Abstract
In the following paper we will attempt to analyze and reconstruct Edith Stein’s interpretation of Husserl’s “transcendental idealism,” notably, the reason why, in her opinion, the latter ended up embracing that specific philosophical position. As will soon become apparent, according to Stein, Husserl misunderstands the peculiar ontological structure of individual essences and, in particular, the specific connection with reality that they carry within themselves. Without raising the question of whether Stein’s own understanding of transcendental idealism perfectly corresponds with Husserl’s, we will confine ourselves to discussing, first, the wider context within which she tackles it and, second, the relation between Husserl’s idealism and the formal-ontological issue of how to characterize the internal content of individual essences. No matter what we think of Stein’s critical assessment, her approach has the great and undeniable merit of forcing the “interpreter” to face the problem of the tight connection between the transcendental dimension and the eidetic dimension of Husserl’s thought.
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Notes
- 1.
See Ingarden 1976.
- 2.
For Dietrich von Hildebrand, for example, there is no substantial distinction between (i) and (iii). “[Phenomenology] signifies in fact the most outspoken objectivism and realism. It is this meaning of phenomenology which we find in the writings of Adolf Reinach, Alexander Pfänder, myself, and several others, and which we, at least, identified with the meaning of phenomenology in the first edition of Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen” (Hildebrand 1991, p. 273)
- 3.
This seems to be Jean Hering’s interpretation in Phénoménologie et philosophie religieuse (Hering 1926). Moritz Geiger distinguishes between the turn to the object [Wendung zum Objekt] and the turn to the subject [Wendung ins Subjektive]. And yet he remarks that: “From the beginning this meant a ‘turn to the subjective’, which, of course, did not abrogate (rather, it presupposed) the turn to the object, nor must it have been interpreted from the outset in an idealistic way.” (Geiger 1933, p. 15)
- 4.
Stein (2014, p. 164) argues that there is no “absolute break” (Bruch) between Ideas I and the Logical Investigations.
- 5.
“Bald fanden sich andere dazu. Alle hatten dieselbe Frage auf dem Herzen.” (Stein 2010, p. 200)
- 6.
An indirect reference to this question can be found in Husserl’s Phenomenology and the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. “In fact, in the years following the publication of Ideas I, in which Husserl first spoke of <his ‘idealism’>, the main arguments against this point, against this much discussed ‘idealism’, were addressed. Again and again, this question was discussed in conversation with eager disciples, without it coming to a conclusion. In such conversations, the trains of thought which were crucial for Husserl proved ineffective to convince his opponents. And if one of them declared victory in the moment, he would sooner or later come back with his old objections or with new ones.” (Stein 1929, pp. 327–328. Emphasis added.)
- 7.
Stein 2010, p. 200.
- 8.
See Stein 2014, pp. 119–142, and pp. 159–162, where she writes that the Logical Investigations accomplished a return, not to “realism,” but to the traditional idea of a philosophia perennis et universalis.
- 9.
For a brief historical discussion of Stein’s position in the phenomenological movement, see Sepp 1998.
- 10.
“I have turned over a new leaf when it comes to idealism and believe it can be understood in such a way that is metaphysically satisfying. But it seems to me that much of what is in Ideas has to be comprehended differently, though in Husserl’s sense, if only he brings together what he has, and in a decisive moment does not leave out of consideration something that necessarily belongs to the subject matter at stake.” (Stein 2003, p. 87.)
- 11.
For an analysis of Stein’s theory of knowledge, see Volk 2003.
- 12.
- 13.
For an important presentation and discussion of this topic, see Tommasi 2003.
- 14.
For an overall presentation, see Fetz 1993.
- 15.
For an interpretation of the Excursus that also includes Kant see Ales Bello 2005, pp. 82–87.
- 16.
Sepp (2003, p. 21) talks of a “genealogy of a possible encounter between the two ontological spheres of the objectual world and consciousness” (einer möglichen Begegnung der beiden Seinssphäre von Gegenstandswelt und Bewußtsein.)
- 17.
Stein 2005, pp. 240–241.
- 18.
Stein 2005, p. 241.
- 19.
Though without any specific textual reference, the German title of the book is explicitly mentioned in Stein 2005, page 243.
- 20.
In other words, the relation between the human subject and the world as it is for us.
- 21.
This critical position had already been made explicit in Stein 2014, p. 96.
- 22.
For an analysis of the practical dimension of the essence see Lebech 2019, pp. 31–33.
- 23.
This is what Hering labels the “principle of the essence”. For a critical discussion of Hering’s principle, see De Santis 2016b.
- 24.
Aristotle would not agree with this construal of the πoιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν, since they are both considered as “figures of categories” (σχήματα τῆς κατηγoρίας) of “being in itself” (καθ’αὑτó) and not κατὰ συμβεβηκóς (see Metaphysics , Δ, 1017a 22–23). We cannot forget that Stein’s reading rests on Hering’s interpretation of the πoιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν (Hering 1921, pp. 499–500,) which he translates with the German word Schicksal (“Schicksale belong not to the domain of the πoῖoν εἷναι, but rather to that of the πoιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν”).
- 25.
Stein 1962, p. 73.
- 26.
Three elements have been intentionally left out of the analysis and thus of the diagram: the notion of “essential core” (Wesenskern,) the πoιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν, and the distinction between what “belongs to the essence ” and what, even without belonging to it, “necessarily follows from the essence.” For these latter problems, see De Santis 2015.
- 27.
For a detailed analysis of this notion and its significance in early phenomenology, see De Santis 2014.
- 28.
See the entire analysis developed in Chapter III, §2, of Stein 1962, pp. 61–67: “Here we encounter one of those formations which Plato had in mind when he discussed the nature of Ideas (ἰδεα, εἶδoς).” As Kaufmann (1952, p. 572) puts it, “In the wake of Jean Hering’s essay in the fourth volume of Husserl’s Jahrbuch, she attempts at an integration of Plato’s self-subsistent ideas (Wesenheiten) with Aristotle’s immanent substantial forms (Wesensformen) which, ultimately individual themselves (Duns Scotus), unfold in the growth of individual and real things. This conformity of the ideal and sensory worlds is accounted for by the Neo-Platonic conception of the ideas in God.”
- 29.
“to the essence of a particular thing belongs not only its being red, its being soft, its being fragrant, but also its being a rose or its being a bud, which provides the answer to the question: What is it?” “It pertains to the rose as a physical object to have form, size, Color, and a number of other qualities, etc. We say, ‘The rose is red,’ and ‘red’ thus belongs to the πoῖoν of the rose. We may also say, ‘The Color of the rose is red’ (or some shade of red, for red is not an ultimate determination). In speaking of Color, red does not designate the πoῖoν of the rose, but rather relates its τί.” (Stein 1962, p. 84)
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This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation, financing the project “Intentionality and Person in Medieval Philosophy and Phenomenology” (GAČR 21-08256S).
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De Santis, D. (2021). Edith Stein on a Different Motive that Led Husserl to Transcendental Idealism. In: Parker, R.K.B. (eds) The Idealism-Realism Debate Among Edmund Husserl’s Early Followers and Critics. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 112. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62159-9_12
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