The inseparability of consciousness from embodiment in the phenomenology of Edith Stein

Paulina Monjaraz Fuentes

pp. 87-92

in: Antonio Calcagno (ed), Edith Stein: women, social- political philosophy, theology, metaphysics and public history, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

One of Edith Stein's unique contributions to phenomenology lies in her discussion of the body of the human person and its relation to consciousness. Consciousness allows the person to say that the principal trait or characteristic of the lived body is that it is one's own body. Consciousness yields an understanding of one's body as both a material thing and as living. The personal body gives itself in a very specific and unique way as this body and not another body, as my body and not as someone else's body. Edith Stein integrates the materiality of the body with the living dynamism of the human body in a cohesive analysis, thereby demonstrating the unbreakable unity between body and consciousness. I analyze some of the dehumanizing characteristics of our postmodern culture and employ Stein's analysis of the inseparability of consciousness from the body to shed light on some contemporary problems that affect us and our culture.

Cited authors

Stein Edith