Essence and existence

pp. 88-101

in: Mary C. Baseheart, Person in the world, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

The present account of Edith Stein's philosophy has described her search for the essential structures of person, of community and the state, of woman and education. Like the other members of the original Husserlian circle at Göttingen, she explores and attempts to implement the Master's concept of phenomenology as a science of essences (Wesenswissenschaften). Her method models Husserl's ideal of phenomenological inquiry into the essential nature of things by way of descriptive analysis of the objects given to consciousness. From her earliest writings, however, to her final philosophical work, Finite and Eternal Being (Endliches and Ewiges Sein), she insists on examining the question of the relation of essence (Wesen) to existence (Sein),a question from which Husserl prescinds in his method. The object for Husserl is always the intentional object. He directs his attention to the world-for-consciousness, although he holds that the intentions which are directed to the "things" of cognition are ultimately founded through sensation and perception.¹ Stein and other associates of Husserl were constantly questioning how the mental activity of the subject, working on the raw material of sensation, constructs its world in manifold acts and assemblage of acts. As she expresses the question, "How is the world constructed for a consciousness which I can explore in immanence?"²