Ideas of racial genetic determinism, though unsupported by scientific evidence and atavistic, are common and readily apparent in American medical education. These theories of biologic essentialism have documented negative effects in learners, including increased measures of racial prejudice.

Background: Forgiveness has the potential to resolve painful feelings arising from nurse–patient conflicts. It would be useful to evaluate direct and indirect important factors which are related to forgiveness in order to design interventions that try to facilitate forgiveness. Aim/objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the intermediating role of empathy in the cultural competence–forgiveness association among nurses using structural equation modeling. Research design: The research applied a cross-sectional correlational design. Participants and research context: The study (...) included 380 nurses eight hospitals in southern Iran. Ethical considerations: The Ethics and Research Committee of Birjand University of Medical Sciences approved the study protocol. The voluntary nature of participation was explained consent was obtained from participants, and anonymity was guaranteed. Findings: Most of the participants were married and female and fell in the 20- to 30-year-old category. Most of them (89.5%) had a working experience of 1–10 years. The proposed model showed that nurses’ empathy intermediated the association between nurses’ cultural competence and forgiveness which has fitted the data acceptably (root mean square error approximation = 0.070; comparative fit index = 0.993; goodness-of-fit index = 0.983; and χ2/df = 2.85). Conclusion: Empathy skills and cultural competence training were essential for interventions aimed at increasing the tendency to forgive patients. In such interventions, planners should aim at increasing nurses’ cultural competence in order to enhance their empathy toward patients, which can, in turn, lead to a greater wish to forgive patients. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 3, Page 283-289, March 2022.

If Sam empathizes with Maria, then it is true of Sam that (1) Sam is aware of Maria's emotion, and (2) Sam ‘feels in tune’ with Maria. On what I call the transparency conception of how they interact when instantiated, I argue that these two conditions are collectively necessary and sufficient for empathy. I first clarify the ‘awareness’ and ‘feeling in tune’ conditions, and go on to examine different candidate models that explain the manner in which these two conditions (...) might come to be concomitantly instantiated in a subject. I dismiss what I call the parallel and oscillation models for not satisfying the transparency condition, i.e. for failing to capture that, if Sam empathizes with Maria, then Sam's own emotional experience towards the object of Maria's emotion has to be mediated by Maria's own emotional experience. I conclude in favour the fusion model as the only model capable of satisfying the transparency condition, and I argue that the suggested proposal illuminates the difference between it and other ways in which we understand the emotions of others. Finally, I expand and clarify the conception of empathy as transparency through responses to obvious objections that the view raises. Key Words: empathy • emotion • philosophy • psychology • simulation. (shrink)

It has become something of a consensus among philosophers of history that historians, in contrast to natural scientists, explain in a narrative fashion. Unfortunately, philosophers of history have not said much about how it is that narratives have explanatory power. they do, however, maintain that a narrative’s explanatory power is sui generis and independent of our empathetic or reenactive capacities and of our knowledge of law-like generalizations. In this article I will show that this consensus is mistaken at least in (...) respect to explanatory strategies used to account for rational agency using the “folk-psychological” framework of intentions, beliefs, desires, and the like. philosophers distinguish insufficiently among different aspects and different types of information needed for a historian to persuasively account for an agent’s behavior in particular circumstances. If one keeps these aspects apart it will become apparent exactly how one should understand the epistemic contribution of empathy, generalizations, and narrative for the explanation of action. (shrink)

The domain of phenomenological investigation delineated by the Husserlian term authentic empathy presents us with an immediate tension. On the one hand, authentic empathy is supposed to grant the subject access (in some sense that remains to be fully specified) to the Other’s experience. On the other hand, foundational phenomenological considerations pertaining to the apprehension of a foreign subjectivity determine that it is precisely a disjunction in subjective processes that is constitutive of the Other being other. In my (...) approach to this problem, I seek, within the context of a reading of Edith Stein’s work On the Problem of Empathy, to clarify the place of ascription in authentic empathy, and to render more explicit a certain notion of “contiguity” that I take to be informing Stein’s understanding of the co-givenness of the Other’s mental life. I go on to argue that a resolution to the problem of empathy lies in the idea that the respective lived experiences of self and Other are, as a matter of descriptive fact, phenomenally connected by a relation of resemblance, and that, consonantly, the essential structure of authentic empathy is characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to picture consciousness. (shrink)

Empathy remains poorly understood, under-theorized, and subject to conflicting and opportunistic uses. Its systematic role in human experience has not been analyzed and interpreted from top to bottom. In this book, the author attempts to provide such an analysis in the philosophical traditions of hermeneutics, phenomenology, analytic philosophy of language, and psychoanalysis. applying his interpretation of empathy to the philosophical issues of intentionality, the emotions, and the checkered transformations of empathy itself. In doing so the author aims (...) to rescue empathy from the margins of intelligibility and reveal its central role in our understanding of the emotions, the integrity of our relations with others, and human community (“intersubjectivity”). -/- The work draws on both the Anglo-American (“analytic”) tradition of ordinary language philosophy and the continental ones of phenomenology and hermeneutics. This work follows the movement of empathy from the periphery of ethics, aesthetics, and theory of mind to a key place in establishing and maintaining the integrity and emotional equilibrium of dynamic interrelations with other individuals. Beginning with the philosophical infrastructure of the hermeneutics of empathy, this work thoroughly explains the complex architecture of empathy, tracing it downward through the levels of authentic human interrelations, empathy with unexpressed emotions, the empathic penetrability of cognitively impenetrable affect, the first-ever intentional analysis of both the empathizer and the “empathasand” in interrelation, and the hermeneutic infrastructure. The consequences of empathy are exposed in the context of the emotions, cognitive impenetrability, empathy and altruism, and the intentionality of empathy as accessed through language and story telling. Drawing on the multi-method approach of hermeneutics, phenomenology, and story telling, this work demonstrates that empathy forms the foundation for community in ways not clearly appreciated in the on-going debate. In a bootstrap operation that is guided by Heidegger’s call for a “special hermeneutic of empathy,” this work achieves a delicate balancing act of unpacking the rich intellectual traditions from which empathy - the phenomenon itself, not the concept - emerged historically. The result is an exposure of the deep structure of empathy as a fundamentally human capability for creating possibilities of community and human relations. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of (...) lacking prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

