Description
Book SynopsisThere are few topics more central to philosophical discussions than the meaning of being, and few thinkers offering a more compelling and original vision of that meaning than Edith Stein (1891–1942). Stein’s magnum opus, drawing from her decades working with the early phenomenologists and intense years as a student and translator of medieval texts, lays out a grand vision, bringing together phenomenological and Scholastic insights into an integrated whole. The sheer scope of Stein’s project in Finite and Eternal Being is daunting, and the text can be challenging to navigate. In this book, Sarah Borden Sharkey provides a guide to Stein’s great final philosophical work and intellectual vision. The opening essays give an overview of Stein’s method and argument and place Finite and Eternal Being both within its historical context and in relation to contemporary discussions. The author also provides clear, detailed summaries of each section of Stein’s opus, drawing from the latest scholarship on Stein’s manuscript. Edith Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being: A Companion offers a unique guide, opening up Stein’s grand cathedral-like vision of the meaning of being as the unfolding of meaning.
Table of ContentsPart One: Contextual Essays
Essay I: The Structure, Method, and Argumentation of Finite and Eternal Being
Essay II: Sources and Context for Finite and Eternal Being
Essay III: The Significance of Finite and Eternal Being
Part Two: Synopsis of Finite and Eternal Being
Foreword
Chapter One: Introduction: The Question of Being
Chapter Two: Act and Potency as Ways-of-Being
Chapter Three: Essential and Actual Being
Chapter Four: Essence – essentia, οὐσία – Substance, Form, and Matter
Chapter Five: Be-ing as Such (Transcendentals)
Chapter Six: The Meaning of Being
Chapter Seven: The Image of the Trinity in Creation
Chapter Eight: The Meaning and Foundation of Individual-Being
Appendix I: Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy of Existence
Appendix II: Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle
Glossary
