Human life and self-realization according to Edith Stein

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the Edith Stein’s phenomenological-metaphysical anthropologyand its moral aspects. Her enquiry shifts from the study of those aspects common to both humanbeings and animals to an aspect that is specifically and exclusively human, i.e., spirituality. Theperson only is a spiritual subject, because he has an intellectual knowledge and he can freely act. Inthis investigation, Stein moves from outcomes achieved thanks to the phenomenological method,which leads her to focus on a description of the bodily, psychical and spiritual sphere of the humanbeing. Accordingly, Stein reflects on the ethical consequences of her anthropological research.Following Augustine, she perceives originary self-consciousness as interiority, from which to beginexplicating intellectual knowledge, and especially free action and hence ethics. Action is not onlyexpressed outwards, first of all it is self-actuation – acting and being are mutually implied. Thedirection of moral actions is thus already present in each one’s individual ‘essence’ (Wesen) and thisessence, thanks to the creative ‘essentiality’ (Wesenheiten), is ab eterno in Logos. In view of thiscomplex theological node, Stein recognizes Christ as the archetype of the only possible ethics.