Efficiency is an important value for all publicly funded healthcare systems. Limited resources need to be used prudently and wisely in order to ensure best possible outcomes and waste avoidance. Since 2010, the drive for efficiency, in the UK, has acquired a new impetus, as the country embarked on an ‘age of austerity’ purportedly to balance its books and reduce national deficit. Although the NHS did not suffer any direct budget cuts, the austerity policies imposed on the welfare system, including (...) social and mental healthcare, have had a direct and detrimental impact on the healthcare service. This paper draws from a qualitative study conducted in three A&E Departments in England to explore the effects of austerity policies on the everyday experiences of doctors and nurses working in Emergency Departments. It discusses the operationalisation of efficiency in A&E, in a climate of austerity, and its effects on the experiences and practices of healthcare professionals. It uses the empirical data as a springboard to highlight the role of structures and regulations, in this case targets and protocols, in how core healthcare ethical values, such as empathy, are exercised in practice. It provides an analysis of the normative role structures and regulations can play on the perception and practice of professional duties and obligations in healthcare. (shrink)

Current discussions on social cognition, empathy, and interpersonal understanding are largely built on the question of how we recognize and access particular mental states of others. Mental states have been treated as temporally individuated, momentary or temporally narrow unities that can be grasped at one go. Drawing on the phenomenological tradition—on Stein and Husserl in particular—I will problematize this approach, and argue that the other’s experiential states can appear meaningful to us only they are viewed in connection with further, (...) non-simultaneous experiential states of the other. I will focus on the temporal structure of mental states which has received less attention in the available literature. Building a comparison between empathy and music perception, I will argue that approaching the problem of other minds from the point of view of particular mental states is like considering music from the point of view of particular notes. (shrink)

Empathy is a term used to denote our experience of connecting or feeling with an Other. The term has been used both by psychologists and phenomenologists as a supplement for our biological capacity to understand an Other. In this paper I would like to challenge the possibility of such empathy. If empathy is employed to mean that we know another person’s feelings, then I argue that this is impossible. I argue that there is an equivocation in the (...) use of the term ‘empathy’ which conditions the appropriation of the Other as we think that we know how the Other feels. To claim that we do know an Other’s feelings – or any kind of their intentional experience – means to appropriate their experience through our own. I will first reveal the equivocal use of the term ‘empathy’ and, then, I will explore Husserl’s use of the term. In Husserl, the understanding of an Other as empathy is only partial. I shall conclude by reiterating a thesis from philosophy of existence and feminist theory according to which to know another person comes from creating a community with them and not because we have a biological structure that can mirror each other’s feelings. (shrink)

Mammalian brains contain a variety of self-centered socio-emotional systems. An understanding of how they interact with more recent cognitive structures may be essential for understanding empathy. Preston & de Waal have neglected this vast territory of proximal brain issues in their analysis.

A recent version of the view that aesthetic experience is based in empathy as inner imitation explains aesthetic experience as the automatic simulation of actions, emotions, and bodily sensations depicted in an artwork by motor neurons in the brain. Criticizing the simulation theory for committing to an erroneous concept of empathy and failing to distinguish regular from aesthetic experiences of art, I advance an alternative, dynamic approach and claim that aesthetic experience is enacted and skillful, based in the (...) recognition of others’ experiences as distinct from one’s own. In combining insights from mainly psychology, phenomenology, and cognitive science, the dynamic approach aims to explain the emergence of aesthetic experience in terms of the reciprocal interaction between viewer and artwork. I argue that aesthetic experience emerges by participatory sense-making and revolves around movement as a means for creating meaning. While entrainment merely plays a preparatory part in this, aesthetic engagement constitutes the phenomenological side of coupling to an artwork and provides the context for exploration, and eventually for moving, seeing, and feeling with art. I submit that aesthetic experience emerges from bodily and emotional engagement with works of art via the complementary processes of the perception–action and motion–emotion loops. The former involves the embodied visual exploration of an artwork in physical space, and progressively structures and organizes visual experience by way of perceptual feedback from body movements made in response to the artwork. The latter concerns the movement qualities and shapes of implicit and explicit bodily responses to an artwork that cue emotion and thereby modulate over-all affect and attitude. The two processes cause the viewer to bodily and emotionally move with and be moved by individual works of art, and consequently to recognize another psychological orientation than her own, which explains how art can cause feelings of insight or awe and disclose aspects of life that are unfamiliar or novel to the viewer. (shrink)

This paper critiques Jesse Prinz’s rejection of Adam Smith’s model of impartial spectatorship as a viable corrective to empathic bias. I argue that Prinz’s case is unconvincing, insofar as it rests on an underdeveloped account of Smith’s view of critical self-regulation. By presenting a more detailed and attentive reading of Smithean impartial spectatorship, and exploring Smith’s compelling account of structural supports for sympathetic engagement, this paper demonstrates how Smith’s work is able to constructively engage with contemporary concerns regarding (...) class='Hi'>empathy’s role in guiding moral behaviour. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHow does music have the power to speak to us as if it were a living being, endowed with subjectivity? Do we empathize with music? Ordinarily we consider our perception...

_Purpose._ This article discusses researching the nature and basic structure of acts of empathy. Such research first requires answering the question: are empathic acts intentional acts of our consciousness? If the answer to this question is affirmative, then there is a need to answer the following questions: what are the features of acts of empathy as intentional ones? And can such acts be qualified as opening a special and complex type of access (epistemic, social, and ethical) to "other (...) minds"? _Theoretical basis._ The research is based on the problems set by the phenomenological tradition and the developed analytical philosophy, which found their continuation in the philosophy of mind. With the tendency to naturalization, representatives of these areas have another common sphere in the research of mental reality. The changes that both traditions are undergoing can be observed in the transformation of fundamental theoretical concepts such as "intentionality". The linguistic turn gives impetus to the development of new theoretical approaches to the understanding of consciousness, which give preference to the research of language rather than the research in the structure of the Self. The change in methodological guidelines is due to a few factors. In particular, this is a noticeable progress in empirical sciences and the dominance of Behaviorism guidelines in psychology, as well as the fact that the Anglo-American tradition inherits several features intrinsic to British empiricism. Today, three main directions of understanding intentionality can be distinguished. Starting from Brentano and Husserl, we have a classical theory – mental intentionality (phenomenological). As part of analytical philosophy and philosophy of language, we can talk about linguistically interpreted intentionality. Sellars’ model of intentionality has a definite linguistic component. Also, a modern version that functions in the philosophy of consciousness: attempts to naturalize intentionality (this is, for example, the research of Galen Strawson and Daniel Dennett). _Originality._ The problem is studied not in the context of the phenomenological or analytical traditions in their isolation, but in a problematic-conceptual way, which allows us to reach a new level of generalization and reveal the theoretical advantages of combining both traditions. _Conclusions._ Empathic Acts can be defined as intentional within the classical phenomenological tradition. As intentional acts, they have their specificity in that they are directed to the "other mind" and can form the basis for the research of intersubjectivity. For the analytic tradition and early philosophy of consciousness, such statements are not obvious. However, discussions about the role of corporality and the problem concerning embodied cognition are becoming increasingly common today. In such discussions, empathy, as an element in the knowledge of others and a possibility for grounding the social sciences, seems more promising than attempts to make epistemic access to other minds possible on the basis of the argument by analogy or on the basis of the inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

