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Fəlsəfə və sosial-siyasi elmlər – 2013, № 1
 
 
 
 
140
on anthropology, considering the attempts to ‘naturalise’ the personality and 
the risk of reductionism in the approach to the human person, now held to 
be the result of pure psychic, biological and environmental determinism. 
Stein's contribution shows that the characteristics of the immutable and 
intangible ‘ultima solitudo’ and “personal nucleus”, which place personal 
individuality beyond any material and formal element, mean that we cannot 
reduce the specific aspect of each person to whatsoever worldly, 
sociological or scientific category. 
The intangibility of the person emerges from the delicacy and 
sensitivity – typically female characteristics – with which Stein approaches 
the concept of ‘singularity’: «For Stein, being a person means feeling 
oneself to be surrounded by an incommensurable depth in an ultima 
solitudo, qualitative elements that cannot be treated on the same level as 
universal invariants that are susceptible to some kind of formalisation»
1
. 
Particularly beautiful and evocative are the pages where she speaks of the 
“spiritual perception by feeling (das Fühlen)”, understood as “the mood 
[Stimmung]” and “my present inner state of mind [Verfassung]”, via which 
the individual, as if by some “inner force”, «frees itself from any exterior 
conditioning of simple living and raises itself up in the interior singularity of 
its being, within which it moves freely»
2
. This “interiority” constitutes the 
characteristic element by means of which the individual can «grasp with its 
inner vision its full “being itself”. At the same time, it cleaves to its 
singularity, distinguishing its own quality of being from those of other 
                                                                                                                            
that Stein did not have any specific training in medieval philosophy. It has consequences 
however in terms of her assessment of the medieval authors themselves. Indeed, when Stein 
grasps and internalises the concept of ‘ultima solitudo’, which in Scotus refers to the 
person, as the expression of the singularity of the human being, she compares it with 
Aquinas’ treatment of the foundation of the individual, highlighting its limits but not taking 
account of Aquinas' reflection on the irreducibility (incommunicabilitas) of the person in 
relation to the ‘act of being’. In reality, Aquinas himself had recognised the inadequacy of 
‘materia signata quantitate’ and identified the foundation of the ‘person’ in God’s direct 
creative act (participation in the actus essendi). See Summa Theologiae I, 30, 4, ob 2. The 
argument is explored further by G. B
ASTI
,  Filosofia dell’uomo, Edizioni Studio 
Domenicano, Bologna 1995, pp. 338-340. 
1
 Ibid., p. 225. 
2
 Ibid., p. 201. 

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individuals outside itself»
1
. In this inner vision it perceives that its “being 
itself” derives from an “ultimate source”, in which it lives “anchored to 
itself and in complete aloneness”. The more the individual lives in 
profundity, the more its «essential and irreducible nucleus that represents 
the foundation of any actualisation» manifests itself
2
. 
 
3. “Die Rezeption Edith Steins”: the first international 
bibliography 
 
Interest in the person and the thought of Edith Stein has resulted in a 
substantial body of publications. In terms of content, they form a 
heterogeneous and variegated literature, comprising both scientific and 
popular works. A fundamental research tool that has recently been made 
available to scholars is the first international bibliography – Die Rezeption 
Edith Steins – drawn up by Father Francesco Alfieri
3
. The fruit of eight 
years of thorough and painstaking study, it lists 2855 publications and is 
currently being updated in view of a new edition, which will also include an 
index of authors that will facilitate its use
4
. It was originally published in the 
form of a special issue of the Edith-Stein-Jahrbuch, on the occasion of the 
seventieth anniversary of Stein's death, at the invitation of the Jahrbuch's 
editor, P. Ulrich Dobham. The aim was to produce a Festgabe  for the 
ninetieth birthday of the Carmelite nun Maria Amata Neyer, who worked so 
hard to set up the Edith Stein Archive in Cologne
5
. Sister Neyer’s 
                                                 
1
 Ibid. 
2
 Ibid., p. 202. 
3
 F.  A
LFIERI
,  Die  Rezeption Edith Steins.  Internationale Edith-Stein-Bibliographie 
(1942-2012). Festgabe für M. Amata Neyer OCD, Sondernummer des Edith Stein 
Jahrbuches, Vorwort von U. Dobhan OCD, Geleitwort von H.-B. Gerl-Falkovitz – A. Ales 
Bello, Einführung von F. Alfieri OFM, Echter Verlag GmbH, Würzburg 2012, pp. 516. 
4
 The second edition is already in print. Updated with more than 8000 titles, a thematic 
index and an index of names, the very nature of the enterprise means it will always be 
‘incomplete’ and subject to periodic revision. I am grateful to the author for kindly 
providing me with this information in advance. 
5
 The work was presented for the first time on the 22
nd
 of April 2012 in the church of 
the Carmelite convent of Cologne, which Stein entered as a postulant on the 14
th
 of October 
1933, remaining there until December 1938. The publication had a broad impact among 

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