Abstract
This chapter has two related aims. The first one is to bring to the fore the potential of a ‘multi-layered’ account of empathy. The second one is to clarify the role of imagination in empathy, with particular attention to the process of ‘centrally imagining’ what the other is experiencing. The argument is based on the comparison between Peter Goldie’s and Edith Stein’s accounts of empathy. As to the first point, I will show that Goldie’s rather sophisticated concept of empathy already presupposes basic layers of understanding, which are more thoroughly clarified in Stein’s analyses. As to the second point, I will argue that empathy, in its different layers, significantly relies on imagination, and more precisely on ‘central imagining’. In order to clarify the meaning of ‘central imagining’, without incurring into either conceptual and phenomenological paradoxes or ethically dubious statements, a closer consideration of how the imagining subject is and can be involved in interpersonal perspectival shift is required.
I am grateful to Emanuele Caminada and Monika Dullstein, as well as to all participants in the workshop “Edith Stein and Phenomenology” (Dublin, May 2015), for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The concept of empathy, introduced in the English philosophical and psychological vocabulary by Titchener, is the translation of the German Einfühlung, a concept that was originally used in the domain of aesthetics and subsequently also in relation to the human capacity of understanding others. See Zahavi (2014b, p. 103).
- 2.
See, among others, Zahavi (2014b). This distinction mostly draws on Husserl’s, Stein’s, and Scheler’s work. Although Scheler (1973) tends to polemically dismiss the concept of empathy (based on his critique to Lipps’ definition), he developed an articulated view of the modalities of mutual understanding and emotional sharing. The concept of empathy, as it is used in contemporary phenomenological research, would correspond to Scheler’s concept of understanding others’ experiences (the concepts uses are: Auffassen, Verständnis, and possibly Nachfühlen or Nachleben). With these concepts he means the basic, non-inferential, recognition of what others are experiencing, regardless of what our own emotional reaction is. The concept of sympathy , instead, explicitly designates the way I am emotionally directed or the way I intentionally and emotionally relate to others’ emotional experience (Scheler 1973, pp. 19 f.).
- 3.
This is quite explicitly formulated by Goldie, who, as we will see, also considers narrative articulation as a condition for empathy. Stein reference to imagination is less explicit, and what she says might even seem to contradict my suggestion. In the second section of this paper I will develop an argument in support of the here sketched reading of her text.
- 4.
I have discussed such a narrative account of emotions in Summa (2015).
- 5.
Imagining-that corresponds to what Goldman (2006) calls supposition; Goldman’s enactment-imagination (E-imagination), instead, corresponds to only one form of central imagining : that in which I put myself in the other’s shoes.
- 6.
Svenaeus (2015) also uses some of Goldie’s insights in order to shed light on Stein’s account of empathy. Yet, the author has a rather different agenda than mine: his aim is to show that Stein’s approach to empathy necessarily relies on emotional experience. With different accentuation, and with a clear statement on how Stein’s position fits the tradition of early phenomenology on emotions, a similar thesis is defended by Vendrell Ferran (2015). Although, in this paper, I am comparing Goldie’s and Stein’s views from a different angle, and thus emphasizing other aspects in Stein’s theory, I am generally sympathetic with these claims, which do not seem to confuse empathy with sympathy by introducing the reference to emotional experience.
- 7.
See, notably, Husserl (1973a, pp. 428 f.; 1973b, pp. 66 f.; 70 f.; 316 f.; 455; 475 f.).
- 8.
In other words, I do not think that herewith a form of constitutive hiddenness of the other’s mental states is meant – in the sense criticized by, among others, Ryle (2009). Rather, what Stein aims to emphasize is the constitutive asymmetry between the way we access our own and others’ experiences. Such an asymmetry does not necessarily imply the subscription to some version of Cartesian dualism . As it has been shown (Overgaard 2007) it is also a central aspect in Wittgenstein’s approach to the problem of other minds, although the latter, like Ryle, conceives of such a problem by fundamentally on the basis of the sharing of linguistic practices.
- 9.
- 10.
See, Husserl (1973 b, p. 317; 319). Flatscher (2013) thoroughly discusses the analogies between empathy and other kinds of presentification (image consciousness, phantasy, and memory), thereby particularly emphasizing the analogies with memory, which Husserl also makes in several manuscripts. The reason why I rather tend to emphasize not only the analogies of empathy and imagination, but also the need to recognize imaginative consciousness as participating in empathy should become clear in what follows. Crucially, in recollection we have a kind of subjective identification which we do not necessarily have in imagination (or with respect to which imagination leaves us more freedom).
- 11.
Based on Husserl’s work, I have further elaborated on the syntheses that need to be considered to be at play if we conceive perception in this articulated way in Summa (2014), notably chapter 7.