Empathy is a psychologically significant phenomenon. It plays a key role in the development of the self, sociality, and prosocial behaviour. The term empathy originated in 19th-century aesthetics, where the concept was seen as an explanation for aesthetic experience. Despite renewed interest in the relation between empathy and aesthetic experiences, investigations into how empathy shapes experiences of art are still scarce. Given this situation, we ask the following three questions: What does one experience when experiencing a (...) work of art empathetically? What is given during such moments? How is consciousness structured in aesthetic empathetic experience? To answer these questions, we analysed five different experiences with visual art using a phenomenological psychological methodology. We found that a complexity of psychologically significant meaning arises from the empathic experience of art. The core aspects of this meaning are captured in a structure incorporating experience of a foreign subjective sense, reliving and affective adherence, interiorisation, pleasure in sharing, and affective understanding. Based on this structure, we argue that aesthetic empathy features a sense of otherness to a degree not previously recognised and that aesthetic empathy is an inherently intersubjective experience in which the spectator is invited to participate and share feelings expressed in the work of art in moments of aesthetic presence. (shrink)

BackgroundParanoia is associated with a multitude of social cognitive deficits, observed in both clinical and subclinical populations. Empathy is significantly and broadly impaired in schizophrenia, yet its relationship with subclinical paranoia is poorly understood. Furthermore, deficits in emotion recognition – a very early component of empathic processing – are present in both clinical and subclinical paranoia. Deficits in emotion recognition may therefore underlie relationships between paranoia and empathic processing. The current investigation aims to add to the literature on social (...) cognition and paranoia by: (1) characterizing the relationship between paranoia and empathy, and (2) testing whether there is an indirect effect of emotion recognition on the relationship between empathy and paranoia.MethodsParanoia, empathy, and emotion recognition were assessed in a non-clinical sample of adults (n= 226) from the Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland (NKI-Rockland) dataset. Paranoia was measured using the Peters Delusions Inventory-21 (PDI-21). Empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a self-report instrument designed to assess empathy using four subscales: Personal Distress, Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, and Fantasy. Emotion recognition was assessed using the Penn Emotion Recognition Test (ER-40). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to estimate relationships between paranoia, the four measures of empathy and emotion recognition.ResultsParanoia was associated with the Fantasy subscale of the IRI, such that higher Fantasy was associated with more severe paranoia (p< 0.001). No other empathy subscales were associated with paranoia. Fantasy was also associated with the emotion recognition of fear, such that higher Fantasy was correlated with better recognition of fear (p= 0.008). Paranoia and emotion recognition were not significantly associated. The Empathic Concern subscale was negatively associated with emotion recognition, with higher empathic concern related to worse overall emotion recognition (p= 0.002). All indirect paths through emotion recognition were non-significant.DiscussionThese results suggest that imaginative perspective-taking contributes to paranoia in the general population. These data do not, however, point to robust global relationships between empathy and paranoia or to emotion recognition as an underlying mechanism. Deficits in empathy and emotion recognition observed in schizophrenia may be associated with the broader pathology of schizophrenia, and therefore not detectable with subclinical populations. (shrink)

As empathy gains importance within academia, we propose this review as an attempt to bring clarity upon the diverse and widely debated definitions and conceptions of empathy within the medical field. In this paper, we first evaluate the limits of the Western mainstream medical culture and discuss the origins of phenomena such asdehumanizationanddetached concernas well as their impacts on patient care. We then pass on to a structured overview of the debate surrounding the notion of clinical empathy (...) and its taxonomy in the medical setting. In particular, we present the dichotomous conception of clinical empathy that is articulated in the debate aroundcognitive empathyandaffective empathy. We thus consider the negative impacts that this categorization brings about. Finally, we advocate for a more encompassing, holistic conception of clinical empathy; one that gives value to a genuine interest in welcoming, acknowledging and responding to the emotions of those suffering. Following this line of reasoning, we advance the notion of ‘empathic concern’, a re-conceptualization of clinical empathy that finds its source in Halpern in Med Health Care Philos (2014) 17:301–311engaged curiosity. We ultimately advance Narrative Medicine as an approach to introduce, teach and promote such an attitude among medical trainees and practitioners. (shrink)

ArgumentThe new English term “empathy” was translated from the GermanEinfühlungin the first decade of the twentieth century by the psychologists James Ward at the University of Cambridge and Edward B. Titchener at Cornell. At Titchener's American laboratory, “empathy” was not a matter of understanding other minds, but rather a projection of imagined bodily movements and accompanying feelings into an object, a meaning that drew from its rich nineteenth-century aesthetic heritage. This rendering of “empathy” borrowed kinaesthetic meanings from (...) German sources, but extended beyond a contemplation of the beautiful to include a variety of experimental stimuli and everyday objects in the laboratory. According to Titchener's structural psychology, all higher thought could be reduced to more elemental aspects of mind, and experimental introspection showed empathy to be constituted of kinaesthetic images. The existence of kinaesthetic images, Titchener argued, formed an incisive critique of the view that thought could take place without images, held by one of Titchener's major psychological rivals, the school of thought-psychologists in Würzburg, Germany. The new term “empathy” in early American academic psychology therefore delineated a kinaesthetic imaginative projection that took place on the basis of ontological difference between minds and things. (shrink)

Narrative Empathie liegt dann vor, wenn der empathische Nachvollzugsprozess der (emotionalen, epistemischen) Situationen anderer Personen oder fiktiver Figuren durch ein Narrativ, das heißt eine sinnzusammenhängende Erzählung, ausgelöst und strukturiert wird. Der Aufsatz knüpft an den phänomenologischen Ansatz von Empathie als direkte Wahrnehmung an, vertritt aber die These, dass gerade bei Narrativen die Imagination und die Perspektiveneinnahme hinzukommen müssen, damit retrospektiv, prospektiv oder gegenwärtig die Situation des Anderen und seiner individuellen Perspektive vergegenwärtigt und verstanden werden kann. Der narrativen Empathie wird ein (...) indirekter ethischer Wert zugeschrieben: Durch das empathisch anschauliche Anteilnehmen am Narrativ des Anderen und einen damit verbundenen Perspektivwechsel können auch unsere eigenen Perspektiven erweitert werden; dies kann zu besserem Verständnis ungewohnter Sichtweisen führen und moralische Gefühle und Handlungen motivieren. Narrative empathy is the complex re-presentation of an (emotional, epistemic) situation of another person or a fictional character by means of a narrative, which is a structured and perspectively colored context of meaning. The paper sympathizes with the phenomenological approach of empathy as direct perception though at the same time arguing that in cases of (literary, filmic, dramatic) narratives imagination and perspective-taking is also needed in order to be able to comprehend and to understand the other’s situation retrospectively, prospectively or at present. According to the author, narrative empathy has an indirect moral value: the vivid empathetic participation in the other’s narrative and the process of perspective-taking can help to broaden one’s horizons; this can lead to a better understanding of unfamiliar and other worldviews and motivate moral emotions and actions. (shrink)

