Die Fiille oder das Nichts?

Edith Stein and Martin Heidegger

on the Question of Being
by Antonio Calcagno
Just after the Second World War, when the task of collating, editing
and printing Edith Stein's Werke came under the auspices of the HusserI
Archives at Louvain, a problem arose with regard to the publication of
Endliches und Ewiges Sein (Finite and Eternal Being). The then editors of
the collected works found attached to Stein's Habilitationsschrift two
appendices. The first was entitled, Die Seelenburg (The Castle 0/ the Soul)
and the second, Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie (Martin
Heidegger's Existential Philosophy). These appendices appeared to form
the last chapter of Endliches und Ewiges Sein. Yet when the work was
published in 1950, these two appendices were not included. They
eventually appeared in another volume, Welt und Person (World and
Person), published twelve years later. J
The second appendix, Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie,
consists of Edith Stein's reflections on four works ofHeidegger, namely,
Being and Time, Kant and the Problem o/Metaphysics, On the Essence 0/
the Ground, and What is Metaphysics? The reflections on the last three
works are not very substantial, and basically consist of summaries of
Heidegger's position in these works. However, a "strong impression" was
I See Edith Stein, Endliches und Ewiges Sein, Edith Steins Werke 2 (Louvain: Editions
Nauwelaerts, 1950), hereafter referred to as EES; and Edith Stein, Welt und Person, Edith
Steins Werke 6 (Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1962). All translations are mine unless
otherwise specified. Here, one could investigate in further detail why the editors decided to
publish the appendices as separate works.
2000, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. LXXIV, No.2
270 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
made on Edith Stein by reading Heidegger's Being and Time.
2
Stein claims
that she wrote the appendix in order to debate with Heidegger about his
notion of being. The question that needs to be asked is, what in Heidegger's
philosophy made an indelible impression? Moreover, how exactly did
Heidegger influence Edith Stein's ontology? This article seeks to address
these questions.
First, I shall present Edith Stein's critique of Heidegger's philosophy
by examining her comments on Being and Time. In doing so, I hope to
sketch the fundamental lineaments of Stein's philosophical dialogue with
Heidegger. Second, drawing on her critique of Heidegger, I will
demonstrate how Stein overcomes Heidegger's insights, and develops her
own sense of being as abundance (Fill/e). By doing so, I shall show the
nature of Heidegger's influence on Stein's thought. More importantly, I
shall present a brief sketch of Edith Stein's own understanding of being. In
conclusion, I shall offer some philosophical reflections on the relationship
between Heidegger and Stein as well as on the Steinian sense of being.
I.
The first part of the substantial appendix Martin Heideggers
Existentialphilosophie is devoted to a summary of Being and Time's
principal tenets. In her weighty critique of Being and Time, which forms
the second part of the text, Edith Stein proposes to answer three questions:
What is Dasein? Is Heidegger's analysis of Dasein adequate? And is the
analysis sufficient to serve as a ground for approaching the question of the
sense of being?
In response to the first question, Stein believes that Heidegger's
Dasein is poly-semantic.
3
Stein maintains that Heidegger's different uses
of the term Dasein are generally coherent. Sometimes he will use the term
to refer to "human being." At other points, Heidegger is stricter with the
term, employing it to refer specifically to the particular way of being
(Seinsweise) of the human being. Essentially, Dasein is characterized by its
being-in-the world. "By Dasein Heideggcr means humankind (it often
refers to a who or a self). Sometimes it refers to human being (in these
2EES, xii.
3See Edith Stein, Martin Heideggers Existentialphilosophie, in Welt und Person (see
note 1), 92. Hereafter referred to as MHE.
STEIN AND HEIDEGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 271
cases he mostly employs the expression the Being of the Dasein). This
being in contradistinction to other modes of being is called existence
(Existenz)."4
What is troubling for Stein about Heidegger' s use of the term Dasein
is that even though the being of Dasein is to be understood as a particular
way of being, Heidegger claims that the essence of the human being is
existence. Traditionally, metaphysics reserved such a definition for God.
The essence of God was existence. The implication for the being of
humankind was clear: We are not the source of our own being, for we are
not God. It is not inherent in our essence to be self-generating. We are
brought into existence through our parents, and ultimately through God.
What is at stake here is the question of origins or sources. For Stein,
Heidegger cuts the human person off from the original source of being,
namely, God. The human being is established as the central source of
being, for he/she alone can question his/her own being. By adopting the
medieval formula and applying it to the being of Dasein, Heidegger
achieves two things. First, the human being becomes the source from which
his/her being takes on meaning, a kleiner Gatt (small god). Second, God is
given no place, for God is excluded as the human being becomes the
essence of his/her own existence. Heidegger does not leave open the
possibility for God to give sense or meaning to the being of Dasein.
