Edith Stein: Thomist or Augustinist?

Tadeusz Gadacz

Edith Stein having converted to Catholicism became involved in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. She translated Summa contra Gentiles into German and wrote an article Hussserl’s Phenomenology and the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. In the literature of the subject she is generally considered as a h omist. A thesis that I propose in my article is the following: her interest in St Thomas Aquinas’; philosophy did not follow directly from her phenomenology. She took up Thomas as a major Catholic theologian and philosopher only after her conversion. However, the thought which was closer to her phenomenology was that of St. Augustine. I demonstrate on the basis of source texts and Stein’ correspondence that thanks to Husserl she assumed the standpoint of epistemological idealism, discovered a field of immanent consciousness, and through it an inner way to God. h is manifests itself in her analysis of three Augustinist concepts: mind, will and memory in Finite and Eternal Being. She could owe the discovery of the inner way to God to Husserl, who both in Cartesian Meditations and in his further notes made references to St. Augustine and analysed the concepts of mind and will.

57-gadacz

Keywords: idealism · realism · Augustinism · Tomism · God · Husserl · Stein

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