The Presence of Duns Scotus in the Thought of Edith Stein: The question of individuality

196 Pages·2015·3.42 MB·English

by  Francesco Alfieri (auth.)

Analecta
Husserliana
The Yearbook of
Phenomenological Research
Volume CXX
The Presence of Duns Scotus in the
Thought of Edith Stein
The question of individuality
Francesco Alfieri
Translated by
George Metcalf
123
Analecta Husserliana
The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research
Volume CXX
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Francesco Alfi eri

The Presence of Duns Scotus
in the Thought of Edith Stein
The question of individuality
Francesco Alfi eri
Pontifi cia Universitas Lateranensis
Rome , Italy
Translated by George Metcalf
Analecta Husserliana
ISBN 978-3-319-15662-0 ISBN 978-3-319-15663-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-15663-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931541
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
Translation from the Italian language edition: La presenza di Duns Scoto nel pensiero di Edith Stein.
La questione dell’individualità (Filosofi a, 55), Premise by H.-B. Gerl-Falkovitz, Preface by A. Ales Bello,
Postface by G. d’Onofrio, © Morcelliana, Brescia, 2014. All rights reserved.
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
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To
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka,
In memory of our philosophical discussions
in Vermont

Foreword
The people that we meet are always experienced as individual beings; we deal with
the individual person, never the human being in the abstract. This seemingly banal
observation prompts us to refl ect on our capacity to grasp what is universal in the
particular. Indeed, on meeting an individual, we see him or her in all their physical,
mental and spiritual distinctiveness, and yet we are able to say that they are a man
or a woman or a human being, thereby abstracting their essential characteristics.
This is the famous “intuition of essences” referred to by Edmund Husserl and taken
up by his student Edith Stein. 1 And it is precisely the latter phenomenologist who
stresses individuality, because any encounter with the “other” always has this univo-
cal character, although we express ourselves through universalising forms.
W e are thus faced with an age-old problem that Aristotle himself faced: how do
we acquire knowledge of the individual if our knowledge always seems to be of the
universal?
Anthropology was the basic theme of Edith Stein’s research, but it is precisely
within this fi eld that the above-described question is posed, and those who concern
themselves with philosophy cannot ignore it. The question was a constant feature of
Stein’s research, from her fi rst phenomenological analyses inspired by the method
proposed by Husserl until her fi nal writings, via the study of the salient moments of
medieval thought.
K nowing that he is a Franciscan monk, when Francesco Alfi eri told me of his
intention to conduct research into the phenomenological anthropology of Edith
Stein, it came to mind that she had discussed the question of individuality in her
work Finite and Eternal Being , comparing Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus; what
better occasion could there be to explore on the one hand Stein’s relationship with
medieval thought and on the other, take stock on the question of individuality?
Francesco Alfi eri accepted the proposal and indeed, he has developed it beyond
expectations, not only reading the works of Stein and the main works of Duns
1 A complete bibliography of the works of Edith Stein, their translations into various languages and
critical studies of the author and her thought in the world can be found in Alfi eri F. (2012).
vii
viii Foreword
Scotus, but also conducting a critical analysis of the latter. He was supported in this
undertaking by recent studies concerning the attribution of certain manuscripts to
the Franciscan thinker. These studies helped clarify the question of which of Scotus’
works Stein had read and whether they were authentic, an issue that needed to be
resolved before assessing the validity of her interpretation.
Alfi eri’s research therefore broadened to the point where it began to encompass
not only exegetics, but also philology. His work was supported by the results
obtained by scholars on the Scotus Commission of the Order of Friars Minor. This
forms the basis of the second and third chapters of this doctoral thesis, A historic
and critical study of the “Scotist” sources used by Edith Stein and The question of
the principium individuationis in the writings of Duns Scotus. Ordinatio/Lectura –