- 12.
Although I generally agree with Calcagno’s (2014) interpretation of Stein’s early work on empathy and social ontology , I believe that his view on the perspectival shift occurring in empathy needs to be better specified. He argues that empathy entails my imagining being in the other subject’s place, but still “I stand in the other’s place not as identical with that subject, but as myself” (Calcagno 2014, p. 35). Without further clarification, this claim seems to imply that what Stein means is simply a version of in-his-shoes-imagining.
- 13.
“Das individuelle Ich ist der letzte Auslaufspunkt alles Bewußtseinslebens. Unter ‚individuellem Ich‘ist hier nicht eine Person von bestimmter Eigenart bzw. Einzigartigkeit verstanden, sondern zunächst nur das Ich, das dies ist und kein anderes, einzig und ungeteilt – so wie es als Ausstrahlungspunkt irgendeines Erlebnisses erlebt ist. Es ist abgehoben von allem Nicht-Ich, und zwar sowohl von toten Objekten als von anderen Subjekten, und es ist von diesen anderen Subjekten unterschieden unangesehen ihrer und seiner eigenen Qualitäten. Eben dieses Ich, das keiner materialen Beschaffenheit bedarf, um sich in seinem Ichsein von allem anderen abzugrenzen, ist es, was wir als reines Ich bezeichnen. Ihm entspringt kontinuierlich aktuelles Bewußtseinsleben, das sich, indem es in die Vergangenheit rückt, ‚gelebtes Leben‘wird, zur Einheit des konstituierten Bewußtseinsstromes zusammenschließt. Dabei strömt das jeweils aktuelle konstituierende Leben ständig aus dem vergangenen hervor und der konstituierte Strom ist stets in Deckung mit dem vormals aktuellen konstituierenden. Was dem einen Ich entströmt, das gehört zu einem Bewußtseinsstrom, der in sich abgeschlossen und von jedem anderen abgegrenzt ist, wie das Ich selbst.” (Stein 1970, p. 119)
- 14.
“Wie kommt es zur Konstitution des ‘Anderen’. Wir können da doch nur sagen: Einen Anderen stelle ich nur dadurch vor, dass ich mich mit dem Leib und in der Situation des Anderen vorstelle. Das „mich “ist natürlich noch nicht differenziert im Sinn des Ich und Du. Aber wir verstehen: Genauso wie ich in meiner Vergangenheit oder in einer Fiktion dabei bin, so im Seelenleben des Anderen, das ich mir in der Einfühlung vergegenwärtige. Dieses Dabeisein ist nun aber nicht verbunden mit der Forderung der Identifikation wie der Erinnerung an die Vergangenheit (und jeder Erinnerung): das Wesen der Erinnerung, das Wesen des Bewusstseinsstromes fordert Identifikation, führt sie notwendig mit sich […] Was ich im Anderen setze, das ist Ich als Subjekt dieser und dieser vergegenwärtigten cogitationes, und das ich selbst ist vergegenwärtigtes Ich, es ist Ich, ich fühle mich darin, und doch fremdes Ich, wie das vergegenwärtigte und rechtmäßig gesetzte cogito außerhalb des Stromes des aktuellen Zeitbewusstseins steht und einen ‘neuen’, ‘anderen’ Strom ausmacht.” (Husserl 1973b, p. 320)
- 15.
The claim that empathy proceeds from typological understanding to more and more specific or individual understanding of the other is present also in Husserl and Schütz and it has recently been defended by Taipale (2016). The latter proposes a somehow teleological view, according to which we depart from the typological understanding of others in order to arrive (following our interests or concerns for the other) to closer individual understanding. In principle, I believe the argument is correct, but, in relation to the topic of the present inquiry, I would maintain such individual understanding cannot be grounded on the full assumption of the other’s individual characterization (in Goldie’s terms).
- 16.
- 17.
“Wie in jeglicher Erfahrung, so sind auch hier Täuschungen möglich, aber wie überall, so sind auch hier die Täuschungen nur durch erfahrende Akte derselben. Art zu entlarven, bzw. Durch Schlüsse, die letztlich auf solche Akte als ihre Grundlage zurückführen. Aus welchen Quellen solche Täuschungen entspringen können, das haben wir schon mehrfach gesehen: wenn wir einfühlend unsere individuelle Beschaffenheit statt unseres Typus zugrunde legen, so kommen wir zu falschen Ergebnissen. So, wenn wir dem Farbenblinden unsere Farbeneindrücke dem Kinde unsere Urteilsfähigkeit, dem, Wilden unsere ästhetische Empfänglichkeit zuschreiben.” (Stein 2008, p. 109)
References
Calcagno, Antonio. 2014. Lived experience from the inside out: Social and political philosophy in Edith Stein. Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press.