5
The choice of the word Dasein to denote the being of the human being
is justified in a positive sense, according to Stein, by the fact that
Heidegger sees our being as being localized -a being there, ada sein. The
choice of the word Dasein is also motivated by a negative factor.
Heidegger wants to avoid the traditional and dogmatic dualism of body and
soul. He does not want to refer to the human being as composed of two
substances, spiritual and corporeal. At the same time, Stein recognizes that
Heidegger does not want to exclude the body or the spirit from his view of
Dasein. She points the reader to Heidegger's interpretation of spatiality,
where the spirit is given a real pre-eminence. What is lacking for Stein is
a real Seelenlehre (doctrine of the soul). The human person is bereft of
his/her most intimate personal space or proprium wherein he/she can
genuinely encounter self, other and God, namely, the soul. Body and soul
are neither states nor substances of the human being. They are components,
%id.
5See ibid., 90-9 J .
272 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
and as components, both body and soul play passive and active roles in the
conditioning and living out of our existence in the world. Body and soul do
not represent an inseparable dualism for Stein. Rather, they represent
different aspects of the individual subject which coexist and condition one
another reciprocally, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.
Ultimately, the absence ofa theory of the soul in Heidegger's account of
Dasein is troubling for the Catholic Stein, for it excludes any possibility of
eternity and encounter with the divine. Dasein provides no real account of
body and soul, for they are obscured by the vocabulary of being.
6
The second question that Stein addresses to Heidegger concerns the
faithfulness of his phenomenological description of Dasein. In other words,
does Heidegger's analysis of Dasein conform really to our lived
experience? Despite the fact that Heidegger never develops a fuller sense
of the body with regard to Dasein's fundamental determinations in the
world, that is, Befindlichkeit, Geworfenheit, and Verstehen, Stein never-
theless recognizes the greatness ofHeidegger' s analysis. What troubles her
is the absoluteness of his claims. For Stein, Heidegger never takes his
questioning far enough.
For example, let us take into account Heidegger's analysis of
"thrownness." While it is true that Dasein may find him- or herself in
existence without knowing how s/he got there, Dasein may also know that
s/he neither exists ex se nor per se. Moreover, if Dasein questions his or her
own being, the latter will not reveal its origin. Stein sees Heidegger going
to great lengths to stifle the fundamental questions that every being asks of
him-or herself: Whence did I come? What is my origin? To say that such
questions make little sense is to deny one of the more fundamental desires
of the human being, namely, the desire to know one's ultimate origin. We
are thrown into existence, and if the medievals and ancients were correct
to assume that an effect implied a cause, the questions long to be asked:
Whence have I been thrown? Who threw me into this existence? I would
add to Stein's list the ultimate question of meaning, Why?
This questioning is a profound means of philosophical investigation
and is heuristic in the purest sense of the word. Stein maintains that it is
human nature to ask such questions. In fact, as Heidegger rightly notes, it
6See ibid., 92. Stein recognizes that Heidegger tries to address the distinctions between
etwas, was ist (with reference to body and soul) and the Werof Dasein in his Kantbuch. See
ibid., footnote n. 54.
STEIN AND HEIDEGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 273
is part of our ontological constitution in the world. For Stein, these
questions and the desire for concrete answers to these questions point to a
source or an origin which/who transcends the being of Dasein. These
questions arise from the very foundation of our being and address a being
which/who is without foundation-an eternal being. I shall develop further
Stein's argument with regard to origins and sources as experienced in life
and being in the second part of this paper. In essence, the experience of
thrownness, if questioned more deeply, points to the fact that we have been
thrown from somewhere by something. If we did not experience "being
thrown," we would not have to ask questions concerning the origin of our
thrownness. Ultimately, our thrownness reveals our creatureliness, that is,
our created being-as it does our creator. 7
Following the line of argumentation concerning his faithfulness to
what is given in experience, Stein believes that Heidegger understands das
Man (the They) too narrowly. She finds that the ambiguity implicit in the
use of das Man is misleading.
