The ineffability of the person: the problem of individuation in the philosophical anthropology of Edith Stein

Abstract

The purpose of my work is to outline the basis of one anthropology of silence in the work of Edith Stein based on the following preliminary inquiries. In distinction XXIII of his Ordinatio I, Duns Scotus takes up the following definition of the person given by Ricardo de San Víctor in his De Trinitate: «The incommunicable existence of intellectual nature». Duns Escoto's study in this regard will point out that a singular entity (haecceitas) is a condition of possibility of the person, but not the person himself because he is incommunicable since we do not find him within the ontic order. That is to say, the individuality of the person presents a uniqueness of qualitative order that cannot be expressed by any science. Of this opinion is Mariano Crespo who, however, shows us the way to understand what this personal individuality consists of in Being Finite and Being Eternal insofar as: «... I, through my free activity, decide on this or that possibility of acting, I conform to myself, I build myself as the individual person that I am.»