This article offers a critique and reformulation of the concept of empathy as it is currently used in the context of medicine and medical care. My argument is three pronged. First, that the instrumentalised notion of empathy that has been common within medicine erases the term’s rich epistemological history as a special form of understanding, even a vehicle of social inquiry, and has instead substituted an account unsustainably structured according to the polarisations of modernity. I suggest that understanding (...) empathy by examining its origins within the phenomenological tradition, as a mode of intersubjective understanding, offers a different and profitable approach. Secondly, I argue that the appropriation of empathy in medicine means that, ironically, empathy can function as a technique of pastoral power, in which virtue, knowledge and authority remain with the doctor. And thirdly, empathy is in danger of being resourced as a substitute for equity and funding within health systems. I conclude however with hope for the productive possibilities for empathy. (shrink)

Empathy and sympathy are feeling-acts which bring the self into direct encounter with other persons. In empathy a self grasps the affective act of another self; in sympathy x n persons apprehend a common object while immersed in similar feeling acts. Since touch is the paradigmatic sense for bringing what is felt into proximity with feeling, structural affinities between touch and these feeling acts can be shown. This relationship has been obscured by classical theories of touch in (...) which it is interpreted on analogy with the other senses. When the subject of touch is seen as the living body as a whole, the full range of its possible relationships to affective states can be explored. In this connection the theories of touch of Aristotle, Berkeley and Condillac are critically evaluated. While none recognizes the uniqueness of touch, each sees difficulties in incorporating touch in a general theory of sense. In the course of the exposition pity is distinguished from empathy and sympathy and a criticism of Nietzsche's ressentiment theory offered. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narcissism, Empathy and Moral ResponsibilityRonald W. Pies, MD (bio)Professor Fatic’s timely and wide-ranging essay demonstrates how the topic of narcissism has undergone a resurgence of interest in recent decades. This may owe, in part, to the controversial claim that narcissism is on the rise in the United States, at least among American college students (Twenge & Foster, 2010). As I discuss presently, the term “narcissism” is open to (...) many interpretations, and differs somewhat from the specific designation, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). As Fatic rightly notes,Narcissism as a personality structure may or may not be diagnosed as NPD, depending on various criteria, perhaps most importantly on whether the narcissistic person actually encounters functional and emotional difficulties and shows up for diagnosis and evaluation.As Professor Fatic’s essay clearly shows, narcissism (variously defined) has important “ethical ramifications.” Fatic is primarily interested in exploring the relationship between what he calls the narcissist’s “emotional incompetence” and that person’s degree of moral responsibility. To oversimplify Fatic’s complex set of interlinked arguments, Fatic concludes that “emotional incompetence does not in fact reduce the moral responsibility of a narcissist person, whether diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or not.” Drawing on the moral theories of Philip Pettit and Michael Slote—in particular, Slote’s “sentimentalist ethics” with its emphasis on empathy (Slote, 2004)—Fatic argues that narcissism is both “a moral failure and a psychopathology.” Nevertheless, for Fatic, narcissists remain “fully morally responsible for their insensitivity and interpersonal emotional incompetence.” Why? Because they have the moral duty “to acquire the moral and emotional competence required for the making of moral choices.”Some Philosophical ConcernsAs I understand Fatic’s argument, he is asserting that the narcissist ought to be held responsible for a kind of self-education process that will ameliorate his or her emotional incompetence. Fatic writes,[W]e develop our morality through constant moral education and testing, which we receive both through socialization and through our own efforts later in life, as autonomous human beings. [End Page 173]We are thus responsible for what kind of moral actors we are and are becoming based on our way of life, and have a moral duty to improve our own moral senses and sensibilities by constantly working on the development of virtues.It seems to me that this line of reasoning assumes that all, or most, narcissists possess the capacity to seek and acquire this “moral education.” Perhaps so—but I am not sure Fatic has demonstrated this. It seems at least plausible that, in virtue of the adverse developmental and perhaps even neurological factors that may generate the narcissistic personality (Fan et al., 2011), some narcissists may lack the capacity to modify their psychopathology by means of “moral education.” This leads me to wonder whether Professor Fatic has adequately explored the very heterogeneous nature of narcissism. Indeed, Fatic’s thesis seems to point toward a kind of Platonic “essence” of narcissism, conveyed by his frequent allusion to “the narcissist”—one of whose defining or essential features is said to be a lack of empathy.But, as I will suggest presently, this is at best an oversimplification of narcissism as psychiatrists understand the term. Indeed, there are degrees and varieties of narcissism, differing in their capacity for empathy—which is itself a psychologically complex term. Recent research suggests that “narcissistic personality disorder symptomatology does not reflect a “narcissist” category but rather a continuum of narcissistic pathology” (Aslinger, Manuck, S. Pilkonis, Simms, & Wright, 2018).Furthermore, Professor Fatic’s thesis seems to view “moral responsibility” as a binary construct; i.e., either one possesses, or does not possess, full moral responsibility. But as I have argued elsewhere, moral responsibility may be viewed as lying along a continuum that reflects varying degrees of voluntariness for any given individual (Pies, 2007).Consequently, in my view, any valid assessment of the “the narcissist’s” moral responsibility must consider both the heterogeneity of narcissism and the non-binary (i.e., continuous) nature of moral responsibility.One way of conceptualizing this “two-track” model is... (shrink)

This special issue targets two topics in social cognition that appear to increasingly structure the nature of interdisciplinary discourse but are themselves not very well understood. These are the notions of empathy and embodiment. Both have a history rooted in phenomenological philosophy and both have found extensive application in contemporary interdisciplinary theories of social cognition, at times to establish claims that are arguably contrary to the ones made by the phenomenologists credited with giving us these notions. But this special (...) issue is not about defending any philosophical tradition or theoretical stance against all others. It is about understanding some central aspects of the nature of our experience of other people. (shrink)

