Edith Stein’s An Investigation Concerning the State: Sociality, Nationhood, Ethics

This book explores Edith Stein's phenomenology of the state. It features chapters on the application of Stein’s political philosophy to real issues and questions affecting nations today. The contributors also situate Stein’s political theory within her larger philosophical corpus.

The collection examines An Investigation Concerning the State from various angles. Scholars first consider some of the direct claims Stein makes about social and political ontology. They mine her work for its implications for and applications to contemporary debates. Then, the contributors position her work in relation to other figures in phenomenology, including Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler. Finally, Stein’s views are brought to bear on other disciplines, including feminism, theology, and literature.  The contributors also use her theory of the state to address various contemporary issues, including bioethics and rights, globalization, as well as social and political inequality.

The view of the state that emerges has implications for how we do politics and make ethical decisions. Moreover, Stein's work has an impact on our views of sociality (as opposed to the sociality of contractarian views of the state), pedagogy, women, theories of justice and law, as well as social psychology and religion. This volume helps readers better understand this vital voice in political philosophy and appeals to students, professors, and researchers working in the field.  

EVA REYES-GACITÚA, Dr. in Dogmatic Theology for the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with the thesis “El Espíritu Santo, origen de la esponsalidad: En la Expositio super Cantica canticorum de Guillermo de Saint-Thierry.”  She was the first Chilean woman to receive her doctorate degree at the School of Theology of PUC. She also holds a major in Education and is a Religion Teacher.  Currently, she works as a professor and researcher at the Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta Chile, where she is the Director of the UCN Journal “Cuadernos de Teología” and is in charge of teaching affairs. She has written several publications. She is a member of the Chilean Theology Society; member and secretary of the International Association of Patristic Studies; member and secretary of ALALITE  (Latin American Society of Literature and Theology); and member of the Edith Stein Interdisciplinary Research Center, PUC, Chile.

Antonio Calcagno is Professor of Philosophy at King’s University College at Western University, London, Canada. In 2015 he became a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of Giordano Bruno and the Logic of Coincidence (1998), Badiou and Derrida: Politics, Events and Their Time (2007), The Philosophy of Edith Stein (2007), Lived Experience from the Inside Out: Social and Political Philosophy in Edith Stein (2014). He is also the editor of Gerda Walther's Phenomenology of Sociality, Psychology, and Religion (2018).