Abstract
Adolf Reinach’s theory of law and Stein’s concept of the state provide evidence of the coincidence of independently-reached conclusions but also of insights gained by fruitful interchanges that took place among that first group of early twentieth century phenomenologists that appeared after the publication of Husserl’s Logical Investigations. We will point out elements in Reinach’s a priori theory of law that had considerable influence on Edith Stein’s reflections on community, society and, above all, the state, understood as a higher-order political reality that requires particular analysis. Both philosophers apply the phenomenological method rather than looking to particular empirical, historical data, although it is important to observe that the phenomenologists did not ignore the latter. Rather, they seek to account for the particular, historical, factual world with great clarity and depth by a prior analysis grounded in Husserl’s philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
De Vecchi [1, 20]. The translation of this and other Italian texts into Spanish is the author’s, unless the contrary is indicated.
- 2.
Luisa Avitabile, “Introduzione” to the new Italian edition of Paul Ricoeur Studi di fenomenología, ed. Mariano Cristaldi (Rome: Giappichelli, 2009).
- 3.
Investigation Concerning the State, upon which we are concentrating, is prior to Structure of the Human Person, and Antonio Calcagno has shown that it is not strictly accurate to consider it as one of Stein’s phenomenological works but rather it is a book apart. Although evidently it possesses some phenomenological traits, according to Calcagno it does not strictly conform to other works of the period.
- 4.
In other presentations in Jalapa, México 2009, Steubenville, Ohio, 2011, and Santiago de Chile 2012, I have offered three letters that Stein sent to Roman Ingarden as important evidence for our thesis on Stein’s position in the phenomenological dispute between idealism and realism. The letters of February 3, 1917, April 9, 1917, and June 24, 1918, show how Stein’s thinking is shifting from the Göttingen Circle’s initial position to a more critical stance that attempts to comprehend the transcendental turn in the sense that Husserl understood it form the start, as part of genetic phase of phenomenology itself and not as a simple return to transcendental idealism of the older German variety.
- 5.
Bello [2, 11]; hereafter referred to as Ricerca. The translation is mine. Stein is quoted from the Italian position, and again, unless indicated otherwise, the translation is mine.
- 6.
Crespo [3, 11].
- 7.
Ricerca, 49.
- 8.
Crespo, “Estudio preliminar,” 5.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
The examples are taken from Paola Premoli de Marchi in the introductory essay to Dietrich von Hildebrand, Che cos’è la filosofía, translated by Manuela Pasquini (Milan: Bompiani, 2001).
- 12.
Maurizio Ferrari, Oggetti sociali: http://www.labont.com/public/papers/ferraris/ferraris_oggetti_sociali.pdf. Accessed: 4/10/2013.
- 13.
Ferraris, Oggetti sociali.
- 14.
“Presentazione”, Ricerca, 22.
- 15.
Ricerca, 20.
- 16.
In regard to the question of the assignment of state organization to some associative form, Edith Stein notes that the so-called contract theory, by its very conception, naturally tends to consider society and not the community as the basis of the state, since: “One who considered the state as based on a contract reached among the individuals belonging to it, has already taken a position in favor of society in this question. Indeed such a thinker admits a rational formation of the state, a creation by means of an arbitrary act.” Ibid., 21–23.
- 17.
Ibid., 23.
- 18.
Ibid. The italics are mine.
- 19.
Ibid., 26.
- 20.
The same held for Israel in its moment. When Stein offered these considerations, the State of Israel had not been formed and the Zionist struggle was ongoing. Although Stein does not mention it here, it is obvious that as a Jew she has in mind the Jewish people that subsist as such even when it lacks a state. Stein, however, does not pronounce herself explicitly on this particular political problem.
- 21.
Ales Bello expresses it as follows in the “Presentation” to Ricerca, 11: “That leads us to observe that theorizing about a pure, essential moment does not signify closure in an alternative dimension that would overlook particular realizations, but, on the contrary, is presented as the metric for the judgment of a determined reality examined in order to track down its essential feature.”
- 22.
Ricerca, 49.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Author’s insertion.
- 25.
Ricerca, 50.
- 26.
Ibid., 55.
- 27.
Ibid., 70.
- 28.
Ibid., 70.
- 29.
Ibid., 57.
- 30.
Ibid., 57.
- 31.
Crespo, “Estudio preliminar” 16.
- 32.
Adolf Reinach, Los fundamentos a priori del Derecho Civil, 156.
References
Francesca De Vecchi, “Ontologia regionale ‘sociale’ e realismo fenomenologico” in Eidetica del diritto e ontología sociale. Il realismo di Adolf Reinach, edited by Francesca De Vecchi (Milano: Mimesis, 2012)
Angela Ales Bello, “Presentazione,” in Edith Stein, Una ricerca sullo stato (Roma: Città Nuova, 1993)
Mariano Crespo, “Estudio preliminar,” in Adolf Reinach, Fundamentos a priori del derecho civil (Granada: Comares, 2010)
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González-Di Pierro, E. (2016). The Influence of Adolf Reinach on Edith Stein’s Concept of the State: Similarities and Differences. In: Calcagno, A. (eds) Edith Stein: Women, Social-Political Philosophy, Theology, Metaphysics and Public History. Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21124-4_9
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