Published in 2007 | 151 pages | paper | ISBN: 978-0-8207-0399-2

Reviews:

“Calcagno’s clarity of thinking, combined with his focused laying out of arguments, makes this book a pleasure to read, while the thought-provoking questions bring [Stein’s] own insights to bear on the problems of today, showing her works to be relevant to all times and a potential springboard for further philosophical endeavor. Hers is truly a living philosophy.” — Mount Carmel: A Review of the Spiritual Life

“This work presents an excellent cross-section of Stein's writings and demonstrates the timelessness and relevance of her ideas for contemporary philosophical scholarship.” — University Press Books

“Calcagno's book is a thorough, erudite, and sometimes poignant exegesis of the thinking of a gifted philosopher. He illustrates Stein's penetrating and insightful observations, her resistance of the disorder inherent in modern thinking brought about by the Enlightenment project and later philosophers, and her efforts to re-establish the bond between Reason and openness to the ground.” — Kritike "

Book Information:

For most philosophers, the work of Edith Stein continues to be eclipsed and relegated to obscurity. This work presents an excellent cross-section of Stein's writings and demonstrates the timeliness and relevance of her ideas for contemporary philosophical scholarship. Antonio Calcagno covers most of Edith Stein's philosophical life, from her early work with Husserl to her later encounters with medieval Christian thought, as well as a critical and analytical reading of major Steinian texts. Stein was an original thinker who challenged not only the direction in which Husserlian phenomenology was progressing but also sought to bring to philosophical light the relevance of certain key questions, including the meaning of what it is to be human, the relevance of metaphysics to science, and fundamental questions about the nature of God. Working to correct the perception that Stein is either an “unfaithful and distorting” phenomenologist or a pious Catholic mystic, Calcagno presents important work that has been neglected by both secular and religious scholars. The essays are not merely expository, but discuss the philosophical questions raised by Stein's work from a contemporary perspective, using Stein's original German texts. In its attention to the breadth and depth of Stein's philosophy from its initial development to its more mature form, The Philosophy of Edith Stein offers a new understanding of an individual who left behind an incredible philosophical and literary legacy worthy of scholarly attention. The book will be of interest not only to Stein scholars, but to feminists, phenomenologists, and Heideggerians.

Author Information:

ANTONIO CALCAGNO is professor of philosophy at King's University College and the author of Giordano Bruno and the Logic of Coincidence. He has also taught at the Universities of Scranton, Toronto and Guelph.