This essay proposes to provide an analysis of Edith Stein’s philosophy, particularly as expounded in Finite and Eternal Being1  (Endliches und ewiges Sein, hereafter EES), as representing a displacement of the cogito-based sphere of evidence from human experience to the divine experience which is the "last support of evidences".2  And, as B. Dupuy adds, Stein’s philosophy offers a path between two contrasting ways in which modernity understands the problem of subjectivity.3  We will argue that Stein’s vision of transcendental truth announces a theoretical position integrating both the concerns of a strong modernity (a desire for absolute foundation) and the concerns of a weak modernity (a refusal to give epistemic priority to human subjectivity). The categories "strong modernity" and "weak modernity" are derived from Paul Ricoeur’s reflections in Oneself as Another, where the cogito is explored in a position of power and in a position of weakness.4 

In section V of EES (pp. 257-301), Stein analyzes the various layers of the meaning of truth (logical truth, essential truth and ontological truth). Beyond purely formal understandings of truth, she seeks something original that renders all truth possible. What appears as the fundamental presupposition of all these layers of meaning was in fact given from the start, but was not immediately visible as such. Stein refers to the synchrony of being and spirit. Each being deploys a communicational space before spirit. This ability to communicate presupposes a kind of reciprocity between being and spirit.5  This communicational space is referred to as transcendental truth, which signifies an original coordinating relationship ("Zuordnung") of being and spirit. This cannot simply be thought of as a mere conceptual relationship.6 

Being a being signifies a "to-manifest-itself-to," a "being-able-to-be-grasped-by" spirit. This indicates a deontological aspect of being that does not appear when things are considered strictly formally.7  Truth is not an arbitrary experience. On the contrary, truth manifests a certain logical intention in the heart of reality. The world is not simply there, but is to be penetrated by spirit, and spirit is not just a disinterested vision, but activates itself in grasping the multiplicity of meanings offered by the world. The world is structured so as to manifest the meaning of being. The role of spirit is to interpret the meaning of being.8  Even if Stein does not mention Leibniz, it is difficult not to think of his "pre-established harmony," as Philibert Secretan rightly notices.9  One can also find some striking similarities with some of the ontological claims embraced by Stoicism. Transcendental truth could be interpreted as a deontological relationship that regulates the achievement of being and spirit by one another – a kind of teleological relationship that is aimed at an ultimate manifestation. Stein recognizes that these considerations must be pushed a little further if we are to fully understand truth. One must explore still the meaning of "spirit" ("Geist"), the meaning of its "openness" ("Geöffnetsein"), and the full meaning of "being’s being-revealed for the spirit" ("Offenbarsein für den Geist").10 

Spirit = the kind of being that is ordinated in a determined fashion to every being

Truth = a kind of ordination of all beings with the kind of being that is ordinated with all beings in a corresponding fashion (however not identical).11 

 

Being had already been defined as "that, which is," a "fulfilled thing". Stein wants to know where the "Zuordnung" fits in the "that, which is" – in the form (the "that," "something"), or in the content (the "is," "fulfilled")? The response is clear, given the redundancy of "being" in the "being-manifested" of "that, which is." Transcendental truth belongs to the being of beings, to their "is" and more fundamentally to the meaning of being.12 

This equivalence between meaning, being, and evidence is certainly typical of a phenomenological approach. What we have here is an ontology of revelation. Being is understood in terms of a translucid light that allows us to see beings, without being grasped itself. Being is the ground of all experience. It is difficult at this point not to see certain parallels between Heidegger’s earlier phenomenological ontology and Stein’s phenomenological ontology. B.W. Imhof and J. Nota seem to have been particularly impressed by the resemblance.13  The subtitle title of her work ("Versuch eines Aufstiegs zum Sinn des Seins") indicates that her goal is the same as Heidegger’s ("die Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein"), namely, to understand the meaning of being. Indeed, Stein was impressed with Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit, and she considers her attempt to formulate the question of being as involving a dialogue with Heidegger.14  Yet while she agreed with Heidegger’s criticism of Husserl’s Kantian transcendentalism and his emphasis on the question of being, she draws conclusions that are different than his. She disagreed with his view that the meaning of being could only be given though the Dasein. The title of her work, Ewiges und Endliches Sein, already announces the nature of her disagreement with Heidegger. For Stein, the Dasein’s finitude, its being-thrown-in-the-world requires a complete analysis, i.e., in relation with the opposite – infinitude.15  This holistic attitude (finitude/infinitude) can also be found in Duns Scotus’ account of the disjunctive transcendentals where one member of a pair of opposites can only be understood in relationship with the other.16 

