The Interior—the Source of the Truth and Individuality of the Person

Edith Stein studies the sphere of individuation in her monumental book Finite and Eternal Being. What makes an individual being individual? What are the elements that are shared by all beings and what are the distinctive features that can be ascribed to this being only and not to others? An answer to these questions is of utmost importance especially for such a being as person. As we have seen the solution here is crucial for Newman, for it decides about our notional or real cognition. Person is a human being, one of many other human beings, when we consider his shared features. Nevertheless, “what the individual thing is above and beyond its universally conceivable nature is its exclusive and immediate property.” In other words there is infinitely more to the person than his shared properties, therefore “individuality as such has been designated as noncommunicability.”1 I have already written about individuality that is attendant on each individual being as such, irrespective of his capability of expression. Besides, in view of the above statement, the attempts to