Abstract
This article seeks to unearth the philosophical resonance of Hedwig Conrad-Martius’s ideas in Edith Stein’s thinking and thus to add an element of content to the better-known personal relations between the two phenomenologists. Here, resonance has two meanings. The first is phenomenological and appears as a manifestation of a spiritual communality between the two philosophers. The second relates to the constitutive establishing of a new hermeneutical framework from which new possibilities might emerge for understanding the ideas under discussion. The discussion starts with presenting Conrad-Martius’s and Stein’s basic stance regarding core metaphysical aspects that serve as an introduction to the idea of the I, the explication of which within the writing of both philosophers occupies the bulk of the article. The discussion presents the dual structure of the I in the thinking of both Conrad-Martius and Stein and analyzes their different stances toward it: While the former regards it as an utmost indication of the realism of the I, the latter illuminates its reconciliation within the Christian religious faith.
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Notes
- 1.
References to the discussed or cited works appear in parentheses in the body text. All translations from the German original into English are mine. Emphases follow the original unless stated otherwise. The above quotation is taken from the ending essay (without title) by Conrad-Martius that was added to the volume of the collected letters of Stein to Conrad-Martius. The essay is based on a lecture that Conrad-Martius delivered to the Society for Christian-Jewish Collaboration. See especially, Conrad-Martius 1960: 74.
- 2.
Herbstrith describes Stein’s stay with Conrad-Martius before her baptism, see: Herbstrith 1972: 24–25.
- 3.
- 4.
I have addressed the issue of philosophical resonance regarding Husserl and other figures within the phenomenological discourse. See: Miron 2016a: 465–480.
- 5.
For further reading about the relations between HCM and Stein, see: Avé-Lallemant 2003.
- 6.
The above used expression “hermeneutical efficiency” is inspired by, yet not equivalent to, the Gadamerian ‘Principle of History of Effect’ (Wirkungsgeschichte) that requires “an inquiry into history of effect every time a work of art or an aspect of the traditions is led out of the twilight region between tradition and history so that it can be seen clearly and openly in terms of its own meaning”. See Gadamer 2004: 299.
- 7.
Baseheart emphasizes Stein’s “divergence from Husserl who insisted on philosophy being radically new, a ‘science of beginning’” (Baseheart 1997: 23–24) and “rare respect for other thinkers – even for those with whom she differed greatly. Yet, Stein remained faithful to Husserl’s idea of presuppositionlessness, excluding preconceived theories and ‘naive’ premises” (ibid, 123ff).
- 8.
- 9.
See my discussion of HCM’s ontology in: Miron 2017: 99–101. See also: Mohanty 1977: 3–9. HCM later admitted that Husserl never rejected or doubted the reality of the world but regarded it as a hypothetical being (Conrad-Martius 1958: 398). However, unlike Husserl, HCM does not see any problem with the empirical experience (Conrad-Martius 1956a: 351) and even regards the then new natural sciences as elucidating the real foundations of such experience (Conrad-Martius 1958: 401).
- 10.
- 11.
The letter is from 3 February 1917.
- 12.
Stein’s words are cited from: Baseheart 1997: 32. Baseheart discusses there the complexity of Stein’s early relation to Husserl, establishing that: “[Stein] is simply making an honest effort to implement the methodology that Husserl had impressed on his pupils and that she could use it in a way that did not involve agreement with an idealist position. She appears to use the method not as an ultimate suspension of the natural belief, but as a legitimate method of rescinding from existence in the consideration of empathy” (ibid).
- 13.
HCM cites these words from the theologian Peter Wust, to whose Book Dialektik des Geistes (Augsburg, 1928) she mentions as sharing the spirit of her discussion. See, Conrad-Martius 1932a: 261, note no. 6.
- 14.
Both HCM and Stein relate to the orientation then called “the turning toward the object” (“Die Wendung nach Objekt”), which implied the reconsideration of the idea of “intention” as it appeared in Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen. Moriz Geiger well characterized this orientation as follows: “Wenn die Zeit vorher fast allgemein die Gegenstände als Vorstellungen eines Ich ansah, so trat jetzt die Spannung zwischen Ich und Objekt wieder in ihr Recht. Das Gegenüber von Ich und Objekt und die Überwindung der Spannung – nicht durch Hineinnahme des Objekts in das Subjekt, sondern durch den Begriff der gegenstandsgerichteten Intention – das gab dem Aufbau der unmittelbar gegebenen Welt einen anderen Aspekt” (Geiger 1933: 13).
- 15.
See also: Conrad-Martius 1932a; 257–258.
- 16.
- 17.
