Spirit, soul and body. Edith Stein’s integral anthropology

The aim of the article to outline integral (non-reductive) anthropology by the philosopher and theologian Edith Stein, also known as the canonized saint of the Catholic Church St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, proclaimed one of six co-patron saints of Europe. The center of Edith Stein’s anthropology is the person, whom she analysed through all of her work. She developed an original form of philosophical anthropology based on phenomenology (especially under the influence of Max Scheler) which includes three levels of spirit, soul and body in the human structure. She tried to establish the place of psychology and the humanities in relations to philosophical anthropology in order to avoid reductionism (psychologism). Furthermore, she strived to integrate the Thomistic view of the person with the phenomenological vision, also in her own view of „realistic phenomenology”. Stein studied theological anthropology based on Christian Revelation, which helped with the development of Christian philosophy. In the last period of her life, she dealt with mystical anthropology of Saint John of the Cross, which she called the Science of the Cross, treating it as crowning of her cognitive and spiritual studies.