But Stein’s interest in ontology and her double opposition to Husserl and Heidegger brings her close to the position held by her colleague of Hedwig Conrad-Martius (1888-1966)17  from whom she draws quite considerably at times.18  Against Eugen Fink and L. Landgrebe, who fiercely argued that the Münich and Göttingen phenomenological groups simply misunderstood the master’s intentions, Conrad-Martius claims a right for a phenomenology based on a non-Kantian interpretation of Husserl’s works. If this particular hermeneutical view remained a minority position, it is not for lack of relevance. On the contrary, argues Conrad-Martius, we owe this fact to the tragic end of many of those who defended this point of view.19  Stein was definitely influenced by Conrad-Martius. This influence is particularly visible in Stein’s views on time, ontology, and more particularly on the transience of being.20 

In the history of philosophy, we generally agree that modernity begins with the advent of a philosophy focussed both a critical analysis of the limits of human understanding and on the attempt to give the scientific project a solid foundation in order to secure its progress. Cartesian philosophy undoubtedly constitutes the paradigm of modern philosophy. The key notion of Cartesian philosophy, the "clear and distinct idea," also constitutes the type of certainty that modern philosophy seeks: nothing less than total transparency without the shadow of a doubt. This transparency or evidence can only be the given in self-consciousness. One can doubt many things, but one can never doubt one’s ability to doubt. In the act of doubting, "interlocutors" – such as familiar objects, the world, tradition and theories – are gradually eliminated in such a way that the only voice that still resonates is one’s own voice. Cartesian doubt renders the human subject to himself or herself within the very discourse of doubt. It is when the subject focusses consciously on his or her own thinking activity that his or her doubt has stumbled upon unshakable evidence: the fact of one’s own existence. Therein lies the experiential weight of the famous dictum "cogito, ergo sum," as Ricoeur rightly points out.21 

Husserl states that he not only assumes this way of philosophizing but does so more radically than Descartes. One must doubt further, indefinitely suspending judgement, even regarding the existence of the world, in order to extract all the richness of evidence contained in the realm of consciousness. Husserl believes that the "cogito, ergo sum" contains all that is needed to give a full account of spirit, being, and the relationship between the two, and that, consequently, the foundation of science is nowhere else but in this evidence-summary.22  In short, "strong modernity" can be understood as an ego-centered theoretical project (theorein, "saturated" vision).23  These kinds of considerations around a "metaphysics of subject" can be detected in Stein’s comparison of Husserl and Aquinas, although the context of her reflection is quite different than that of Ricoeur.24 

As for "weak modernity," if it does not reject the priority that should be granted to the subject’s experience, it nevertheless tends to mediate this experience through the evidence of language. Phenomenology, according to Ricoeur, was already impregnated with this mediation.25  Moreover, "weak modernity" assumes a critical stance regarding the foundationalist ambition that seeks after the absolute.26  In other words, "weak modernity" seeks to occupy a middle ground between "strong modernity" that promotes a radically foundational "cogito," and postmodernity animated by an "anti-cogito," deconstructive stance.27 

Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self, as outlined in Oneself as Another, can be understood as an attempt to overcome the modernity-postmodernity bipolarity. The main idea promoted by "weak modernity" is no longer the "thinking subject," but a "de-centered subjectivity" which comes to self-knowledge only through the long and indefinite detour offered by Ricoeur’s world of meaning objectivities: language, text, and action. Subjectivity’s search for self is hence projected into the world, and the ego-centered theoretical project is neutralized. One’s experience of finitude is the only condition of the possibility of any understanding. Human subjectivity knows itself and the world through understanding (verstehen). The subject no longer seeks after self-understanding, but after the explicitation of the act of understanding in which he or she is rooted. Thus "weak modernity" can be understood as prakthein rather than theorein. More precisely, "weak modernity" is a limited praxis of meaning within an unlimited horizon of meaning.28 