Currie, Gregory, and Ian Ravenscroft. 2002. Recreative minds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
De Vignemont, Fréderique, and Pierre Jacob. 2012. What is it like to feel another’s pain? Philosophy of Science 79 (2): 295–316.
Dullstein, Monika. 2013. Direct perception and simulation: Stein’s account of empathy. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4 (2): 333–350.
Flatscher, Matthias. 2013. Grenzen der Einfühlung. Zum Problem der Alterität bei Husserl und Levinas. In Grenzen der Empathie Philosophische, psychologische und anthropologische Perspektiven, ed. Thiemo Breyer, 183–213. München: Fink.
Gallagher, Shaun. 2001. The practice of mind: Theory, simulation, or primary interaction? Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (5–7): 83–108.
———. 2008. Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition 17: 535–543.
———. 2012. In defense of phenomenological approaches to social cognition: Interacting with the critics. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3 (2): 187–212.
Gallese, Vittorio. 2003. The roots of empathy: The shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity. Psychopathology 36: 171–180.
Goldie, Peter. 2000. The emotions. A philosophical exploration. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 2011. Anti-empathy. In Empathy: Philosophical and psychological perspectives, ed. Amy Coplan and Peter Goldie, 302–318. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goldman, Alvin. 1989. Interpretation psychologized. Mind & Language 4 (3): 161–185.
———. 1992. Empathy, mind, and morals. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 66 (3): 17–41.
———. 2006. Simulating minds. The philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of mindreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Husserl, Edmund. 1950. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1952. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1956. Erste Philosophie 1923/24. Zweiter Teil. Theorie der Phänomenologischen Reduktion. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1973a. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil (1929–1935). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1973b. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil (1905–1920). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1973c. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Zweiter Teil (1921–1928). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
———. 1980. Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898–1925). Dordrecht/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff.
Jansen, Julia. 2005. On the development of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of imagination and its use for interdisciplinary research. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4: 121–132.
———. 2010. Phenomenology, imagination and interdisciplinary research. In Handbook of phenomenology and cognitive sciences, ed. Shaun Gallagher and Daniel Schmicking, 141–158. Dordrecht: Springer.
Overgaard, Søren. 2007. Wittgenstein and Other Minds. New York: Routledge.
Ratcliffe, Matthew. 2006. Folk psychology’ is not folk psychology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 5: 31–52.
———. 2007. Rethinking commonsense psychology: A critique of folk-psychology, theory of mind, and simulation. Hampshire/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ryle, Gilbert. 2009. The concept of mind. London/New York: Routledge.
Scheler, Max. 1973. Wesen und Formen der Sympathie. Bern/München: Francke.
Stein, Edith. 2008. Zum Problem der Einfühlung. Freiburg: Herder.
———. 1970. Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
Stueber, Karsten. 2006. Rediscovering empathy: Agency, folk psychology, and the human sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Summa, Michela. 2014. Spatio-temporal intertwining. Husserl’s transcendental aesthetic. Dordrecht: Springer.
———. 2015. Are emotions ‘recollected in tranquility’? Phenomenological reflections on emotions, memory, and the temporal dynamics of experience. In Edmund Husserl on: Feeling and value, willing and action, ed. Marta Ubiali and Maren Wehrle. Heidelberg: Springer.
Svenaeus, Frederik. 2015. The phenomenology of empathy: A Steinian emotional account. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences online first.
Taipale, Joona. 2016. From types to tokens: Empathy and typification. In Phenomenology of sociality. Discovering the ‘we’, ed. Thomas Szanto and Dermot Moran, 143–158. London/New York: Routledge.
Vendrell Ferran, Ingrid. 2015. Empathy, emotional sharing and feelings in Stein’s early work. Human Studies 38 (4): 481–502.
Waldenfels, Bernhard. 1997. Topographie des Fremden. Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden. I. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
———. 2000. Das leibliche Selbst. Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des Leibes. Frankfurt a. M: Suhrkamp.
———. 2015. Sozialität und Alterität. Modi sozialer Erfahrung. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Wollheim, Richard. 1984. The thread of life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zahavi, Dan. 2014a. Empathy and other directed intentionality. Topoi. An International Review of Philosophy 33 (1): 129–142.
———. 2014b. Self and other. Exploring subjectivity, empathy, and shame. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Summa, M. (2017). Empathy and Anti-Empathy: Which Are the Problems?. In: Magrì, E., Moran, D. (eds) Empathy, Sociality, and Personhood. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 94. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71096-9_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71096-9_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71095-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71096-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)