8
She believes that one can indeed refer to a
particular person when using the term das Man. One need not necessarily
conceive of das Man as impersonal. Stein gives the example of the
sentence, "One may take the notion of idle chatter too seriously." What this
sentence expresses here is not only a hypothetical situation but also the fact
that some one, a person, may take Heidegger's notion of idle chatter too
seriously. Moreover. the statement is always made in a larger context,
namely, the context of a larger community. The statement is addressed to
a general audience familiar with Heidegger's work, a community which is
subject to the same life conditions, namely, the knowledge of what
Heidegger intends by idle chatter. Stein holds that das Man could signify:
(I) a definite group or an indefinite circle of individuals, or even all human
beings who are subject to the same communal conditions or general rules
of behavior; (2) the individual, in so far as s/he is subject to or has made
him- or herself subject to a general rule.
To argue that Dasein, in its inauthenticity, flees into the ambiguity of
das Man is much too obscure. Stein reads Heidegger as absolutizing the
Selbst (self) of Dasein, thereby diminishing the role of community implicit
in his use of das Man. In fleeing into the inauthenticity of das Man, one
forsakes self-responsibility. Das Man becomes a "place" to be comfortably
7See ibid., 93.
8See ibid., 94.
274 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
mediocre, a hiding place. Stein maintains that the individual person cannot
be thought of apart from his/her community. One implies the other, and
both are constitutive of one another. Stein remarks: "There is no such thing
as a person in the authentic sense of the word, except for a multiplicity of
persons who exist in a community."9 Heidegger polarizes the community
and the individual. The community (Gemeinschaft) is not given its proper
due. According to Stein, a community of persons can also be authentic
when it fulfills its responsibilities both to itself and to those persons who
compose the community, and when there is a genuine living in the
experience of the other and vice versa. Stein refers her readers to her
works, On the State
lO
and Individual and Community, II in which she further
develops the relationship between the person and the community. For
example, the nation or state cannot be complete unless it organizes itself
around the wellbeing of its individual members and smaller communities;
however, it must also be conscious of the collective good. Both the
community and its individual members are inseparable. They reciprocally
form one another.
The Heideggerian will combat such an analysis by pointing to the fact
that concomitant with Dasein is Mitsein-being with.
12
For Stein,
Heidegger never really draws out the implications of his concept of
Mitsein. It is a given, but a complete description of how it conditions
Dasein and vice versa is never adequately given. Heidegger's use of das
Man points to a dualism between individual and community. The former
is charged with the task of an eigentliches Sein (authentic being), whereas
the latter only becomes a receptacle for a fallen or fleeing Dasein. Stein
asks, does not the community playa more significant and responsible role
9See ibid., 97.
IOSee Eine Untersuchung iiber den Staat, in Jahrbuch fiir Philosophie und
phiinomenologische Forschung, cd. Edmund Husser! (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1925), vol. 7.
11See individuum und Gemeinschaji, in }ahrbuch fiir Philosophie und phiino-
menologische Forschung, ed. Edmund Husser1 (Halle: Max ~ i e m e y e r , 1922), vol. 5.
12See MHE, 97 n. 57.
STEIN AND HEIDEGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 275
in the formation of Dasein?13 In other words, what does it mean to have an
authentic community of Dasein as opposed to one authentic Dasein?
Heidegger is also criticized for being unfaithful to his very own
questioning of being (Seinsfrage) in so far as he does not push his questions
as far as human experience would dictate. We saw this type of shortcoming
earlier when Stein commented on Heidegger's analysis of our thrownness
into the world. Now Stein examines the notion of fallelmess. Heidegger
maintains that we must not think of fallenness as a falling from an original
state of nature much like the Christian story of Adam and Eve. Rather, our
fallenness consists in the fact that it stands in opposition to the task of an
eigentliches Sein-Konnen (authentic attempt at being). The fallenness of
Dasein 's particular mode of being consists in its not being authentic. Stein
sees Heidegger trying to account for the experience of human fallibility by
dismissing the traditional Genesis story of evil and disobedience. Even if
our fallenness consists in our inability to be more authentic, a
consciousness or experience of a more authentic being must have come
from somewhere. Was there a more original, authentic sense of being prior
to our fall into mediocrity? Does eigentliches Sein carry with it some pre-
consciousness of a fuller being which we somehow know we have not
achieved? Has this been naturally instilled in us? By whom or by what?
And for what purpose? Are these not typical questions of the human person
coming to terms with her or his own existence in the world? Fallenness
implies a falling from somewhere into something else. For Stein, these
questions are answered, in part, by Revelation (OfJenbarung) and tradition.
Humankind fell away from God, and it is the distance between God and
humankind that accounts for human fallibility.
