. (2014). The gate of reality. Hedwig Conrad-Martius’s Idea of Reality in Realontologie. Phänomenologische Forschungen. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 59–82.
Miron, R. (2015). The vocabulary of reality. Human Studies, 38(3), 331–347.
Pfeiffer, A. E. (2005). Hedwig Conrad-Martius. Eine phänomenologische Sicht auf Natur und Welt. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
Plessner, H. (2019). Levels of organic life and the human: An introduction to philosophical anthropology. New York: Fordham University Press.
Scheler, M. (2009). The human place in the cosmos. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Sharkey, S. B. (2010). Thine own self. Individuality in Edith Stein’s Later Writings. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
Stein, E. (1929). Husserls Phänomenologie und die Philosophie des heiligen Thomas v. Aquino. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, 10, 315–338. Halle: Niemeyer.
Stein, E. (1989). On the problem of empathy. CWES 3. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications Institute of Carmelite Studies.
Stein, E. (1993). Self-portrait in letters: 1916–1942. CWES 5. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications Institute of Carmelite Studies.
Stein, E. (2000). Philosophy of psychology and the humanities. CWES 7.Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications Institute of Carmelite Studies.
Stein, E. (2004). Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person. Vorlesung zur philosophischen Anthropologie. ESGA 14. Freiburg: Herder.
Stein, E. (2009). Potency and act. studies toward a philosophy of being. CWES 11. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications Institute of Carmelite Studies.
Stein, E. (2014). Self-portrait in letters: Letters to roman Ingarden. CWES 12. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications Institute of Carmelite Studies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bertolini, S. (2022). Edith Stein and Hedwig Conrad-Martius: A Metaphysical Dialogue on the Origin of the Human Soul. In: Calcagno, A., Miron, R. (eds) Hedwig Conrad-Martius and Edith Stein: Philosophical Encounters and Divides. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14759-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14759-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-14758-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-14759-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)