Edith Stein 1891 – 1942
Edith Stein was a German philosopher, phenomenologist, and Carmelite nun. She studied under Edmund Husserl at Gottingen, served as his assistant, and wrote her doctoral dissertation on the problem of empathy as the foundation for the constitution of other minds. She converted to Catholicism in 1922 and entered the Carmelite order in 1933, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Arrested for her Jewish ancestry, she was deported to Auschwitz and killed in 1942. Her later philosophical work, especially Finite and Eternal Being, attempts a synthesis of phenomenology with Thomistic metaphysics.
Key facts
- Nationality
- German
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Phenomenology, Continental, Christian
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“Empathy is the experience of foreign consciousness in general.”
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“All that comes to me from God is a sign of His love.”
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“The world doesn't need what women have. It needs what women are.”
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“Truth is more important than success.”
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Attributed to Edith Stein:
“The deeper one is drawn into God, the more one must go out of oneself.”