Quaestiones super Libros Metaphysicorum (q. 13) .
T his research is highly appreciated by specialists because it is founded on the
most recent knowledge and clarifi es the relationship between Scotus and his disci-
ples. Obviously Edith Stein was unaware of this, in the fi rst place because her edu-
cation had involved no contact with medieval thought, and in the second place
because, despite having excellent knowledge of classical languages, she had never
conducted a philological study. In any case, it was not her purpose to tackle such
topics, but rather to understand the theoretical contribution of the thinkers she was
examining. After her conversion to Catholicism she realised that medieval thinkers
had already analysed and in some cases resolved questions that were subsequently
posed again, despite having already had a convincing clarifi cation.
W ith characteristic precision, Stein went beyond questions of attribution and
understood Scotus’ deeper meaning, expressing it in the terms of the phenomeno-
logical language inherited from Husserl. Comparing Thomas Aquinas and Scotus,
she observed that the prevailing interpretation of Aquinas’ position concerning the
principle of individuation, based on m ateria signata quantitate, was not convincing.
She preferred the concept of h aecceitas , as the ultima solitudo of Duns Scotus. She
did not know that the former term perhaps did not come directly from Scotus but
from his disciples, but she understood the sense of the Scotist proposition. All this
is to be found in the fourth chapter of this volume on T he intangible individuality of
human beings. The originality of Edith Stein’s perspective .
Stein’s position, inspired by Husserl’s analyses in Formal and Transcendental
Logic , stresses that from the formal point of view there exists an empty form, but in
order for it to become real it needs to be fi lled by concrete individuals. For human
beings, this “fi lling” is not a question of matter but a qualitative fullness, which can
be expressed in Scotus’ terms as the u ltima solitudo , or in phenomenological terms
as the immutable and intangible personal nucleus.
I n the case of Thomas Aquinas she criticises his criterion of matter as the prin-
ciple of individuation. How then to interpret the relationship between matter and
form with respect to the human individual? It is here that Scotus’ idea of the u ltima
realitas or the u ltima solitudo acquires greater specifi city via a qualitative fullness
based on the personal nucleus. In this sense Stein can be said to have fulfi lled, albeit
inadvertently, the objective which was very clear in her research: to identify conver-
gences in the theoretical results of many thinkers in their enquiries into various
Foreword ix
aspects of reality. Her aim in this was not merely to arrive at a cosy syncretism; she
held that each of them, examining the “same things”, highlighted something posi-
tive and this should be valued. Nor was this facile irenicism. Indeed, when exam-
ined retrospectively, the violent contrasts that characterised medieval thought
actually suggest – all things considered – that there was greater convergence and
unity among them than traditionally believed, a unity that emerges especially if that
thought is compared with the history of the philosophy that was to follow. Stein’s
return to medieval thought was not determined therefore by any need for an apol-
ogy, and this is also demonstrated by the freedom with which she deals with the
great philosophers of the epoch, while acknowledging their authority. On the con-
trary, she argued that the contribution of those philosophers should be valued
because they clarifi ed aspects that were re-examined subsequently but without
obtaining the same results. The basic idea is that the history of philosophy is estab-
lished by thinkers who support each other beyond time and space, because philoso-
phy is a “perennial” form of research.
Francesco Alfi eri’s book makes these observations, breaking down an extremely
complex fi eld with great critical ability, precise analysis and cogent results.
Systematically tackling the comparison of Duns Scotus and Edith Stein for the fi rst
time, he helps clarify, from a historic and theoretical point of view, a highly complex
and crucial argument: what is the individual and how do we come to know them?
Angela Ales Bello
References
Alfi eri, F. (2012). Die Rezeption Edith Steins. Internationale Edith-Stein-Bibliographie (1942–2012).
Festgabe für M. Amata Neyer OCD. Sondernummer des Edith Stein Jahrbuches, Vorwort von
U. Dobhan, Geleitwort von H.-B. Gerl-Falkovitz – A. Ales Bello, Einführung von F. Alfi eri.
Würzburg: Echter Verlag GmbH.