The decline of empathy among health professional students, highlighted in the literature on health education, is a concern for medical educators. The evidence suggests that empathy decline is likely to stem more from structural problems in the healthcare system rather than from individual deficits of empathy. In this paper, we argue that a focus on direct empathy development is not effective and possibly detrimental to justice-oriented aims. Drawing on critical and narrative theory, we propose an (...) interpersonal approach to enhance empathic capacities that is centered on constructive and transformative interactions which integrates the participatory arts and involves both patients and health professional students. We describe and evaluate a program where patients and students create collaborative, original songs. Interviews and a focus group revealed interactional processes summarized in four themes: reciprocal relationships, interactions in the community, joint goal, and varied collaboration. There was a significant enhancement of positive attitudes about care post-program amongst health professional students. The interpersonal approach may be a preliminary framework for the medical humanities to shift away from a focus on direct empathy development and further towards participatory, co-creative, and justice-oriented approaches to enhance health and thereby empathic capabilities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MIMESIS AND EMPATHY IN HUMAN BIOLOGY William B. Hurlbut, M.D. Stanford University Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus. 19:18) The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, (...) thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew. 6:22-23) On the levels both ofcommon discourse and scientific description, the concept of empathy has found renewed popularity. Like a bridge that spans disparate realms, the idea of empathy can reconnect neurophysiology with psychology and social theory, and reestablish the grounds for a natural concept of ethics. Specifically, it can connect mimetic theory with a possible basis in biology, since empathy seems to represent an extension ofmimetic processes across the animal kingdom. For this reason, empathy/mimesis might be the grounds for a concept of ethics based on natural observation. Drawn from a German term Einfühlung, which means "feeling into," empathy carries the concept of "getting into the feelings of someone else" (deWaal 79). As a medium for the formation of meaningful bonds and William Hurlbut15 sensitive associations, the concept of empathy has taken on, in popular discourse, the somewhat sentimental notion ofsympathy. In the scientific description, however, empathy is seen as the highest human expression of a broader biological capacity for mimesis that seems inextricable from the very progress ofthe phylogenetic process. Among the earliest life forms, organisms drew information from one another to pattern and coordinate such basic biological functions as reproduction and nurture. But with the increased complexity of multicellular creatures, new means of communication arose, making possible more flexible adaptation and sociability. Gradually the direct chemical coordination suitable for collectives or swarms gave way to richer and more individual communication between organisms of higher forms of differentiation. The externally evident demarcation ofthe head region, with its organs ofsensory perception and communication, evolved in parallel with internal cerebral structures capable ofprocessing more complex impressions of the surrounding environment and coordinating greater freedom of motion. These vital powers of action and awareness in turn came to be governed, guided and integrated by an inner felt sense of need, goal or purpose. As Leon Kass says, "desire, not DNA, is the deepest principle of life" (Kass 1994, 48). This quality of "inwardness" is paralleled by an equally complex differentiation and integration of the external "look" ofthe animal. This "look," which is the literal translation of the Latin root of our word species, is the result of a genetically determined plan as important as any internal vital organ. It provides the unity of form that reveals or selectively conceals the inner life of the organism. It communicates and coordinates vital information regarding sexual and other social interactions. This upward process ofcomplex integrated organization of the "inner life" and the external action and presentation of selfreaches its fullest expression in the human form. Along with upright posture and its freeing ofthe hands as tools of "gnostic touching," comes a reordering of the senses and a highly flexible, furless canvas of selfpresentation we call the face (Kass 1985, 287). Upwards through mammalian evolution there is a progressive refinement of the structures of the face that facilitate active and increasingly subtle communication and penetration into the life of the other. With more than 30 finely tuned muscles of facial expression and vocal control, human beings are capable of a wide array of communicative 16 Mimesis andEmpathy expressions of emotions and intentions. Paul Ekman claims to have discerned more than 1 8 forms of smiling, each with a distinct meaning (66). With upright posture came a retraction ofthe snout and bilateral stereoscopic vision. Sight replaced smell as the prominent sense. Whereas smell required direct chemical contact, and sound gave formless information, sight gave a knowing and accurate encounter with the form and unity ofwholes. Sight allowed rapid perception ofobjects and actions at distant horizons. The detached beholding of sight allowed a deeper and more accurate apprehension of... (shrink)

The economic and cultural effects of sports films have attracted close attention from academia as well as the industry. In this paper, two sub-studies were conducted to explore the empathy mechanism performance of the interest-related community in sports films. In Study 1, the film Lead was applied as an example and used network text analysis to analyze the discourse characteristics and structure of its interest-related community to grasp the practice regularities. More specifically, the results in Study 1 show that (...) the theme feature, brand building, technological innovation, and spirit communication are the key factors that affect an individual's empathy for sports films. In Study 2, I conducted a survey to explore the empathy mechanism of sports films in the new age to provide a theoretical reference for the high-quality development of films. The above-mentioned four main factors have positive impacts on empathy: affective empathy and cognitive empathy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Empathy, Intimacy, Attention, and Meditation:An IntroductionSandra Costen KunzOn October 31, 2008, at the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies sponsored a well-attended afternoon session titled "Cognitive Science, Religious Practices, and Human Development: Buddhist and Christian Perspectives." This issue of Buddhist-Christian Studies contains three of the papers presented: Wesley J. Wildman's "Cognitive Error and Contemplative Practices: The Cultivation of Discernment in Mind and Heart," (...) Noreen Herzfeld's "'Your Cell Will Teach You Everything': Old Wisdom, Modern Science, and the Art of Attention," and Robert Aitken's "'Who Hears?' A Zen Buddhist Perspective."Each paper addresses in some way the connections between meditation and accurate perception. Wildman traces how cognitive errors rooted in innate perceptual biases give rise to mistaken beliefs and self-defeating behaviors. He highlights various ways religious practices both promote and ameliorate common cognitive errors. He claims some meditation practices are particularly effective in amelioration. While Wildman's paper gives detailed attention to various types of cognitive errors and ways to curb them, Herzfeld's and Aitken's papers have, in some ways, a broader focus. Both include material that suggests that meditation can clear, sharpen, and steady the overall perceptual lens though which humans interpret and construct all of their relationships. (Most contemporary neuroscience assumes that "what" is perceived is the relationship between the perceiver and the "object" of perception.) Herzfeld cites research suggesting that "empathy" is one socially beneficial characteristic of the "focused, close attention" developed by the solitary meditation practices of the Christian Desert Fathers. Aitken claims that Zen practice develops the attentiveness needed to perceive the "intimacy" between the perceiver and what is perceived.I suspect that the neurophysiology of attention behind Herzfeld's "empathy" and Aitken's "intimacy" is profoundly similar. Aitken, comparing Zen's emphasis on experiencing intimacy with Tibetan Buddhism's emphasis on developing compassion, points out that "Compassion by etymology is 'suffering with others'—the realization of social intimacy." "Compassion" is derived from Latin, while Herzfeld's [End Page 55] "empathy" is derived from Greek. Both express the "suffering with others" Aitken identifies with social intimacy.I will first review the ways each paper connects attention-based perception with meditation, and then consider more carefully the common ground shared by Herzfeld's "empathy" and Aitken's "intimacy," suggesting it may lie (in part) in ways socially activist Christian and Zen traditions have drawn upon the cosmological assumptions embedded in the core texts of Zen and Christian traditions. I will close by proposing a topic for further study based on Wildman's claim that religious traditions have fostered a wider variety of meditation practices that have broader benefits than secular meditation programs that teach "nonreligious" adaptations of religious practices.A Review of the Three PapersWildman teaches theology, philosophy, and religion and directs a PhD program in science, philosophy, and religion. His paper reviews seven types of cognitive errors grounded in neurologically based "cognitive and perceptual tendencies." While in life-threatening situations these tendencies can aid survival, they do so at the cost of day-to-day "mistaken beliefs" and "self-defeating behavior." Drawing on Thomas Gilovich's typology, Wildman reviews three types of errors based in pattern recognition skills gone awry, three types based in "social and motivational" factors, and then adds a seventh type: "self-defeating behaviors." He next reviews five potentials for detecting and ameliorating such errors and explores how three "techniques for mitigating cognitive error"—meditation practices, psychotherapy, and rigorous intellectual training—draw on these five potentials.Citing Jean Kristeller's multidomain model of meditation effects, Wildman notes the "significant empirical evidence" in "relevant research studies" that various meditation practices can mitigate a variety of cognitive errors. He reviews research that suggests that neuroplasticity (the potential for structural brain change that affects function) is a lifelong possibility, including studies by Richard Davidson, Antoine Lutz, and others involved in the Mind and Life Institute's efforts to demonstrate the brain-changing effects of Buddhist meditation. Wildman cautions: "The longitudinal studies of meditation needed to settle the question of whether meditation produces neurologically detectable changes in brain structure or function are only just now under way." But... (shrink)

