Phenomenology of Love in Stein’s Early Work

What is it about?

Stein’s development as a philosopher is encapsulated in the development of her understanding of love. In her early phenomenology the investigation of what motivates preference issues on the one hand in surreptitious portraits of her own experiences of and experimentation with love, and on the other hand in a gradual differentiation of value response from surrender or commitment to another person. The experimentation seems to consist in an assessment of the sustainability of the surrender, revealing itself to be dependent on the fidelity of the person to whom surrender occurs. Surrendering to God, the person takes in the Spirit surrendered to, and by its power is equipped to know and serve. From this endpoint God’s Holy Spirit is envisaged as the Person of Love in whom the human being’s vocation is contained: Through grace, fullness is experienced and fulfilment of experience occurs.

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Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash

Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash