Edith Stein

Renowned philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre presents a fascinating account of Edith Stein's formative development as a philosopher. To accomplish this, he offers a concise survey of her context: German philosophy in the first decades of the twentieth century. His treatment of Stein demonstrates how philosophy can form a person and not simply be an academic formulation in the abstract. MacIntyre probes the phenomenon of conversion in Stein as well as contemporaries Franz Rosenzweig and Georg Lukacs. His clear and concise account of Stein's formation in the context of her mentors and colleagues reveals the crucial questions and insights that her writings offer to those who study Husserl, Heidegger, or the Thomism of the 1920s and 1930s. Written with a clarity that reaches beyond an academic audience, this book will reward careful study by anyone interested in Edith Stein as thinker, pioneer, and saint.

About the Author:
Alasdair MacIntyre is senior research professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana

Edith Stein lived an unconventional life. Born into a devout Jewish family, she drifted into atheism in her mid teens, took up the study of philosophy, studied with Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, became a pioneer in the women's movement in Germany, a military nurse in World War I, converted from atheism to Catholic Christianity, became a Carmelite nun, was murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, and canonized by Pope John Paul II.

Alasdair MacIntyre is senior research professor of philosophy at University of Notre Dame, IN. He is the author of nine books, including the influential After Virtue, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, and A Short History of Ethics.