Empathy is an important human ability associated with successful social interaction. It is currently unclear how to optimally measure individual differences in empathic processing. Although the Big Five model of personality is an effective model to explain individual differences in human experience and behavior, its relation to measures of empathy is currently not well understood. Therefore, the present study was designed to investigate the relationship between the Big Five personality concept and two commonly used measures for empathy (...) (Empathy Quotient (EQ), Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)) in four samples from China, Germany, Spain and the United States of America. This approach was designed to advance the way the Big Five personality model can be used to measure empathy. We found evidence of medium effect sizes for associations between personality and empathy, with agreeableness and conscientiousness as the most important predictors of affective and cognitive empathy (measured by the respective IRI subscales) as well as a for a one-dimensional empathy score (measured by the EQ). Empathy in a fictional context was most closely related to openness to experience while personal distress was first of all related to neuroticism. In terms of culture, we did not observe any distinct pattern concerning cultural differences. These results support the cross-cultural applicability of the Empathy Quotient and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and indicate structurally similar associations between personality and empathy across cultures. (shrink)

Sympathy refers to caring about another to some degree as one cares for oneself. Empathy refers to the capacity to put yourself in the position of others to see things from their point of view. Empathetic preferences compare being one person in one situation with being another person in another situation. John Harsanyi showed that mild assumptions imply that to have empathetic preferences is the same thing as having rates at which the utility units of different people are to (...) be traded off against one another. A consequence is that empathetic preferences have the same structure as Hamilton's rule, and so may have originated from strangers adopted into a clan being treated as surrogate kinfolk. But since empathetic preferences are cultural artifacts, they are subject to cultural evolution. The idea of an empathy equilibrium is introduced to capture the medium-run effects of such cultural evolution on empathetic preferences. (shrink)

This reflection on the phenomenological analysis of empathy according to Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein suggests a basic structure for getting to know and retain other consciousness within a single unitary sphere of consciousness. Empathy provides the access to an other that does not absorb the other’s stream of consciousness. Rather, empathy is the possibility for the intersubjective intention of a shared world of space and time. Unless the I inculcates other consciousness within itself, the I cannot (...) recognize itself as one among others. (shrink)

The arguments advanced in this paper are the following. Firstly, that just as Trevarthen’s three subjective/intersubjective levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary, mapped out different modes of access, so too response is similarly structured, from direct primordial responsiveness, to that informed by shared pragmatic concerns and narrative contexts, to that which demands the distantiation afforded by representation. Secondly, I propose that empathy is an essential mode of intentionality, integral to the primary level of subjectivity/intersubjectivity, which is crucial to our survival (...) as individuals and as a species. Further to this last point, I argue that empathy is not derived on the basis of intersubjectivity, nor does it merely disclose intersubjectivity, rather it is constitutive of intersubjectivity at the primary level. Empathy is a direct, irreducible intentionality separable in thought from the other primary intentional modes of perception, rationality, memory and imagination, but co-arising with these. In regard to the inter-personal level, the concrete relations with others, primary empathy is both the ground for the possibility of the secondary manifestations—pity, sympathy, perspective taking, etc., and motivates them. Thirdly, it is the movement in the core of subjectivity initially generated by shifting attention between the ‘I’ and ‘we’ perspectives and later ‘solidified’ through affect to become shifting identification, which opens up the intersubjective domain. So we can affirm that we are not only born into sociality but our sociality goes to the roots of our being as Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty have claimed. (shrink)

The primary aim of this essay is to investigate modalities of resistance to sexual violence. It begins from the observation that the nature of what we understand ourselves to be resisting—that is, how we define the scope, content, and causes of sexual violence—will have profound implications for how we are able to resist. I critically engage one model of resistance to sexual violence: feminist philosophical scholarship on self-defense, highlighting several shortcomings in how the feminist self-defense discourse inadvertently frames sexual violence. (...) Holding these criticisms in mind, I expand the landscape of resistance to sexual violence by considering the new possibilities that empathy might offer. The work of two contemporary women of color feminists—Roxane Gay and Tarana Burke—launches further exploration of empathy’s alternative modes of resistance. By focusing on empathy between survivors of sexual violence, we can expand our understanding of the possibilities of resistance by redistributing and broadening our attention in three main ways: from action to affect and attitude, from a spatially and temporally limited event to something more expansive, and from the individual through the interpersonal to the structural. (shrink)