4. between his intuitionism and his theory of constitution.29 

Stein’s double – and apparently contradictory – contribution in this regard resides in the following: to relativize the transcendental subjectivity’s claim to absolute evidence in order to provide phenomenology with a better foundation. I believe that this particular relationship between subjectivity and philosophical foundation, intrinsic to her philosophical project, represents the point of demarcation between Stein and her peers from the Göttingen Circle who tended to embrace a form of Platonic essentialism.30  Contrary to Conrad-Martius, Adolf Reinach, and Jean Hering, Stein does not believe that Husserl’s Ideas represents a radical break with the Logical Investigations. But she believes that the exploration of the problem of constitution did not mandate a recourse to Cartesian skepticism. This is obvious in a statement that she made during the Journée d’études de la société thomiste (1932), where she was invited by Alexandre Koyré to represent the point of view of phenomenology.31  From the onset, Stein’s philosophy manifests, like Husserl’s, what Ricoeur has identified as the very essence of a reflexive philosophy: "a reflexion carries with it the desire for absolute transparence, a perfect coincidence of the self with itself, which would make consciousness of self indubitable knowledge and, as such, more fundamental than all forms of positive knowledge".32  This is clearly manifest in many of Stein’s assertions during the Journée d’études in Juvisy.33 

In line with reflexive philosophy, and contrary to Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, Stein does not hesitate to adopt the transcendental sphere as a starting point for her "attempt toward the meaning of being". Because of this immanentism, Stein does not feel compelled to simply reject the transcendental reduction. Like her friend and colleague Roman Ingarden – albeit her theoretical position is not as clearly defined as his – Stein believes that the transcendental reduction is methodologically justified.34  But she rejects both a Berkeleyan type of reduction that eliminates objectivity, and a Kantian type of reduction whose champions demonstrate a certain "ignorance crasse" regarding a yielding residue that never ceases despite unending attempts to subsume it in a transcendental function. According to Stein, any rigorous analysis of consciousness dictates a moratorium on transcendental reduction as it yields to a passiveness inherent to all of the ego’s constituting activities.35 

It is impossible to carry out an absolute doubt. What Stein’s view of transcendental truth shows is that doubt is impossible without something that makes it emerge as doubt. As there are no shapes without a background that makes their emergence possible, there are no acts of the spirit without being. The two dimensions, spirit and being, are inseparable and are one another’s necessary condition. Therefore, Stein realized sooner than Husserl that one must indefinitely postpone "to project onto an ever more distant horizon as philosophy goes on providing itself with the instruments of thought capable of satisfying it".36  The fundamental orientation of human being and action in the Lebenswelt constitutes the condition of possibility of meaning for any act of the subject. The fullness of being always already precedes and exceeds the act of comprehension. It did not take long before the Husserlian indefinite postponement of reason’s goal to a further horizon came to be interpreted as the failure of modernity’s foundational project. One cannot but agree with Ricoeur’s depiction of the "tragic" epic of a phenomenology that started out pretending to give absolute meaning and ended up as the reception of an always-giving gift.37  However, nothing prevents one from thinking that this indefinite postponement, far from declaring the end of reason (as postmodern philosophers generally believe) manifests its "eschaton," i.e., brings into light reason’s reason – a desire not only to witness but first and foremost to accomplish the perfect marriage of the order of existence and the order of logic.38  Moreover, one could argue, like Jean Ladrière, that postmodernity, with all its deconstructive power, is nothing less than a classical form of rationalism.39 

The postponement of the ultimate moment of truth puts what could be called a totalitarian reason into question. For Stein, reflexive philosophy’s humbling situation does not discredit reason’s goals, but means that reason will find its accomplishment through the depth of immanence. To use her somewhat mystical language, "seeing" the totality of being will not satisfy reason, but "experimenting" its plenitude will.40  Underlined by an ontology of progressive fulfilment of meaning, not only must transcendental truth give an account of artistic truth, logical truth, and scientific truth; it must first and foremost explain the truth of human being as this singular destiny which grasps something of the fullness of beings and of one’s being, albeit through partial and discontinuous perspectives. We are touching the spiritual dimension of truth. Truth is also the truth of one’s life; it is a truth that we do not find, but that finds us.41  We hold as true not only what reason makes us see, but what the soul knows to exist. In other words, the domain of meaning is larger than the domain of understanding. This is, perhaps, the essence of Stein’s criticism of Heidegger’s phenomenology.

