Beyond Empathy; Love. Person and Otherness in the Thought of Edith Stein
Religions September 15, 2024 Magdalene Thomassen 1 citation
The article examines why Edith Stein, after her early doctoral work on empathy, stopped using the term in her later philosophy. It argues that the concept of 'empathy' became too narrow for what Stein wanted to describe. Following her conversion to Christianity, Stein expanded her understanding of personhood and social relations, integrating them with the experience of a loving God. The author shows how Stein's early ideas on empathy, otherness, and personhood reach their full development in her later writings, where the encounter with otherness and the unfolding of the person are inseparable from divine love.