LIFEPOWER AS A METAPHOR IN EDITH STEIN’S PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY: Salient Questions for Psychoanalysis and Transhumanism

Edith Stein’s “Philosophy of Psychology and Humanities” investigates the “stream of consciousness” using a sustained metaphor, that of electric current. Stein proposed that sentient life has four phenomenal realms of activity within the human being: the physical, the sensate, the mental, and the personal. Furthermore, these realms, while located in the body, are porous and blend into one another. Stein coins the word lifepower to explain the phenomenon. Transhumanism, which is currently at the frontier of technological debates, has gained traction in recent years and can no longer be viewed as a fringe movement. The chapter will compare Stein’s multi-dimensional concept of lifepower with the philosophies of both transhumanism and psychoanalysis that share the same one-dimensional worldview. Furthermore, the chapter will offer a novel contribution by linking Edith Stein’s development of lifepower to the work of Sigmund Freud through their separate but significant relationships with Rudolf Allers. The study concludes that Stein’s phenomenology raises significant questions for the philosophical underpinning of both psychoanalysis and the nascent discipline of transhumanism.