Individu et communauté à partir d'une lecture d'Edith Stein

Abstract

The present thesis aims at answering the following questions: how can we understand the possibility for an individual (self) to commit himself unconditionally to his community without ruining his self-knowledge and own identity? How can an individual leave his egoism and solipsism through interpersonal relationship or intersubjectivity? The Steinian thought about individual lets us perceive that individual has a double nature regarding his psyche: “It is, on the one hand, a monad closed to himself, and on the other hand, a correlate of the world, an open eye to all which is called object” . So, as a monad, the individual should get and save his own particularity, understood as his personality, in obedience to the two laws of his interior world: the law of causality and the law of motivation. And as a correlate of the exterior world, the individual is called to open himself by leading a life for others and for his community (family, group of friends, religious community, political community…), so that he could get out of egoism and solipsism. With respect to the Steinian thought about community, this one is also considered as a subject that comes out, lives, acts, feels… through the individual as a member. One form of community that Edith Stein studied is the state community. It is for that reason that her politico-philosophical thought can enter in dialogue with liberalism and communitarism. In contrast to contemporary liberals including John Rawls as figurehead, communitarians such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer and Charles Taylors defend community as an ideal of normativity. In this sense, both philosophical doctrines, considered as means of socio-political integration of the individual, seem to oppose individual and community in the political sphere. However, Edith Stein’s political thought, which I called “Steinian Philosophical Tercerism”, consists of conciliating individual and community for the purpose of giving the individual a double opportunity: 1) getting out of his egoism and solipsism by his unconditional commitment to his community. 2) Saving his own identity or personality in opposition to the tendency of community to impose itself on the individual.