The expression perfectum opus rationis indicates a science of ultimate realities. This science is essentially incomplete not only because of the being of ultimate realities but also due to the restrictedness of the human mind. See in this regard, Lebech 2010: 146 f.
- 18.
- 19.
See my discussion of “the gate of reality” in: Miron 2014.
- 20.
HCM’s idea of reality assumes a fundamental structure of the real being that is composed of two inseparable constituents: the essence (die Washeit) or the “whatness” of the thing, and the “bearer” (Träger) (this term is discussed extensively in: Conrad-Martius 1916b: 407, 482, 497–498, 514, 525–526). The relation of the essence to its bearer is formal, hence it “cannot be destroyed”, and is reciprocal, i.e., the bearer is specified by the essence that in turn is carried to the extent that it specifies its bearer (Conrad-Martius 1923: 167–168).
- 21.
Elsewhere, I have discussed at length the internal elements of being in HCM’s thinking. See: Miron 2016c.
- 22.
To this extent, no difference separates the one who was raised as a Catholic and a person that, like Stein, made the decision to convert to Catholicism. I have discussed the affinity regarding the volitional choice between Stein and the Jewish thinker Yeshayahu Leibowitz. See: Miron 2016b: 119–124.
- 23.
Calcagno well described the discussed aspect as follows: “What Stein experiences is not merely the gegebebheiten (givens) of the phenomenologist, but the plenitude omnitudinis (Fülle, or fullness) of creation” (Calcagno 2007: 127).
- 24.
For further reading, see: Miron 2017.
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
It is worth noting that despite devoting a special attention to the word I, Stein, unlike HCM, uses the word ego rather often. It seems that this choice relates to Stein’s greater ambivalence in regarding Husserl’s stance, as opposed to HCM, who explicitly and remarkably distances herself from the founding father of phenomenology: “The entire physical, mental (psychische), empirical, and ideal or categorical world in Husserl’s phenomenology – be it individual or collective - must descend backwards into the subjective in order to arrive at the mysterious ‘Ego’, out of whose living ‘activity’ the entire validity of Being and meaning is plainly deducible. […] We cannot go back to this ego” (Conrad-Martius 1958: 400). See Ales Bello’s interpretation of Stein’s idea of the ego as closely related to Husserl, Ales Bello 2008.
- 28.
Stein discusses at length the various aspects of the internal element of the human subject, see: Stein 1922: II 2.3c (159–166). Ales Bello suggested a detailed discussion of Stein’s concept of the soul that is composed of several meanings: psyche, unity of spirit and psyche, an entire autonomous aspect of the human subject. See: Ales Bello 2008: 152.
- 29.
See here the entire section “I, Soul. Person”, in: Stein 2002: 374–380.
- 30.
The translation of the citation is taken from, Schulz 2008: 168.
- 31.
The translation of the citation is taken from, Schulz 2008: 170.
- 32.
Schulz argued that in Finite and Eternal Being Stein uses the concept of the “person” to indicate the ontology of spirit. See: Schulz 2008: 170. See also ibid., 173–173.
- 33.
See also: Conrad-Martius 1948: 111.
- 34.
This insight surely enables Stein to maintain a close and complex dialogue with Husserl. Ales Bello and Baseheart stress the continuity, while Schulz emphasizes the divergence.
- 35.
See in this context Ales Bello’s interpretation according to which Stein is not interested in describing the tension between the internal or “center” and the external or “periphery” but in a “balanced vision of human being” (Ales Bello 2008: 156).
- 36.
For Stein’s use of the image of “apartment”, see: Alfieri 2012: 37; Miron 2013: 102. The consolidation of the most private and personal together with the most spiritual and lofty in Alfieri’s idea of apartment throws much light on Edith Stein ’s analogy between the individual personality and the community . See: Stein 2004. For further reading, see: Calcagno 2007: 25–44; Baseheart 1997: 30–75.
- 37.
Elsewhere I designated the thinking of Stein as “radicalism of immanence”. See: Miron 2016b: 140.
- 38.
The secondary literature that is mentioned in the footnotes can be considered as representative of this view of Stein’s thinking.
- 39.
In cases of difference between the time of creation and publication, the year mentioned first within square brackets is the year of the work’s writing, while the second year denotes the year of publication. Archive materials are taken from the Munich Estate Archive, Die Nachlässe der Münchener Phänomenologen, Die Bayerische Staatsbibliotheck, München (BSM). The signification of these material is with the letter ‘N’ attached to the year.
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Miron, R. (2017). A Philosophical Resonance: Hedwig Conrad-Martius versus Edith Stein. In: Magrì, E., Moran, D. (eds) Empathy, Sociality, and Personhood. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 94. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71096-9_11
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