ETWAS NEUES, OR WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AND "INDIVIDUAL IDEA". REMARKS ON EDITH STEIN STARTING FROM EDUARD VON HARTMANN AND FRIEDRICH GUNDOLF

The present paper wants to address Edith Stein’s early ontology of persons in light of the doctrines of two neglected figures of late 19th and early 20th century philosophy: Eduard von Hartmann and Friedrich Gundolf. The goal is to understand the implications of Stein’s account of a person’s qualitative individuality as something ontologically new with respect to her general and genus essence. To this end, the paper will focus on how such ontologically individual novelty is understood by Stein with the aid of two concepts: that of “individual idea” and the Gestalt.