Editing Edith Stein (section)

==Philosophy==

Stein's development as a philosopher is frequently divided into three periods: an early, phenomenological (1916–25), a middle, comparative (1925–33) and a late, Christian (1935–42). In reality the same factors work themselves out throughout her work and propels it forward: 1. a profound understanding of and commitment to the phenomenological method as taught by Husserl and Reinach; 2. a deep sense of responsibility to the other for what we believe and 3. an acceptance of my own inability to form a complete, meaningful worldview without divine assistance. The three periods are best understood as stages of integration of these three factors, with Stein's baptism New Year's Day 1922, marking a decisive step on the way and her entering Carmel 14 October 1933 marking another.

=== The early phenomenological period (1916–25) ===
Stein's dissertation on empathy was according to her own account an attempt to fill a gap in Husserl's work. In her autobiographical ''Life in a Jewish Family'', she recalled that he took empathy to be the crucial act in which [[intersubjectivity]] was established, but nowhere detailed exactly what was meant by it. She therefore wanted to undertake this task and thereby clarify this crucial idea for the development of the phenomenological movement. While working as Husserl's assistant (1916–18) she edited Husserl's manuscripts of what was later to be published as ''Ideas II'' and ''III'', and in the process came to understand the extraordinary importance this act has for our constitution of the intersubjective world, and in particular for the objects studied by psychology and the humanities. When she resigned from her position as Husserl's assistant, the first work she undertook was on the phenomenological constitution of those objects: the psyche and the spirit. The result was the two treatises of ''Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities'', published in Husserl's ''Jahrbuch'' 1922: ''Psychic Causality'' and ''Individual and Community''. From this period also dates ''Introduction to Philosophy,'' ''An Investigation Concerning the State,'' and very importantly ''Freedom and Grace''.

=== The middle comparative period (1925–33) ===
Encouraged to study and compare Thomas Aquinas' philosophy with that of the phenomenological movement, Stein embarked on a translation project of Aquinas' ''De Veritate'', which was to be published in two volumes in 1932. The work, which translates Aquinas' way of thinking into a modern German idiom and restyles it as a contemporary academic treatise, occasioned that Stein engaged with Aquinas' thought as a phenomenologist, i.e. as someone interested in the matters discussed by Aquinas, as distinct from providing an interpretation of Aquinas' thought or writing in prolongation of it as a thomist. The most important works from this period are 'Husserl and Aquinas: A Comparison', in which she discusses the differing methodologies of Husserl and Aquinas and accounts for their differences, ''Potency and Act'', in which she attempts a phenomenological investigation of 'potency' and 'act' and the twin work of anthropology: The ''Structure of the Human Person''. ''Philosophical Anthropology'' and ''What is the Human Being?'' ''Theological Anthropology'' (the second volume remains a highly developed draft rather than a completed work, since Stein's lectures were canceled in 1933). During this period she also lectures on women's education and vocation and on education in general to very large audiences and to great acclaim. In these lectures, published in ESGA 13 and ESGA 16, she works out for herself the important questions concerning social type and essence, which find a fuller development in ''The Structure of the Human Person''.

=== The later Christian period (1934–42) ===
Her first literal assignment in Carmel was to prepare ''Potency and Act'' for publication, a task she accomplished by writing a new book: ''Finite and Eternal Being – An Ascent to the Meaning of Being''. This work proposed a phenomenological doctrine of being ''(Seinslehre)'', which knows itself to be Christian, i.e. as taking Christian Revelation to contribute towards the view of the world in which it looks for and finds the meaning of being in being's unfolding. Stein also worked on [[Dionysius the Areopagite]], translating his works into German and writing (for him) a work supposed to be lost on symbolic theology. Stein's final work, the ''Science of the Cross'', was a commentary on [[John of the Cross]], which developed the specifically Carmelite understanding of the depths of the soul, already of interest to Stein in her early work.