Experience and society: Some contributions of Edith Stein to the analysis of social life

Abstract

Throughout this article we are going to argue that some themes developed by Edith Stein from her philosophy can contribute and contribute to the understanding of our world, that is, aspects of the Steinian philosophy that can help us to understand our social reality. And the fact is that, as she herself shows throughout her work, the human person (which seems central to us) is a social being and when we imagine him outside his links with other people, we fall into a fiction. Therefore, in order to understand important aspects of the person, such as his professional development or the place he occupies in a community or society, we must see and attend to the links he has with others. This proves that Stein maintained from the beginning an idea of subjectivity that can only be understood in the horizon of intersubjectivity. For this reason, in the first section of this paper we explore some ideas concerning the knowledge of the other, which is possible thanks to empathy; in the second section we review the communities of belonging in which the person develops and discovers himself.  In the third section we see that this social life is of utmost value in describing and understanding the formation and education of the person, since every process of formation takes place within a group that enables or hinders the development of character. Finally, we indicate some ideas about society and religion, since in this area of social relations, the relationship or religion with God, a Person in the full sense of the word, occupies a special place.