Michele Kueter Petersen is visiting assistant professor of philosophy and theology at St. Ambrose University.

“In an age marked by increasing hostility to 'the other,' Prof. Michele Kueter Petersen offers a timely and engaging thought experiment concerning the importance of 'contemplative silence' in terms of thinking reflectively about being while also thinking creatively about one’s self and one’s relationship to others and to the larger world. Paul Ricoeur and Edith Stein, two brilliant phenomenologists of the twentieth century whose lives were indelibly marked by the suffering of two world wars, help Prof. Petersen guide the reader through an analysis of various contemporary philosophical issues impacted by dialectic and hermeneutics, empathy and difference, institutional conflicts and personal–social transformation.”

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsPrelude: A Poetic PresenceChapter 1: Fallible HumanChapter 2: Fallibility Gives Rise to Hermeneutics Chapter 3: Capable Human and the Role of Silence in the Creation of MeaningChapter 4: The Practice of Contemplative Silence as a Historical PhenomenonChapter 5: Edith Stein and the Carmelite Tradition: Blazing a Prophetic Path in the Light of LoveChapter 6: The Practice of Contemplative Silence as a Transformative Spiritual and Ethical ActivityChapter 7: The Meaning of Capable HumanChapter 8: A Song of Hermeneutical ExistencePostlude: Towards a Third NaivetéBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

Michele Kueter Petersen is visiting assistant professor of philosophy and theology at St. Ambrose University.

“In an age marked by increasing hostility to 'the other,' Prof. Michele Kueter Petersen offers a timely and engaging thought experiment concerning the importance of 'contemplative silence' in terms of thinking reflectively about being while also thinking creatively about one’s self and one’s relationship to others and to the larger world. Paul Ricoeur and Edith Stein, two brilliant phenomenologists of the twentieth century whose lives were indelibly marked by the suffering of two world wars, help Prof. Petersen guide the reader through an analysis of various contemporary philosophical issues impacted by dialectic and hermeneutics, empathy and difference, institutional conflicts and personal–social transformation.”

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsPrelude: A Poetic PresenceChapter 1: Fallible HumanChapter 2: Fallibility Gives Rise to Hermeneutics Chapter 3: Capable Human and the Role of Silence in the Creation of MeaningChapter 4: The Practice of Contemplative Silence as a Historical PhenomenonChapter 5: Edith Stein and the Carmelite Tradition: Blazing a Prophetic Path in the Light of LoveChapter 6: The Practice of Contemplative Silence as a Transformative Spiritual and Ethical ActivityChapter 7: The Meaning of Capable HumanChapter 8: A Song of Hermeneutical ExistencePostlude: Towards a Third NaivetéBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

Michele Kueter Petersen is visiting assistant professor of philosophy and theology at St. Ambrose University.

“In an age marked by increasing hostility to 'the other,' Prof. Michele Kueter Petersen offers a timely and engaging thought experiment concerning the importance of 'contemplative silence' in terms of thinking reflectively about being while also thinking creatively about one’s self and one’s relationship to others and to the larger world. Paul Ricoeur and Edith Stein, two brilliant phenomenologists of the twentieth century whose lives were indelibly marked by the suffering of two world wars, help Prof. Petersen guide the reader through an analysis of various contemporary philosophical issues impacted by dialectic and hermeneutics, empathy and difference, institutional conflicts and personal–social transformation.”

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsPrelude: A Poetic PresenceChapter 1: Fallible HumanChapter 2: Fallibility Gives Rise to Hermeneutics Chapter 3: Capable Human and the Role of Silence in the Creation of MeaningChapter 4: The Practice of Contemplative Silence as a Historical PhenomenonChapter 5: Edith Stein and the Carmelite Tradition: Blazing a Prophetic Path in the Light of LoveChapter 6: The Practice of Contemplative Silence as a Transformative Spiritual and Ethical ActivityChapter 7: The Meaning of Capable HumanChapter 8: A Song of Hermeneutical ExistencePostlude: Towards a Third NaivetéBibliographyIndexAbout the Author