Gschwandtner, C. (2023). Metaphysical Conversations and Phenomenological Essays. De Gruyter.

ISBN: 9783110763065

This is the first translation into English of early phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Metaphysical Conversations, originally published in 1921. Conrad-Martius was one of Husserl’s first students, an important part of the Göttingen Phenomenology Circle and mentor to Edith Stein, Jean Héring, and other early phenomenologists. The present volume provides the full German and English texts of the conversations, a phenomenological discussion of the nature of the human, examining the nature of body, soul, and spirit, and drawing distinctions between plants, animals, humans, and various other beings. The volume also includes two important essays on phenomenology, in which Conrad-Martius distinguishes between the phenomenological approaches of Husserl, Heidegger, and the more ontological approach of the Göttingen school of phenomenology. She is critical of Husserl’s “transcendental” and Heidegger’s “existential” approach. The conversations illustrate her use of the phenomenological method for fundamental investigations into the nature (or Wesen) of things.

Gschwandtner, C. (2024). On Body, Soul, and Spirit: Phenomenological and Ontological Investigations. De Gruyter.

ISBN: 9783110761528

This is the first translation into English of two texts by the early phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius, who was one of Husserl’s first students, an important part of the Göttingen Phenomenology Circle and mentor to Edith Stein, Jean Héring, and other early phenomenologists. The present volume provides the full German and English texts of two lectures, originally published under the title “Bios und Psyche” in 1949, which discuss the nature of life as it is expressed differently in plants, animals, and humans. Conrad-Martius is in explicitly conversation with the scientific research of her time period, providing a deeper philosophical grounding for its ontological claims. The second text was originally published as “Die Geistseele des Menschen” in 1960 and presents her mature view of the human soul and spirit, including their relationship to each other and to the human self.

Calcagno, A. (2024). Phenomenology of Mysticism. De Gruyter.

ISBN: 9783110763089

Mystical experience continues to fascinate human beings across different cultures and traditions. Deploying the phenomenological method, Gerda Walther’s Phenomenology of Mysticism explores the conditions that make mystical experience possible, that is, how it is that human beings make sense of mystical phenomena. Unlike historical and anthropological sudies of mysticism across cultures, Walther maintains that to phenomenlogically grasp the sense of mystical experience certain conditions must obtain: All encounters with a living divinity require the relating subject to be configured as a human person consituted as a lived unity of body, psyche, and what Gerda calls a fundamental essence or spirit. Without such a configuration of the human person, unique intersubjective experiences with a divinity prove impossible. For Walther, such personal relations lay the ground for human interiorty to encounter God and the uniqueness of God to become manifest to human beings. Without Walther’s personal structure, encounter with and understanding what a divinity reveals cannot be expereinced. Walther presents the subjective and intersubjective elements that make mystical experience possible.