Concluding Postscript

Abstract

Reflection on and synthesis of the many facets of Edith Stein’s philosophy lead to general conclusions in regard to the value of her phenomenology in investigating significant questions of human life and learning. The cultural pervasiveness of phenomenology is revealed in the ways in which her philosophical studies are related to psychology, ethics, the arts, religion, the social sciences and education. As she exemplifies it, phenomenology encourages a never-ending pursuit of serious and open-ended questions. Stein shared Husserl’s dream of philosophy as rigorous science (strenge Wissenschaft) but only to a point. She is more restrained in recognizing and accepting the limitations of certitude about answers to many questions, although relativism is foreign to the whole tenor of her thought.¹