The Covid‐19 crisis has accelerated a trend toward burnout in health care workers, making starkly clear that burnout is especially likely when providing health care is not only stressful and sad but emotionally alienating; in such situations, there is no mental space for clinicians to experience authentic clinical empathy. Engaged curiosity toward each patient is a source of meaning and connection for health care providers, and it protects against sympathetic distress and burnout. In a prolonged crisis like Covid‐19, clinicians (...) provide care out of a sense of duty, especially the duty of nonabandonment. We argue that when duty alone is relied on too heavily, with fear and frustration continually suppressed, the risk of burnout is dramatically increased. Even before Covid‐19, clinicians often worked under dehumanizing and unjust conditions, and rates of burnout were 50 percent for physicians and 33 percent for nurses. The Covid‐19 intensification of burnout can serve as a wake‐up call that the structure of health care needs to be improved if we are to prevent the loss of a whole generation of empathic clinicians. (shrink)

Vasily Sesemann’s aesthetics is a transcendental philosophy that seeks to answer the question of how an experience of beauty is possible. Sesemann insists that aesthetics should focus on the study of the aesthetic object itself, and through it go to the problematics of the act of perception and creativity. Sesemann states that not only the relationship between the work of art and the perceiver is important in order to understand the aesthetic object, but also the relationship between the work of (...) art and the creator. The aesthetic object in its sedimented form not only retains indications of the act of creation, but also makes demands on the perceiving subject. Aesthetic objects are sedimented passive structures that can be activated by the performative actions of the perceiver when she discovers the appropriate way of perception. Sesemann, like Moritz Geiger, claims that aesthetics is impossible without an analysis of feelings. He, like Geiger, recognizes the importance of empathy in aesthetic experience. However, Sesemann develops the concept of aesthetic empathy using Max Scheler’s arguments. Empathy is necessary, because the perceiver must be able to understand expressions. The aim of this paper is to analyse the phenomenological aspects of Vasily Sesemann’s aesthetics. Firstly, this paper analyzes the Sesemann’s phenomenology of aesthetic experience. Secondly, it shows that the analysis performed by Sesemann demonstrates why empathy plays a leading role in aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Bertolt Brecht’s poem “A Worker’s Speech to a Doctor” is frequently cited as a means to raise awareness among health workers of the health effects of living and working conditions. Less cited is his Call to Arms trilogy of poems, which calls for class-based action to transform the capitalist economic system that sickens and kills so many. In this article, we show how “A Worker’s Speech to a Doctor,” with its plea for empathy for the ill, contrasts with the (...) more activist and often militant tone of the Call to Arms trilogy: “Call to a Sick Communist,” “The Sick Communist’s Answer to the Comrades,” and “Call to the Doctors and Nurses.” We also show that, while “A Worker’s Speech to a Doctor” has been applied in the training of health workers, its accusatorial tone towards health workers’ complicity in the system the poem is critiquing risks alienating such workers. In contrast, the Call to Arms trilogy seeks common ground, inviting these same workers into the broader political and social fight against injustice. While we contend that the description of the sick worker as a “Communist” risks estranging these health workers, our analysis of the Call to Arms poems nevertheless indicates that their use can contribute to moving health workers’ educational discourse beyond a laudable but fleeting elicitation of empathy for the ill towards a structural critique and deeper systemic understanding in order to prompt action by health workers to reform or even replace the capitalist economic system that sickens and kills so many. (shrink)

This paper ventures an analysis of empathy along the lines of Heidegger’s ecstatic structure of being-in-the-world. Empathy is construed as a mode of attunement disclosing the existential weal and woe of others, and as such it serves a basic ethical function of opening up moral import, interest, and motivation. The following conclusions will be drawn: 1) empathy is a genuine possibility in human experience and should not be understood as a “subjective” phenomenon; 2) empathy is “natural” (...) in a way that can trump psychological egoism and open up alternatives to ethical egoism; 3) the role of empathy shows the limits of rationality in ethics and the structural defects in utilitarian and deontological theories; 4) findings in social psychology reinforce Heidegger’s phenomenology, and the latter can help surmount flawed assumptions in the former; 5) empathy is not sufficient for an ethics but it may be a necessary condition for human moral development. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of aesthetic experience from the perspective of the empathetic observer. It suggests that there are some experiences in which empathy and aesthetic experience are indistinguishable. The paper focusses on one of these experiences, namely that of narrative turning points. Empathy involves co-experiencing the situations of others and their emotional states, while aesthetics involves an intense experience from some distance. The two come together when emotions are shared between observer and observed and with some (...) distance. Narratives are one of these forms where sharing and distance can coexist. In particular, narrative turning points involve an intense recursive or oscillating reception structure: Observers who are absorbed by a specific moment imagine and experience alternative developments and alternative versions of the events or take more than one perspective of the moment (as in recognition scenes), thereby mentally looping back and forth. This paper discusses this structure along with its key notions: intensity, narrative empathy, aesthetic experience, empathy triggers, stage effects, and clarity. In diesem Aufsatz wird eine Theorie der Ästhetik ausgehend von der Perspektive des empathischen Beobachters entwickelt. Man könnte von einer Theorie der ästhetischen Anteilnahme sprechen. Die Kernthese des Aufsatzes besteht darin, dass es Erfahrungen gibt, in denen Empathie und ästhetische Erfahrung identisch sind. Eine dieser Erfahrungen steht im Zentrum der Argumentation, nämlich der narrative Wendepunkt. Empathie besteht im Mit-Erleben der Situation eines anderen inklusive der mit ihr verbundenen emotionalen Zustände; ästhetische Erfahrung involviert intensive innere Bewegung bei gleichzeitiger Distanz. Empathie und Ästhetik kommen darin überein, dass Emotionen trotz einer gewissen Distanz von Beobachter und Beobachtetem geteilt werden. Dazu kann es in Narrationen kommen. Narrative Wendepunkte beinhalten eine intensive und rekursive Rückkoppelung oder Oszillation, in denen Beobachter alternative Entwicklungen zu dem gegebenen Augenblick hinzudenken oder mehr als eine Perspektive einnehmen, wie in Wiedererkennungen, und insofern mental hin- und herspringen. Der Aufsatz diskutiert diese Struktur mit ihren Elementen wie Intensität, narrative Empathie, ästhetische Erfahrung, Empathie-Auslöser, Bühnen-Effekte und Klarheit. (shrink)

