Edith’s Stein Conception of the Person Within the Context of the Phenomenological Movement

Abstract

In philosophy, personhood is normally discussed from the perspective of unity or identity. Early phenomenological research on this topic was no exception. Upon closer inspection, though, it turns out that the topic of the unity of the person undergoes a noteworthy transformation there. The following study is guided by the thesis that the structure of personhood becomes fundamentally more dynamic so that the talk of “unity” requires a rethinking of what one means by “unity.” The following study will (1) begin by identifying the starting point for Stein’s definition of the person in her lectures on “The Construction of the Human Person” from 1932/33 and compare it to Husserl’s basic ideas in Ideas II, then (2) examine Scheler’s remarks on the topic in his Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Value from 1913, before (3) returning to Stein’s approach once again, against the background of Scheler’s and Husserl’s expositions of the problem, exhibiting the perspectives that her definition of the person and its unity open up and that represent an advance over their thinking on the matter.