ABSTRACT
In her Introduction to Philosophy, Edith Stein claims that “feeling is a multiply differentiated form of consciousness” (Stein 2004, 13, own transl.). Undoubtedly, her understanding of the emotions may be viewed as a particular form of feeling, but precisely what kinds of feelings are they? I argue here that, phenomenologically speaking, emotion, for Stein, must be understood as a capacity for an affective, expressive conscious experience that concomitantly operates within the domains of the lived body, the psyche, and the spirit. Emotion coexists not only as a sign of some underlying corporeal or psychic affective reality but also as a web or expression of meaning or coherence of sense (Sinn) that makes manifest the unity of body, psyche, and spirit, what Stein calls the person. Emotions, then, can be understood to permeate and draw upon different, complex aspects of our personhood, including gender. They express the senses of different aspects of our person and they help us acquire self-knowledge and knowledge of others and the world.
