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Fəlsəfə və sosial-siyasi elmlər – 2013, № 1
 
 
 
 
124
Husserl (1859-1938) at the University of Göttingen. After reading the 
second volume of the Logische Untersuchungen, she decided to take up the 
option to spend a term in another university and moved to Göttingen so she 
could attend Husserl’s lessons in person
1
. When in 1916 Husserl was given 
a chair at the University of Freiburg, Edith Stein followed him as an 
assistant; her duties consisted of organising the professor’s numerous 
manuscripts and giving preparatory courses in phenomenology for students. 
In that year she presented her doctoral thesis on empathy, which was 
approved with honours. 
Meeting Max Scheler, who had converted from Judaism to 
Catholicism, the time spent with Adolf Reinach and his wife, and her 
friendship with Hedwig Conrad-Martius all brought her into contact with 
the field of religious experience, which she had neglected during her 
adolescence. The conversion of Reinach and his wife Anna in particular had 
a profound impact on her, especially when, after Reinach’s death at the 
front, she was able to observe how faith helped the young widow to accept 
the grief for the loss of her husband
2
. 
Decisive for her life's trajectory was her reading of the biography of 
Teresa of Ávila while staying at the house of her friend Hedwig Conrad-
Martius in the summer of 1921. ‘This is the Truth’ she declared after 
reading it. From that moment she immersed herself in the study of 
Catholicism, receiving her Baptism and First Communion on New Year's 
Day 1922. In 1925 she met the Jesuit E. Przywara, who introduced her to 
the study of H. Newman and the thought of Thomas Aquinas, from whom 
she learned to place intellectual research at the service of God. No longer 
feeling at ease in Freiburg, she accepted a position at St. Magdalena’s high 
                                                 
1
 Her reading of the volume impressed Husserl, who described Stein as ‘courageous’. 
Immediately struck by her intellectual vitality, he unhesitatingly welcomed her into the 
Phenomenological Circle of Göttingen. 
2
 Adolf Reinach, disciple and assistant of Husserl, died at the front during the first world 
war. Stein paid a visit to his wife Anna, who had invited her to put her husband’s 
manuscripts in order. Expecting to find a person destroyed by grief, when she saw the 
serenity with which the widow accepted the death of her husband, she understood how 
powerful religious faith can be. 

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school in Speyer, run by the Dominican sisters, as a teacher of German 
language and literature. In this period she intensified her research and 
participation in various initiatives. In addition to her philosophical research, 
highly significant were the conferences held in those years on the role and 
vocation of women, as well as her further explorations of social, 
pedagogical and moral themes
1
. She wanted to become a nun herself, but 
was advised not to by her spiritual director. When in 1933 the National 
Socialist government banned non-Aryans from public office, she was forced 
to abandon her post as a lecturer in Münster. On the 14
th
 of October 1933, at 
the age of 42, she entered the Carmelite Convent in Cologne as a novice, 
taking the name of Teresia Benedicta a Cruce and thus fulfilling the wish 
she had held ever since her conversion
2
. 
For Edith Stein, conversion to the Christian faith did not constitute an 
obstacle to her intellectual commitments, but a broadening of her horizons, 
since it was a path towards the truth. However, faith is not just an 
                                                 
1
 The long essay of 1922, published as Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der 
Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften, in Jahrbuch für Philosophie und 
phänomenologische Forschung 5 (1922), pp. 1-283 [subsequently published in the ESW 2 
collection, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1970; English translation Philosophy of 
Psychology and the Humanities  (The Collected Works of Edith Stein, VII), by M. C. 
Baseheart – M. Sawicki, M. Sawicki (eds.), Preface by S. Payne, ICS Publications, 
Washington (DC) 2000] should be seen in a context of lively discussions on the meaning of 
psychology as science, discussions in which Husserl himself had participated since his own 
student days under the influence of his two teachers, Franz Brentano and Wilhelm Wundt 
(see A. A
LES 
B
ELLO
,  Edith Stein. La passione per la verità, pp. 47-55). The relationship 
between individual and community is also explored in Eine Untersuchung über den Staat 
[in Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 7 (1925), pp. 1-123]. The 
condition of women is the topic of a series of essays written in 1932, gathered in the 
volume  Die Frau. Fragestellung und Reflexionen, Einleitung von S. Binggeli, Bearbeitet 
von M. A. Neyer, ESGA 13, Herder, Freiburg-Basel-Wien 2005
3
; English translation Essay 
on Woman  (The Collected Works of Edith Stein, II), translated by F. M. Oben, ICS 
Publications, Washington (DC) 1996
2
. All of these writings clearly show the influence of 
the phenomenological method, via which she investigates the links between individual and 
society as well as the importance of the community, the expression of human aggregation 
that precedes society and the state (see A. A
LES 
B
ELLO
,  Edith Stein.  La passione per la 
verità, pp. 15-19). 
2
 She remained in Cologne until the 31
st
 of December 1938, when, in order to escape 
from the anti-Jewish measures enacted by the Nazis, she was transferred to a convent in 
Echt in Holland, where she was detained by the police on the 2
nd
 of August 1942. 

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