The self and the other in the thought of Edith Stein

Philibert Secretan

pp. 87-98

in: Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed), The self and the other, Dordrecht, Reidel, 1977

Abstract

The very act of examining the problem of the Self and the Other within the framework of phenomenology necessarily implies a two-fold approach, or at least the possibility of opening one’s mind to a double perspective. First, we approach the theme in terms of intersubjectivity by which we attempt to describe the different levels and modalities of the dichotomy. Secondly, by closely examining the tensions which this approach introduces into phenomonology, we are led to the limits of Husserlian egology and we find ourselves in contradiction to phenomonology itself. The first perspective does justice to the validity of the phenomenological analysis of the relationship between the self and the other; the second questions the conjecture of the powerlessness that phenomenology has of apprehending the reality of the other.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Stein Edith