To Stein's challenge Heidegger would reply that our knowledge of
authentic being is given to us in conscience. We are each averted to the call
of authentic being by the voice of conscience. Conscience calls fallen
Dasein back to authentic being. According to Heidegger, the call of
conscience is Dasein itself. The call of the conscience of Dasein by Dasein
is surprising in so far as it appears not to come from oneself. This is
13Sec ibid., 96: "Was kann danach die Flucht in das Man bedeuten'7 Wer tlieht? Wovor
und wohin') Der Einzelnc tlicht-so h6rten wir-vor seinem eigcnsten und eigentlichen
Sein, das ein einsames und vcrantwortliches ist, in die Gemeinschaft, und er ladet seine
V crantwortung auf die Gemeinschaft ab, auf die engere oder auf die weitere. Dabei kann von
ciner Flucht, genau genommen, erst gesprochen werden, wenn der Einzelne einmal zu
seinem eigentlichen Sein und zum BewuBtsein seiner Verantwortung erwacht ist."
276 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
explained by Heidegger as resulting from the estrangement which has
occurred between the Selbst proper and the Selbst that has lost itself in the
everydayness of das Man. In essence, the caller has become the called. For
Stein, this explanation is too solipsistic, or in HusserI's language, idio-
psychic. There is no reference point other than the self. The community
does not come into play. Moreover, the possibilities of the voice of
conscience being formed by the divine, history and tradition are limited.
Heidegger's solipsism is not true to human experience, for conscience not
only derives from the individual but is also an extension of a communal
conscience. We are formed by our interactions with others in different
kinds of communities, be they political, social, economic, religious,
cultural, etc. Often, we experience pangs of conscience when others remind
us of certain obligations and acts of omission wherein we should have done
something but failed to do so. Ultimately, Heidegger' s vision of conscience
as auto-directional forces Edith Stein to call into question the faithfulness
of his description to the breadth of human experience. 14
The preceding discussion of conscience was intimately connected with
authentic being. Stein recognizes the important link that Heidegger makes
between authentic being and death-Sein zum Tode (Being-unto-death).
She goes on to reflect on Heidegger's analysis of death by asking three
questions: First, is there an experience of death itself? (Heidegger responds
by saying yes in so far as it is my death-Jemeinigkeit). Second, is there an
experience of the death of an other? (Heidegger responds negatively).
Third, how are the two aforementioned questions related?
Stein begins to answer her questions by first clarifying what
Heidegger means by death. For Heidegger, death is the end of Dasein. This
defmition, however, does not preclude any discussion of the possibility of
life after death. Heidegger wishes to focus his discussion of death within
the realm of the existence of Dasein. Death is something that belongs to
Dasein as an Existential. IS When one faces the possibility of death, that is,
the possibility of not existing, one is gripped by angst and fear. The
realization that Dasein will no longer be one day, or that Dasein has come
to its end, will shake one out of the mediocrity of das Man into a more
authentic way of being. Stein believes that Heidegger's approach is sterile
(ergebnislos), for on the one hand, death is defined as an end, and yet on
I4See ibid., 100.
I5See ibid., 102.
STEIN AND HElD EGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 277
the other hand, this very end is believed to somehow give authentic
meaning to the very life it ends.
It appears that we have come to a contradiction. Heidegger's analysis
of the Sein zum Tode must be understood within the realm of real
possibilities or potentialities. Thus, death must be understood as a real
possibility that will eventually happen, an event that we are certain not to
escape. Hence, though death remains only a definite possibility, its
imminence (possibility) has a real effect on the way we choose to live our
lives in so far as we can ignore the fact that we will die, we can live in fear
of it, or we can even be changed by it, perhaps to a more authentic being
in the world. It must be noted, however, that in a later passage Stein
realizes that this is not a completely unfeasible way of inquiry, for she
makes the distinction between death and our living as a march towards
death, a dying. She admits the experiences of angst and fear in front of the
Nichtigkeit (nothingness) of death may have an effect on our existence in
the world. If Stein admits the possibility of an end (death) as being
potentially helpful, then how can Heidegger's approach be called sterile?
I believe that Stein would argue that the approach is sterile because
Heidegger's end is viewed as an absolute, for there is nothing more
absolute than the nothing of Nichtigkeit. Even though Heidegger does not
absolutely exclude the possibility of an afterlife, Stein believes that he has
reduced existence merely to Dasein's temporal life on earth. Death, for
Stein, is a moment of existence, an existence that she believes is both finite
and infinite. We are caught in the aevum, the in-between, for our souls are
eternal yet our earthly existence is temporal or finite. Death is not an end
for Dasein, for that would imply that Dasein becomes nothing, a
Nichtigkeit that by definition can only be understood in an absolute sense.
