Explores Edith Stein’s phenomenology of values as found in her early work—specifically her Contributions to a Philosophical Foundation for Psychology and the Humanities (1922).
Mette Lebech makes a constructive exposition of Stein’s phenomenology of values by discussing the experience of value and motivation (Part I), that which is constituted in value-response (Part II), and how certain later approximations of value-phenomenology can be completed by means of it (Part III). Stein’s synthesis of Husserl’s project of founding the sciences with Scheler’s phenomenological discussion of values, emotion, and sociality carries Stein’s specific contributions. These are 1) the distinction between psychic causality and motivation, which allows for a clear interpretation of how emotion relates to values (Part I) and 2) the understanding of how the experience of value and preference leads us to constitute the personal “I,” the basis for the value hierarchy, the psyche, the structure of intersubjectivity (with its three modalities, mass, association and community), the world, and the real world (Part II). Finally, a Steinian discussion of the vestiges of value phenomenology found in Heidegger, Levinas, and de Beauvoir contextualises the investigation (Part III).
By:
Mette Lebech
Imprint: Rowman & Littlefield
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781666939743
ISBN 10: 1666939749
Series: Edith Stein Studies
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 05 February 2026
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction a. The Genealogy of the Problem b. Factors Concealing Values from View to Phenomenology c. Husserl and Scheler d. The Parts of this Work 1. Formulation of the Problem and Methodological Approach a. Methodology b. Detailed Overview of this Work c. Quoting from Stein’s and other Phenomenologists’ Works Part I: The Experience of Value and Motivation 2. What is a Value? a. The Oneness of a Value b. The Intersubjective Objectivity of Values c. Unity and Objectivity d. Objectivity and Intelligibility e. The Kind of Being of Values f. Positive and Negative Values g. The Value Hierarchy h. Gaining Experience with Values i. Identifiability and the Limits of Mental Power 3. The Experience of Motivation a. Motivation Differentiated According to Subject (Others’, Shared, or My Own Motivation) b. Motivation Differentiated According to Whether it is Issuing in Emotion or Action c. Motivation For Me and In Itself d. The Difference Between Motivation and Causation e. Different Levels of Awareness of Motivation (Mimicry, Imitation, Communication) f. Motivation Disguised as ‘Counter-Intentional’, Erotic, Latent (‘Unconscious’), or Resentful Part II: That Which I Constitute in the Experience of Value and Motivation 4. That Which I Constitute in the Experience of Motivation According to its Essence a. The Personal I b. Motivatedness c. The Need for Preference d. Life and Meaning e. Preference and Valuation f. Re-Valuation g. The A Priori Structure of the (Finite) Acting Person 5. That Which I Constitute in the Concrete Experience of Preferred Motivation According to its Essence a. Expression, Emotion, and Psyche b. We c. Support for the We Through Sentient Contagion d. Strategic Preferences to Maintain the We e. Intersubjective ‘Consequences’ of my Preferences f. The A Priori Structure of the We 6. Belief According to its Essence a. Belief and Experience b. Belief and Knowledge c. Belief and Trust d. Belief and Faith e. Belief as Such f. The Credible g. The Preferability of Belief as Such h. The Preference of Belief 7. Concerning That Which I Constitute in the Preference of Belief a. That Which I Constitute in Belief According to its Essence: The A Priori Structure of the World b. That Which I Constitute in Preferred Belief: The A Priori Structure of the Real World c. The Generally Believed d. The Traditionally Transmitted Ethos e. Virtues Believed to be Good f. Religion g. The Pluralist State Part III: Contextualisation of Steinian Value Phenomenology in Terms of Later Phenomenologists 8. The Turning Away from Empathy, Values and the Person in Heidegger a. The Rejection of Empathy and the Restriction of Intersubjectivity in Heidegger b. The Hiding of the Person in the ‘There’ c. The Public Sphere without Values d. The Reduction of Meaning to Dasein 9. The Evasion of Motivation and of the Person in Levinas a. Levinas’ Use for Values in The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology and On Escape b. Transcendence and Motivation in Time and the Other c. Why Levinas does not Explore Access to Motivation and Motivation Powers Through the Act of Empathy 10. De Beauvoir and the Quest for Being an Other Person a. Project, Situation, and Inspiration from Stein through Merleau-Ponty b. Discernment of Essence c. Doing Battle with Sentient Contagion Conclusion Bibliography Index About the Author
Mette Lebech is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Maynooth University, Ireland.
