Toward a phenomenology of community: Stein and Nancy

In this paper, I try to bring together the works of two philosophers, themselves quite different, around the idea of community. The paper has three parts. In the first section, I examine Edith Stein's early phenomenological work on empathy and community, emphasizing how, for her, the always already given 'we' of community is formed only within an ongoing appreciation of the other's alterity. In the second section, I examine Jean-Luc Nancy's description of community as inoperative, noting how he sees community as intrinsically challenging any notion of an authentic, or immanent, 'we.' And, finally, I describe the common trajectory of these two philosophers-namely, the establishment of a community of responsible writers who give themselves over to each other's singularity for the purpose of sharing what is to come.