Hence, Stein's problem with Heidegger's use of the term "end" is that he
has eternalized Dasein as nothing at the end of temporal existence.
Moreover, Heidegger has excluded the possibility of Dasein 's existence
playing itself out within the drama of both finite and eternal being. He has
absolutized the moment of death in so far as it colors the whole meaning
of life.
Returning to her first question concerning the experience of death as
my own, Stein would agree with Heidegger that we do indeed have an
experience of our own death. Turning back to human experience and
drawing on her experiences as a nurse for the Red Cross during World War
I (where she saw many people die), Stein argues that most of us derive our
own experience of death and dying not so much from thinking about the
278 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
possibility of not being, but from watching and experiencing the death of
others, be they loved ones, acquaintances or strangers. These life-
experiences fonn and condition our views of death. These experiences
im pact on us, and they carry with them grave existential import for our own
existence in the world.
Stein gives a brilliant phenomenological description of death and
dying in that she describes the experience of nursing and caring for a dying
person. Two salient points can be drawn from her description. First, that
one may not speak of death, but of many deaths, each unique and deeply
personal. For example, not all people are angst-ridden or afraid as they
come face to face with death in cases of tenninal illness. Some are very
peaceful and have come to accept death as part of a transfonnation process
toward a higher form of existence. Furthermore, one can speak of different
types of death other than physical death. For example, in her
Kreuzeswissenschafl (Science of the Cross), Stein speaks of various types
of spiritual death where one experiences the desert or dryness of not
hearing God. Second, Stein maintains that at the moment of death and
shortly after when one is confronted with the presence of a corpse, one is
struck not by the nothingness of death, but rather, by the struggle which the
person has gone through. Something has been lost and something remains.
This causes those left behind, especially when a loved one passes away, to
question the very evidence which they see before them, that is, a corpse
formerly engaged in a deep struggle between life and death. What does this
corpse mean or point to? Certainly, for Stein, it is not nothing. It is a
reminder of our finitude. But it also points to something eternal, for this
corpse strikes the mourner as a non-natural state of existence. We have a
natural desire to keep existing.
16
As a matter of fact, our daily lives are
lived in such a manner that we expect to awake the next morning. Death
always comes as a surprise, for we never know the exact minute or second.
For Stein, this desire to keep existing despite death, and the fact that the
death of the other strikes us as a non-natural state of affairs or struggle,
point to another dimension of being, namely, a more eternal state that does
not admit nothingness, but only plenitude.
Do we have an experience of the death of the other? Heidegger says
we do not, for death is our own experience. Stein says that we certainly
cannot experience the same death as the other. This, however, does not
16See ibid., 105.
STEIN AND HEIDEGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 279
imply that we cannot have an experience of the death of the other. A lover
who loses his/her lover may not die the same physical death of the beloved,
but the death transforms the lover. Something is lost, namely, earthly
presence, but something may also be gained, possibly the hope of seeing
one another again in a transformed world of being.
The last question which Stein asks regarding Heidegger's inter-
pretation of death concerns the relationship between the experience of
one's own death and the impossibility of experiencing the death of another.
For Heidegger, it would seem that there is no relationship, for the former
may be experienced by Dasein whereas the latter cannot be experienced.
I would say that for Stein, the relationship between the death(s) of the self
and the other are intimately related. The death of another is still an
experience of death and may transforn1 us; it may even cause us to pull
ourselves out of the mediocrity of das Man into a more authentic being.
Death happens in a community. All communities of peoples have
developed various burial rites in order to help community members mourn
together the loss of a loved one. In the extreme case where one dies alone
or is abandoned, Stein would say that person is not alone, but close to God
in whose image and likeness the person is fashioned. Moreover, in the
usual realm of things, the death of someone affects the lives and existence
ofthose around him/her. One should not be so naIve as to think that death
is an individual event, for its repercussions are felt by the community of the
living. Anyone who has lost a loved one will testify to this fact of human
existence.
To conclude this section on Stein's critique ofHeidegger, I would like
to return to Stein's last question: Is the analysis of being provided by
Heidegger sufficient to serve as a ground for approaching the question of
the sense of being? Essentially, Edith Stein's answer is negative. Echoing
the sentiments of the philosopher Hedwig Conrad-Martius,17 Edith Stein
believes that Heidegger's project attempts to open the doors to and re-
investigate the question of being. She concedes that Heidegger may have
well been on his way to re-opening the question of being and giving it a
cosmological significance, however, he fails in his Entwurf (project)
because he ultimately confines the question of being to Dasein. Being,
understood in a multiplicity of forms ranging from the simple onta to
higher more complex beings, is never fully interrogated. Heidegger
17See ibid., 1 12.