Stein’s aim is nevertheless to achieve a "perfectum opus rationis".42  (Stein seems to believe that this expression comes from Aquinas – though it does not. Stein borrows it from Jacques Maritain,43  who claims to have found it in Aquinas’ writings (ST II-II, 45, 2). But F. Gaboriau44  and X. Tilliette45  have clearly shown that Maritain is wrong in attributing this expression to Aquinas. In the above-mentioned passage in the Summa, where he talks about the rectitude of judgement, Aquinas uses the expression "perfectum usus rationis," not "perfectum opus rationis." The latter expression is probably the result of a mistake in memory on Maritain’s part. One might also add that Maritain’s understanding of "Christian philosophy" is grounded in the concept of "perfectus usus rationis," since it consists in the philosopher’s making a proper use of reason. Stein’s case is different. She really wishes to accomplish theoretical reason’s project – the articulation of the ideal science.) "Christian philosophy" is embedded in the hermeneutical circle. Stein’s hope is that this circle will somehow ‘evolve’ into the full satisfaction of the spirit. Stein conceives of "Christian philosophy" as an absolute knowledge. Like Husserl, she believes that this absolute knowledge is teleological. This is clear from the distinction that she draws between a theocentric philosophy and an egocentric philosophy. Now, one might ask: Why should there be a theological detour if this changes nothing in the infinite openness of the philosophical endeavour? I think that this is because Stein means to transcend the order of beings (i.e., the order structured by categories and transcendentals) towards that which provides order, is self constitutive, and is a fully personal being.

It would certainly be useful to explore Stein’s theory of empathy (Einfühlung) but, for the purpose of this essay, I will simply say that empathy has nothing to do with a sympathy that would blur the distinction between persons (Einsfühlung), but is related to a sui generis perception of the other’s subjectivity.46  Like a human being – and because God is a subject – God invests himself in language as a subject ("I") and as a person.47  A reflexive and personal opening awaits Steinian phenomenology in the midst of its quest for the meaning: from the being of meaning, to personal being, to the meaning of being. There is no other way for a rigorously scientific phenomenological ontology.

As Secretan has pointed out, Stein presents an analogy of the personal "I" in contrast to Aquinas’ analogy of being.48  Stein does not believe in the usefulness of the classical analogy of being that aims at creating a link between God and the world by correlating essence and existence. For Stein, God’s unity and simplicity remain outside of analytical thinking and do not lend themselves to the scholastic theory of analogia entis. The complexity of our theological language reveals a radical incapacity to think God’s unity and simplicity.49  On the contrary, one can think of God as an "I" because this experience of the self is part of the human being’s realm of experience. However, God’s experience of the self is not characterized with nothingness ("Nichtsein").50  This common ground of experience in God and the human being is the anchor or the ens commune that allows Stein to transfer the absolute instantiation of meaning.51  While God’s language about himself ("I am who I am") manifests a certain similitude with the human experience of the self, it nevertheless also reveals the radical otherness of the divine ego. While the human ego merely brands the contents of consciousness as experiences of the self – without such contents the ego would be reduced to an empty form – the divine ego is a person a priori; the divine self is a plenitude of being always-already personally being.52  This is why only the divine egological sphere is truly constitutive of meaning. There is no empirical residue in the divine egological sphere. The giving of meaning as well as the act of being together constitute an entire self-giving. God is the original ground ("Ur") from which meaningful life is possible: for God, being means to live exclusively as spirit.

How are all these theological considerations related to transcendental truth? Transcendental truth manifests an original co-ordination of spirit and being. This co-ordination leads to the being of meaning as the meaning of being. Transcendental truth lets us think of God as a transcendental person – as the condition of possibility of all events. Thus, God is neither truth nor being, because God is the unconditioned from which all the rest comes to being and is conditioned.53 

One may conclude that, even in her presumed infidelity, Stein remained faithful to Husserl’s project and showed a profound understanding of the key elements of transcendental phenomenology. Moreover, there is no good reason to conclude that Stein’s theological hemeneutics is radically contrary to phenomenology. According to Ricoeur, certain developments in Husserl’s Ideas lead us to think about God as a "radical subject,"54  even if this is not explicitly stated.

