Der Geist des Menschen und die originäre Erfahrung der Zerbrechlichkeit

This anthology is devoted to a topic that is highly relevant in an era of global crises and the increasing fragility of individual and collective ways of life. It aims to understand the human experience of fragility—understood as a fundamental exposure of human beings to nothingness and thus to their own mortality—not merely as a deficit, but, following Edith Stein, as a fundamental condition of (earthly) human existence that can make us more open and receptive to the dimension of the transcendent. At the centre of this study is the work of the philosopher, Christian nun, and Jewish-Christian martyr Edith Stein. Her thought serves as the architectural centre from which this anthology has sought to initiate an interdisciplinary dialogue with medical anthropology (particularly that of Viktor von Weizsäcker) and existential psychology (Karl Jaspers, Viktor Frankl).