Angela Ales Bello
Pages 90-108
DOI: 10.5840/cultura2007427
ABSTRACT
In the study of the soul between psychology and phenomenology in Edith Stein works it becomes clearer that it is only phenomenology that really comes to grips with the question of psychic causality by correlating the two moments and it is therefore only phenomenology that can respond to Hume’s objections while yet remaining on his selfsame terrain. It is very important to distinguish between psychology and phenomenology and also to clarify the relationship between psyche and consciousness; there is thus reproposed the distinction already made by Husserl, who stressed that when one sets out to look for the causes that determine psychic life, they must not be sought in life feelings (Lebensgefühle) but rather in the „modes” of a life force (Lebenskraft) that is announced in them. All this is indicated here within limits because psychology in itself is undoubtedly not a science of the spirit, though the psychic states, on the other hand, will not be validly understood unless and until one arrives, as is demonstrated in the essay under consideration, at the motivation and therefore the spiritual sphere. We would say that our body is animated by a psyche and further enlivened by the spirit.