280 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
excludes them from speaking forth. Furthennore, no room is given to the
possible questioning ofthe First Being, God. Heidegger questions, but does
he always listen to the response? Moreover, because Heidegger may not
hear a response when he questions certain types of beings, this does not
necessarily imply that these beings are incapable of responding. Perhaps
Heidegger is incapable of understanding their response because they
respond in ways different from Dasein, for they do not speak like Dasein.
Their being may have meaning in the fact that their appearances
(Erscheinungen) speak forth-an articulation without articulation.
18
Stein concludes her work by asking whether it would not have been
wiser on the part of Heidegger to be more closely in dialogue with the
tradition of metaphysics. She wonders if a treatment of the analogia entis
would have proven more fruitful. She also believes that a more thorough
examination of thinkers like Thomas, Aristotle and other Greek thinkers
may have proven challenging.
19
Heidegger's dismissal of the tradition of
Western metaphysics as analyzing being only in tenns of Vorhandensein
has not done justice to the subtleties and depth of the tradition. Ultimately,
Heidegger has given a sense to the question of being which is much too
auto-referential. Dasein becomes the ultimate and absolute framework
wherein being comes to play itself out. It is interesting to note that Stein
wishes to compare future works of Heidegger to his earlier works. She
undoubtedly recognized that Sein und Zeit was not completed as it was
supposed to have been. Unfortunately, Stein perished before she ever had
the chance to become familiar with the later Heidegger's work.
II.
Though critical of Heidegger, Stein employs what she sees to be of
value in Heidegger along with the insights of other schools of thought in
order to describe her own experience of being. What is this experience
like? Presently, Stein's Werke consist of seventeen volumes, each volume
directly or indirectly addressing the foregoing question. I would like to
mention some key principles characterizing the Steinian sense of being:
18See ibid., 113: "Freilich wird es nicht so anlworten, wie ein Mensch antwortet. Ein
Ding hat kein Seinverstandnis und kann nicht tiber sein Sein reden. Aber es ist und hat einen
Sinn, der sich in seiner auJ3eren Erscheinung und durch sie ausspricht. Und diese
Selbstoffenbarung gehi:irt zum Sinn des dinglichen Seins."
19See ibid., 116.
STEIN AND HEIDEGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 281
Being-kept-in-being as a determining phenomenon for the meaning of our
existence as opposed to anxiety in the face of death as a determining
moment; being as plenitude or abundance; the person in a community of
persons; and the notion of gift as distinguished from the mere Gegebenheit
(es gibt) of things in the world.
Both Heidegger and Stein recognize that the fear and anxiety which
one faces before the possibility of death or nothingness are not constant,
everyday feelings. In fact, this is what makes them unique and possibly
life-altering. Though anxiety and fear may change our existence or the way
we dwell in the world, Stein does not attribute to them the weight
Heidegger does. For Heidegger, both fear and anxiety are determining
moments for Dasein. Stein prefers to give another reading of what
determines the meaning or sense of our existence.
If we reflect on our being, we realize that we are not responsible for
our being in the world. We did not choose to be, it simply happened. In this
sense, we fmd ourselves in the world not knowing exactly whence we came
or why. Yet, if one examines one's being, one exists despite oneself. That
is, our being is not causa sui. Heidegger realized in his analysis that our
being is fleeting in so far as our lives may be seen as a coming closer to
death moment by moment. For Stein, what is vital is that even though my
being is fleeting, nonetheless I continue to exist despite my jlilchtiges Sein
(fleeting being). She affirms, "Ich bin"(I am). Furthermore, what she finds
even more interesting is the fact that "I" continue to exist in my being. "I"

Remarkable in Stein's analysis is the quality of that persisting in being
or that being-kept-in-being. It is experienced not as a rational certainty, but
a deeper, ontological security. She describes it as a child being held in a
strong arm. The child feels secure and comfortable, as it will not be
allowed to fall. Our being is marked by the secure sense that it will
20See EES, 56-7: "Denn derunleugbaren Tatsache, daB mein Sein ein fliichtiges, von
Augenblick zu Augenblick geflistetes und der Moglichkeit des Nichtseins ausgesetztes ist,
entspricht die andere eben so unleugbare Tatsache, daB ich trotz dieser Fliichtigkeit bin und
von Augenblick zu Augenblick im Sein erhalten werde und in meinem fliichtigen Sein ein
dauerndes umfasse. Ich weiB mich gehalten und habe darin Ruhe und Sicherheit-nicht die
selbstgewisse Sicherheit des Mannes, der in eigener Kraft auffestem Boden steht, aber die
siiBe und selige Sicherheit des Kindes, das von einem starken Arm getragen wird-eine,
sachlich betrachtet, nicht weniger verniinftige Sicherheit. Oder ware das Kind 'verniinftig',
das bestiindig in der Angst lebte, die Mutter k6nnte es fallen lassen?"
