She writes...

She writes: The conscious life of the ego depends thus by virtue of its contents on a twofold beyond [transcendence in Husserl’s sense of the term], an external and internal world both of which manifest themselves in the conscious life of the ego, i.e. in that ontological realm which is inseparable from the ego [immanence in Husserl’s sense of the term]. (FEB, p. 54) Edith Stein, however, in her Finite and Eternal Being mingles Heideggerian with Husserlian descriptions of our subjective life.

Thus, besides talking of the ego, she invokes the Heideggerian notion of the ‘thrownness’ of existence (FEB, p. 54), which she interprets as meaning that humans do not know the ‘whence’ of their existence. Stein maintains that the starting point of inquiry is the ‘fact of our own being’ which, and here she quotes St. Augustine’s De Trinitate Book Ten, is given to us as certain (FEB, p. 35).

Husserl following Descartes asks for an abstention of judgement concerning everything human and relating to the natural world to get at what remains over namely ‘the area of consciousness understood as the life of the ego’ (FEB, p. 36). My self-certainty is the most immediate and primordial knowledge I have; it is an unreflected knowledge prior to all reflection. This being I am conscious of (myself) is inseparable from temporality (FEB, p. 37).

This very temporality of my being gives me the idea of eternal being. This is Stein’s way of moving beyond Husserl and Heidegger. Later in the book she writes much more extensively about the ‘ego-life’ ( Ichleben ) and its relation to the soul. At one point she says: Ego-life is a reckoning and coming to terms of the soul with something that is not the soul’s own self, namely the created world and ultimately God. (FEB, p. 434).

There is a constant self-transcendence going on in the soul and its ‘ego-life’ (FEB, p. 425). This ego is characterised by a ‘being-there-for-itself’ ( Für-sich-selbst-dasein , FEB, p. 430): The primordial undivided ego-life already implies a cognitive transcending of the sphere of the pure ego. I experience my vital impulses and activities as arising from a more or less profound depth.

The dark ground from which all human spiritual life arises - the soul - attains in the ego life to the bright daylight of consciousness (without however becoming transparent).