"Any state exists only for the benefit of human beings. this basic tenet of Edith Stein's political thought rests on her conviction that humanity is fundamentally one community, precious beyond measure.

Husserl and Aquinas -- Knowledge, truth, being -- Actual and ideal being, species, type, and likeness (fragment) -- Sketch of a foreword to Finite and eternal being (fragment) -- Ways to know God.

This initial volume of the Collected Works of Edith Stein offers, for the first time in English, the unabridged biography of Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), depicting her life as a child and young adult. Her text ends abruptly because the Nazi SS arrested, then deported, her to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. Edith Stein is one of the most significant German women of the 20th century. At the age of twenty-five she became the first assistant to (...) Edmund Husserl, the founder of Phenomenology. She was much in demand as a writer and lecturer after her conversion from atheism to Catholicism. Later, as a Discalced Carmelite nun, she maintained her intellectual pursuits until she, like so many others, became a victim of the Nazi persecution that raged across Eastern Europe. By making this landmark work available in English, the Institute of Carmelite Studies provides an eye-witness account of persons and activities on the scene at the time when psychology and philosophy became separate disciplines. In addition to photographs and a map, this volume is enhanced with a preface, the foreword and afterword, notes, and a list of places associated with Edith Stein’s life. It is our aim that these, together with Edith Stein’s text, may help bring into relief the many background details of the rich autobiographical work she has left us. (shrink)

Between 1923 and 1933, Edith Stein worked as a teacher at a Dominican girls’ school in the German town of Speyer. Her experiences, combined with her philosophical background and her religious faith, inspired her writings on the philosophy of education, including her first public lecture: ‘Wahrheit und Klarheit im Unterricht und in der Erziehung’, delivered in 1926. In this text, Stein discusses ideas that had been raised in a set of guidelines and themes given to teachers for their work in (...) the school year. Stein focuses on the concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘clarity’, exploring the epistemological meanings of these terms, their significance in guiding the work of teaching, and their importance for the entire upbringing of a child, with particular reference to preparing him or her for life as a Christian. Stein’s lecture is here presented in a German-English parallel text translation, along with a short introduction by the translators discussing the text in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)