Abstract
Recent years have seen a resurgence in work on Edith Stein’s theories of empathy (Jardine, Human Studies 38(4): 567–589, 2015; Moran, The problem of empathy: Lipps, Scheler, Husserl and Stein. In: Kelly T, Rosemann P (eds) Amor amicitiae, on the love that is friendship: essays in medieval thought and beyond in honor of the Rev. Professor James McEvoy. Peeters, Leuven/Dudley, pp. 269–312, 2004; Szanto, Human Studies 38(4):503–527, 2015; Taipale, Human Studies 38 (4):463–479, 2015; Vendrell Ferran, Human Studies 38(4):481–502, 2015; Zahavi, Inquiry 53(3):285–306, 2010) and of community and collective intentionality (Burns, Studies 38(4):529–547, 2015; Caminada, Human Studies 38(4):549–566, 2015; Calcagno, Lived experience from the inside out: social and political philosophy in Edith Stein. Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, 2014). Notably absent, however, is an account of the relationship between empathy and community. This chapter begins the work of making this relationship explicit. This can be of at least two-fold service to future research. First, it will show the conceptual richness and complexity of Stein’s theory of empathy, demonstrating that it cannot be confined to the theory-of-mind debate between simulation theorists, theory-theorists, and advocates of a direct perception model. Second, it may also serve to orient future research into collective intentionality by elucidating her original theory of communal experience. After establishing Steinian accounts of empathy and communal experience, I argue that empathy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for community.
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- 1.
References to Stein’s work are to the Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe editions followed by references to the English translations in square brackets.
- 2.
Husserl, had several German terms for this concept, which get translated into English in different ways. He uses Apperzeption, Vergegenwärtigung, and Appräsentation synonymously. In English, these terms are rendered as either “apperception”, “presentification”, or “appresentation.” See Cohen and Moran (2012). Stein uses Vergegenwärtigung and its cognates in this section; the translator has rendered this term as representation.
- 3.
Stein’s empathy is closest to Max Scheler ’s Nachfüllung (see Scheler 2008) and represents a significant development in terms of detail over Husserl’s extant account of empathy when her dissertation was first published in 1917. Husserl expands his account of empathy to include the concept of ‘pairing’ in Cartesian Meditations (1999). Stein’s theory of empathy contains no such concept.
References
Burns, T. 2015. On being a ‘we’: Edith Stein’s contributions to the intentionalism debate. Human Studies 38 (4): 529–547.
Calcagno, A. 2014. Lived experience from the inside out: Social and political philosophy in Edith Stein. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Caminada, E. 2015. Edith Stein’s account of communal mind and its limits: A phenomenological reading. Human Studies 38 (4): 549–566.
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———. 1999. Cartesian meditations: An introduction to phenomenology. Trans. Dorion Cairns. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Jardine, J. 2015. Stein and Honneth on empathy and emotional recognition. Human Studies 38 (4): 567–589.
Moran, D. 2004. The problem of empathy: Lipps, Scheler, Husserl and Stein. In Amor amicitiae, on the love that is friendship: Essays in medieval thought and beyond in honor of the Rev. Professor James McEvoy, ed. T. Kelly and P. Rosemann, 269–312. Leuven/Dudley: Peeters.
Scheler, M. 2008. The nature of sympathy. Trans. Peter Heath. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
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———. 2010a. Aus dem Leben einer jüdischen Familie. Freiburg: Herder. English edition: Stein E (1986) Life in a Jewish family: 1891–1916 (Trans. Koeppel J). Washington, DC: ICS Publications.
———. 2010b. Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften. Freiburg: Herder. English edition: Stein E (2000) Philosophy of psychology and the humanities (Trans. Baseheart MC and Sawicki M). Washington, DC: ICS Publications.
Szanto, T. 2015. Collective emotions, normativity, and empathy: A Steinian account. Human Studies 38 (4): 503–527.
Taipale, J. 2015. Empathy and the melodic unity of the other. Human Studies 38 (4): 463–479.
Vendrell Ferran, I. 2015. Empathy, emotional sharing, and feelings in Stein’s early work. Human Studies 38 (4): 481–502.
Zahavi, D. 2010. Empathy, embodiment and interpersonal understanding: From Lipps to Schutz. Inquiry 53 (3): 285–306.
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Burns, T.A. (2017). From I to You to We: Empathy and Community in Edith Stein’s Phenomenology. 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_7
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