282 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
continue to persist-death is unnatural, for it does not belong to the
experienced sense of security prevalent in our being. Death is a rupture of
the natural security with which our persisting being is marked. Stein
believes that the feeling of secure persistence in being, combined with the
realization that "I am" despite the fleeting character of being, gives our
being a determining sense, namely, a sense of being as fullness and as
originating from somewhere or from something in that our being is
continually received.
It is not enough for Stein to stop questioning being as Heidegger does
when it comes to the question of our thrownness into the world. For Stein,
the questioning about the origin of our being does not fall onto deaf ears,
for there is a response, but the response is given through the givenness of
all that exists. What exists is given, as is the case with our being in the
world. We are given to ourselves not by ourselves, but by something other.
We are given to ourselves by our parents, and more fundamentally, we are
given to ourselves by God. We are gifts of God. The fact that there is
something as opposed to nothing speaks profoundly to Edith Stein. The
existence of the ego is received and is constantly being received, for the
ego itself cannot generate or control its existence. It cannot even control the
fact that despite its very existence, its being is fleeting away moment by
moment. We do not create being, we find ourselves endowed with it. What
Stein experiences is not merely the Gegebenheiten (givens) of the
phenomenologist, but the plenitudo omnitudinis (Fulle or fullness) of
creation. Our being is marked by a profound sense of creatureliness. Stein
maintains that we are gepragt (stamped) with God's image and likeness.
Stein calls the es gibt of Heidegger a "naive realism" because Heidegger
does not develop to any great length the fact that the es gibt is conditioned
and informed by ourselves, the world, and God. Moreover, Heidegger
forgets that he himself conditions and forms the very world he finds
himself in. It is not a matter of finding ourselves in the world, but a matter
of creating and re-interpreting the world.21
What is unique about our creatureliness is the freedom with which we
have been endowed to auto-determine ourselves both in relation to
ourselves and each other. Though we may not have had the initial choice
to exist or not exist, we do have the free choice to accept or reject the very
2lSee Edith Stein, Die weltanschauliche Bedeutung der Phanomenologie, in Welt und
Person (see note 1), 15. Herafter referred to as DWB.
STEIN AND HEIDEGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 283
being with which we have been endowed. We can do with our being as we
please. We are free to give it a certain shape or fonn in the world. In this
sense, fmite or detenninate beings have been endowed with a quasi -eternal
freedom in that we can even choose to reject the ultimate source of eternal
freedom and being, namely, God. Also unique about the existence of the
human person is precisely his/her personhood. Each person is unique, an
Ich. Moreover, this unique individual is not conceived as a salus ipse like
Heidegger's Dasein (despite his claim of the importance of Mitsein). Each
person, besides having his/her own proprium, is also a Mehrheit von
Personen. This literally means that each person is not a closed, idio-psychic
individual, but a multiplicity or community of persons. This community of
persons consists not only of the person proper but also includes other
people such as parents, family relations, friends, anonymous people, and
of course, the three divine Persons. The person is a Trager (bearer) of
himself but also of all those people who have helped fonn the individual
and continue to do so. The person does not evolve in and out of a vacuum,
but rather within and through a complex network of relations and events,
each brought to fulfillment in and by other people. In other words, the other
is constitutive of the self, and vice versa. One cannot have a self without
others, for we literally need others in order to come into being and develop
as persons. Likewise, other people need us in order to grow and develop.
This multiplicity of persons contained within the ontic structure of the
person is not to be understood in the Aristotelian sense wherein the human
being is defined as a political animal. Rather, Stein wishes her readers to
understand that on a fundamental, ontological level we are constituted as
a continual coincidence of uniqueness and community. Our being is
constituted in such a way that we are fundamentally related in so far as the
very fullness of our person implies the fullness of the other-one cannot
fully be without the other. Hence, the state must organize itself in order to
allow this fundamental coincidence of uniqueness and plurality to unfold.
Its structures, all extensions of the human person, must be designed to
accommodate this fundamental, ontological reality.22 For Stein, there is no
such thing as das Man. One can flee one's responsibility or one can live up
to what one is responsible for in one's proper existence. One always
22See Edith Stein's Individuum und Gemeinscha{t and Ober den Staat (see notes 10
and 11).
