Edith Stein on the scholastic foundations of Phenomenology

(Rodrigo Peñaloza, 2020)

To celebrate the 70th birthday of Edmund Husserl (born in 1859), his disciples and fellows organized a collection of essays on phenomenology by a select group of philosophers. The edition ran under the supervision of Martin Heidegger. Among the many contributors were Heidegger himself, Alexander Koyré and Edith Stein, the only woman. Edith Stein wrote a fine essay on the scholastic foundations of phenomenology in the form of a fictitious dialogue between Edmund Husserl and Thomas Aquinas, but Heidegger disapproved of the dialogical form of her essay and requested her to rewrite it in a “neutral form”, as a standard academic article. She patiently did as he asked. I read both versions and saw no difference of content. She sent her message in both. To be sincere, I found the dialogue version much nicer to read, because I could figure both Husserl and Aquinas talking as true gentlemen in Husserl’s living room near the fireplace in a cold evening of Autumn. Only Edith’s acute mind was able to figure out that conversation. Husserl and Aquinas came to the conclusion that both agree on the task of Philosophy, which is to get the most universal and well-founded understanding of the world, but that for Edmund Husserl the starting point lies in the immanence of consciousness while for Thomas Aquinas it lies in faith. Edith didn’t write about their going home in the end, but we can see what happened. Aquinas went back to the monastery, Husserl to his house, and Edith went back to the undeserved oblivion in which the world has kept her.