Stein’s philosophical enterprise has been presented as belonging to "weak" modernity. Stein is a modern philosopher, because she does not altogether give up a cogito-centered philosophical project. More specifically, her project belongs to weak modernity because she is critical of Husserl’s ambition to accomplish this project entirely autonomously. Stein argues that the journey of philosophy must take a theological detour. This is surprising, but it is supported by a philosophy of meaning. Stein does not fear such a detour into a foreign – and forbidden – land, to the extent that theology is apprehended in its intelligible character. Paradoxically, Stein places radical demands upon philosophy, but she insists on the finite capacities of human intelligence. It is obvious that this is not very Thomistic in spirit. Aquinas was much more realistic where human nature was concerned: he did not demand too much, and believed that human nature had everything needed to accomplish its task. In contrast, Stein and Husserl belong to the same ‘spiritual family.’ Their paths diverge when it comes time to draw the consequences for philosophy of holding both this absolute goal and human finitude as inseparable theses. For Stein, human finitude cannot be conceived or accomplished without infinite being. The human being’s effort to understand the world has an origin and a term: infinite being. If truth can be sought, it can be found in the order of the world. Without ontological order and without an infinite being to enact this order, there results a situation of "to each his own truth." For Husserl, human finitude means that the effort to comprehend the world is infinite. There always remains a surplus of meaning to understand. As Gerhard Seel has written, each of these two approaches are theoretically problematic. Infinite being paradoxically gives rise to a being to which lacks the perfection of self-transcending, while historical infinity throws the human being into an "impossible history."55 

Must we then choose between an unhistorical infinite foundation and a desperate race toward an unreachable goal? Let us say that, on Stein’s understanding of the infinite, it does not have the impersonal and inhuman character depicted by Seel (whose inspiration came from the Anselmian proof for the existence of God). On the contrary, Stein’s infinite reveals itself as that which, in the human, renders itself more human; it is the aptitude to be a person. As Mary Catherine Baseheart has noted, the infinite is close to the human being, and is given through a grasp of the human being’s ontological finitude.56  Indeed, one could show that Stein’s understanding of the infinite was influenced by a Trinitarian theology and, therefore, that this infinite is indeed capable of self transcending through forever self-giving.

But this is the subject of another essay.57 

  1. Endliches und ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Aufstiegs zum Sinn des Seins [Edith Steins Werke, Vol. 2] Louvain/Freiburg: Nauwelaerts/Herder, 1950.

  25. "And yet, whatever the theory it applies to itself and to its ultimate claims, in its effective practice phenomenology already displays its distance from – rather than its realization of – the dream of such a radical grounding in the transparence of the subject to itself. The great discovery of phenomenology, within the limits of the phenomenological reduction itself, remains intentionality, that is to say, in its least technical sense, the priority of the consciousness of something over self-consciousness. This definition of intentionality, however, is still trivial. In its rigorous sense, intentionality signifies that the act of intending something is accomplished only through the identifiable and reidentifiable unity of intended sense – what Husserl calls the "noema" or the "intentional correlate of the noetic intention." Moreover, upon this noema are superimposed the various layers that result from the synthetic activities that Husserl terms "constitution" (constitution of things, constitution of space, constitution of time, etc.). Now the concrete work of phenomenology, in particular in the studies devoted to the constitution of "things," reveals – by way of regression – levels, always more and more fundamental, at which the active syntheses continually refer to ever more radical passive syntheses"; P. Ricoeur, From Text to Action. Essays in Hermeneutics, tr. Kathleen Blamey and John B. Thompson, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991, p. 13.

  36. Ricoeur, From Text to Action, p. 13.

  48. P. Secretan, "Edith Stein on the ‘Order and Chain of Being’," in The Great Chain of Being and Italian Phenomenology, ed. A. Ales Bello, Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XI, 1981, pp. 113-123.