What is the basis of our capacity to act morally? This is a question that has been discussed for millennia, with philosophical debate typically distinguishing two sources of morality: reason and sentiment. This collection aims to shed light on whether the human capacity to feel for others really is central for morality and, if so, in what way. To tackle these questions, the authors discuss how fellow feeling is to be understood: its structure, content and empirical conditions. Also discussed are (...) the exact roles that relevant psychological features - specifically: empathy, sympathy and concern - may play within morality. The collection is unique in bringing together the key participants in the various discussions of the relation of fellow feeling to moral norms, moral concepts and moral agency. By integrating conceptually sophisticated and empirically informed perspectives, Forms of Fellow Feeling will appeal to readers from philosophy, psychology, sociology and cultural studies. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present study results concerning the structure of teacher Machiavellianism. Machiavellianism was researched extensively throughout the last 40 years as a personality feature comprising traits related to leadership manipulation tactics. Psychology describes Machiavellianism as a part of the universal model called “the dark triad of personality” alongside with subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy and low empathy. The teacher Machiavellianism model presented in this article, as opposed to the universal models, strongly accentuates the context-specific variables (...) related to the organization of life in a school, alongside with personality variables. To achieve a new insight into the mechanism of how teacher Machiavellianism is generated, structural equation modeling was used, which incorporates personality variables such as: self-effi cacy, disposition for gratitude, values, one’s personal resources, professional burnout, alongside context-specific variables like: organizational culture, work attitude, tenure and specialization in the tasks performed. Results of two studies are shown, discussing the empirical structure of teacher Machiavellianism components in relation to the initial theoretical model. (shrink)

I focus on empathy from an eidetic perspective, that provided by Edith Stein in her work On the Problem of Empathy and which I call eidetics of empathy. I suggest that the eidetics of empathy allows us to inquire efficaciously into the structure of empathy, and therefore into the relation between empathy on the one hand, and embodied personal identity and intersubjectivity on the other. I argue that the eidetics of empathy sheds light (...) on the complexity, heterogeneity and also fragility of the acts of empathy that we perform in our everyday life with respect to others, and provides us with the conceptual tools to address crucial questions such as: What is the specific and distinctive structure of empathy? What are the conditions of possibility of the performance of acts of empathy? Are there different fulfilment degrees of empathy? What role do living bodies play in the performance of acts of empathy? How is it possible to prevent and correct mistakes of empathy? I deal with these issues in making three points on the eidetics of empathy. My first point is that the eidetics of empathy allows us to understand empathy as one type of acts of perceiving others and their experiences directly and as a whole that is subject to variations of its parts – the limits of possible co-variations of its parts correspond to the essential structure of empathy. Secondly, I focus on the eidetic issue of the possible co-variations of parts of the empathy-type: the content and the degree of fulfilment and accomplishment of empathy acts, the layer of the person they address, the varieties of living beings with whom we can empathize. Thirdly, I argue that the eidetics of empathy exemplifies very well the ontologically qualitative issue of degrees of existence of any entity in relation to its eidetic paradigm, and it is a prime example of how phenomenological eidetics can be a qualitative ontology dealing with qualitative issues that are crucial in our everyday life. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to build a bridge between the fields of social cognition and social ontology. Drawing on both classical and more recent phenomenological studies, the article develops an account ofgroup-directed empathy. The first part of the article spells out the phenomenological notion of empathy and suggests certain conceptual distinctions vis-à-vis two different kinds of group. The second part of the paper applies these conceptual considerations to cases in which empathy is directed at groups and (...) elucidates the sense in which individuals can empathically target not only other individual’s emotions, but also shared emotions as such. Clarifying the structure of group-directed empathy, it will also be argued that the latter is, by default, more informative than individual-directed empathy. The third and last section of the paper is devoted to one central consequence of the proposed account: if it is possible to empathize with groups as such, and if empathy necessary builds on body-perception, then both ideas seem to be conducive to the claim that groups as such have a body. (shrink)

This paper deals with phenomenological distinctions concerning empathy with real persons and empathy with fictional characters. We will introduce both contemporary accounts of our perception of others and Edith Stein’s account of empathy. These theories will turn out to be fruitful in defending our main thesis, i.e. that the differences between empathy with real people and empathy with fictional characters are not structural but just qualitative. We will argue that in both cases empathy (...) is a direct act of perceiving others and their lived experience. However, stemming from Stein’s work, we will underline that empathy with real persons is in principio more vivid and intense than empathy with fictional characters. In order to identify similarities and differences between empathy de vivo and empathy in fiction, we will focus on the following issues: the quality of perception; the motivational context and the “life-world context”; the ontological status of persons vs. characters. (shrink)

Stepping into the other guy's shoes works best when you resemble him. After all, the procedure is to use yourself as a model: in goes hypothetical beliefs and desires, out comes hypothetical actions and revised beliefs and desires. If you are structurally analogous to the empathee, then accurate inputs generate accurate outputs-just as with any other simulation. The greater the degree of isomorphism, the more dependable and precise the results. This sensitivity to degrees of resemblance suggests that the method of (...) empathy works best for average people. The advantage of being a small but representative sample of the population will create a bootstrap effect. For as average people prosper, there will be more average descendants and so the degree of resemblance in subsequent generations will snowball. Each increment in like-mindedness further enhances the reliability and validity of mental simulation. With each circuit along the spiral, there is tighter and tighter bunching and hence further empowerment of empathy. The method is self-strengthening and eventually molds a population of hyper-similar individuals-which partly solves the problem of other minds. (shrink)

Empathy is a construct that is notoriously difficult to define. Murphy and colleagues ( 2022 ) argue for leaning into the construct's inherent fuzziness and reverting to what they term a classical definition informed by the observations of philosophers and clinicians: as a dynamic, “unfolding process of imaginatively experiencing the subjective consciousness of another person, sensing, understanding, and structuring the world as if one were that person.” Although consistent with some historical conceptualizations, this definition risks incorporating so many processes (...) it would make empathy difficult to operationalize or distinguish from any generally socially sensitive interaction. Defining empathy instead as the attempted representation, or simulation, of another's subjective internal experiences (whether sensory, affective, or cognitive) would increase its clarity and empirical utility. (shrink)

Empathy is a construct that is notoriously difficult to define. Murphy and colleagues ( 2022 ) argue for leaning into the construct's inherent fuzziness and reverting to what they term a classical definition informed by the observations of philosophers and clinicians: as a dynamic, “unfolding process of imaginatively experiencing the subjective consciousness of another person, sensing, understanding, and structuring the world as if one were that person.” Although consistent with some historical conceptualizations, this definition risks incorporating so many processes (...) it would make empathy difficult to operationalize or distinguish from any generally socially sensitive interaction. Defining empathy instead as the attempted representation, or simulation, of another's subjective internal experiences (whether sensory, affective, or cognitive) would increase its clarity and empirical utility. (shrink)