284 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
remains a person, yet one's ethical or moral comportment in terms of
Verantwortlichkeit (responsibility) may be less than desirable.
The source of fmite or determined being (determined qua personhood)
is eternal Being, namely, God. Finite being simply means that each created
being has limits in that it is created in a particular form. In other words, it
cannot but be human, for its being is defined or delimited in time and space
as human. God's being is eternal, for God is without determination. God's
being and essence are identical. God is the fullness or FiJ}[e of being. Our
beings share in this fullness in so far as they were created by God to
participate in this very fullness. The very fullness that we experience is a
concrete sign of God giving us this being as a gift. The gift of the person's
being is particularly unique in that God made it in God's own image and
likeness. We are free to accept or reject this gift. There are no limits as to
what we can do with this gift of being. We can even destroy it if we choose.
Fallibility marks the being of the human person.
Stein believes that there is a fallenness that impedes the person's full
living out of hislher existence in the world. Fallenness also has a
deleterious effect on our relations with other human persons, the
community of persons with whom we live. For Stein, however, the
fallenness is not a falling away from self in terms of inauthentic being.
Rather, the fallenness consists in falling away from the very source of our
creatureliness. We are fallible because we have turned and continue to tum
away from the source of love, namely, God. Each person is a God-seeker,
and to tum away from God is to fall into a less than perfect existence. As
persons, we are fundamentally related to the divine Persons. Our being only
becomes full when we remain in relation with the triune God. Fallenness
or sin cuts us from the source of our own perfection. For Stein, our
fallenness is to be understood in theological and historical terms. She
believes our fallenness is due to original sin, which is to be understood as
a concrete historical event. Our fall from grace is not a myth. Heidegger,
according to Stein, argues that we are fallen, but he never analyzes this
fallenness to the fullest degree. For, ifhe did, he would have to ask himself
more fundamental questions: Whence did we fall? What is the nature of
evil? Why did we fall? For Stein, these questions are intimately linked with
and inevitably point to the source of our created personhood, namely, God.
We come now to a fundamental question: How did Heidegger
ultimately influence Stein? I would qualify the influence of Heidegger as
negative. Stein saw in Heidegger a great thinker who indeed opened the
door to the question of being. His approach, however, was much too
STEIN AND HEIDEGGER ON THE QUESTION OF BEING 285
solipsistic, nihilistic and pessimistic. Heidegger viewed being in much too
dark a fashion. We know that the later Heidegger gives a more ecstatic
interpretation of being; Stein however, never knew the texts of the later
Heidegger. She employs Heidegger's thought as a tool of inquiry. She
dialogues with Heidegger's phenomenology of being. Meditating on
similar experiences such as death, fallenness, thrownness and das Man,
Edith Stein draws quite different conclusions about the Sinn des Seins (the
meaning of being), for the meaning of being is viewed as an experience of
fullness concretized in radically personal and communitarian terms.
The sense of being which Stein develops throughout her writings, and
particularly in Endliches und Ewiges Sein, is one rooted in love and hope.
Love in so far as our created beings were brought into existence by afiat
of love issued by God. Hope, in that we are not alone in our existence. We
are profoundly marked by the sense of the community of creatures and the
community who is the triune God. One may criticize Edith Stein's
metaphysics as being more of a work in theology than philosophy, for she
develops much of her thinking on the basis of Christian Revelation. I
believe Stein would counter this charge on two fronts. As a
phenomenologist, faith and the revelations contained therein fall under the
phenomenological microscope. They are not to be excluded, for they are
phenomena constitutive of experience. Stein is not a fideist who blindly
believes that experiences of faith somehow transcend the capacities of
human reason. On the contrary, experiences of faith are real and have had
a profound impact on the way she lived her life both in relation to herself
and to the community in general. Second, as one who appreciates the
originality ofthe medievals, Stein argues that faith falls under the umbrella
of knowing. It is a certain kind of knowing undertaken with different skills
and senses. This type of knowledge yields valid insights and is not to be
glibly dismissed. Ultimately, what Stein leaves to her readers is the
assurance that our personal beings are conditioned and marked by both
finitude and eternity. As personal beings we share in both the individual
and communal lives of the three divine Persons-a maximum Fi1lle or
abundance of being. Ultimately, Stein will employ the works of Husserl,
Thomas and other Christian philosophers to ground the validity of her
insights, thereby rendering Endliches und Ewiges Sein true to its project of
synthesis.
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario