On the 80th anniversary of Stein’s death, the Portuguese Journal of Philosophy is publishing an issue on Stein & Husserl.
CFP: SPECIAL ISSUE:
Edith Stein and other Forgotten Disciples of Husserl: Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of Edith Stein’s Death
Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
Eds. Etelvina Pires Lopes Nunes, Andreas Lind, João Carlos Onofre Pinto
Submission Deadline: 30 November 2021
October 2021 sees the 130th anniversary of Edith Stein’s birth, followed by the 80th anniversary of her death in August 2022. In this context, the present volume of the Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia (Portuguese Journal of Philosophy) wishes to pay tribute to Edith Stein by revisiting her work and thought.
After having studied in Göttingen, Edith Stein (1891-1942) moved to Freiburg where she became Assistant of Edmund Husserl, known as the father of phenomenology, and was among the first women to work as an assistant teacher in one of the most respected European universities of her time. Besides her retrieval of Husserl’s work, a synthesis whose value was recognized by her academic peers, she also developed her own philosophical thought in diverse domains, such as the meaning of values, the role of women in society, the critique against totalitarianisms, among many others.
Edith Stein’s most relevant contribution in the field of phenomenology is, probably, the deepening of the study of the notion of empathy (Einfühlung). She inherited this notion from her master, Husserl, who had, in his turn, inherited it from Theodor Lipps. By defending the thesis that, through empathy, it is possible for one to grasp subjective experiences of other persons, Edith Stein emerged as an original thinker in the philosophical milieu of her time. Actually, her research around the notion of empathy brings out a thematization of the possibility to know what other persons, different from oneself and with whom one cohabits this world, subjectively suffer. Edith Stein’s analysis sought to ensure this possibility even without the direct and personal experience that other persons feel.
In addition to Husserl’s influence, Edith Stein’s philosophical work was profoundly affected by her conversion to Catholicism in 1922, and from 1933 on by her Carmelite vocation, according to which she lived the last years of her life. In this respect, it stands out the interest that she showed in the thought of John Henry Newman and Thomas Aquinas,whose work Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate she translated directly from Latin to German. With, for instance, Husserls Phänomenologie und die Philosophie des hl. Thomas von Aquin (1929), Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person (1932), and Kreuzeswissenschaft (1941), without forgetting the fundamental work Endliches und ewiges Sein, published posthumously in 1950, phenomenology, in the works of Edith Stein, developed into a fruitful dialogue with Thomism and the Dark Night of the Soul’s mystique.
Paraphrasing Paul Ricœur, phenomenology is the sum of Husserl’s own work and the “heresies” which followed from him. At heart, phenomenology is nothing more than variations on Husserl. Therefore, one may interpret the work of Edith Stein as one of those heresies that constitute the history of phenomenology.
The two ephemerides that motivate this volume provide the occasion the occasion to revisit other students or disciples of Husserl as well. It is our aim to retrieve the authors who intellectually matured from their contact with Husserl; authors who seem to have fallen into oblivion today; whose fame and influence have not achieved the level of a Martin Heidegger, although they made significant contributions to the development of phenomenology. Besides Edith Stein, we have in mind philosophers such as Max Scheler, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Roman Ingarden, Eugen Fink, Jan Patočka, Alexander Pfänder and Adolf Reinach, Ludwig Landgrebe, among many others. Basically, we are mentioning the generation formed within the context in which phenomenology emerged; the generation that was able to extend the horizon of classical phenomenology, in either its methods or its application to different areas, such as ethics, politics, law, aesthetics, or even religion.
In such a context, the editors invite all Scholars and Researchers in these fields to submit original articles
More information on topics, author guidelines, and submission: https://www.rpf.pt/images/pdfs/cfp78_1.pdf