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A review by aegagrus
On the Problem of Empathy by
4.5
This early work of Stein's is an edited and translated version of the doctoral dissertation she completed under Edmund Husserl in 1916, which is to say that she was not writing for a general audience. My own familiarity with German phenomenology is limited, and while I could almost always follow Stein's general argument, I certainly misinterpreted or missed significant aspects of her commentary or reasoning.
Having said that, Stein's conception of empathy resonates extremely deeply with me. Stein argues that empathy cannot be understood as imitation, ideation, outward perception, or propositional knowledge. Instead, she considers empathy a sui generis "experience of being lead by the foreign experience". Her crucial insight is to analogize empathy to memory, expectation, and fantasy, experiences which are themselves "primordially given" while being "non-primordial in content". That is, these are states we directly experience, even though the content of our memories or expectations or fantasies is mediated, rather than primordial. Empathy, however, differs from these experiences by combining the primordial presence of a foreign experience with an awareness of separateness. Relevantly, this implies that empathy is not simply "putting ourselves in another's shoes", suppressing the consciousness of our separateness to imagine another's world. Stein writes that this may be a strategy to prompt or engender empathy, but it is not in itself empathy, which is distinct from mere imagination.
Stein saw her account of empathy as necessitating an account of personhood, and began to develop such an account, a theme she would return to in later work. Building on other phenomenologists, she describes the experience of personhood as an orientation around a physical and spiritual "zero-point of orientation". Applying this to empathy, she describes how empathy can be understood as becoming aware of (which is to say, being lead by) the presence of a foreign zero-point. While some might object to the mystical tone of this argument, to me it represents a useful framework for capturing what empathy is, how it can be developed and practiced, and how it can help us examine our own identities, all of which Stein discusses.
I spend a lot of time thinking about empathy, in part because I believe that many people I otherwise agree with ethically and politically have become convinced of its meaningful impossibility, a position I consider deeply misguided. While Stein's investigation of empathy is academic, and sometimes difficult to penetrate, I find her account of empathy is not only an appropriate rejoinder to many anti-empathetic arguments but also the best description I have yet encountered of empathy's presence in my own life. Stein's framework allows for fruitful further development of ideas related to the balance between physical embodiment and empathetic personhood, the relationship between empathy and storytelling, and the active force with which empathy "leads" us to some previously unrealized terminus.
All in all, these ideas will continue to be extremely important to me, even if I would love to find an annotated version for any future encounters with this text.
See also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14zv0c7cQmo
Having said that, Stein's conception of empathy resonates extremely deeply with me. Stein argues that empathy cannot be understood as imitation, ideation, outward perception, or propositional knowledge. Instead, she considers empathy a sui generis "experience of being lead by the foreign experience". Her crucial insight is to analogize empathy to memory, expectation, and fantasy, experiences which are themselves "primordially given" while being "non-primordial in content". That is, these are states we directly experience, even though the content of our memories or expectations or fantasies is mediated, rather than primordial. Empathy, however, differs from these experiences by combining the primordial presence of a foreign experience with an awareness of separateness. Relevantly, this implies that empathy is not simply "putting ourselves in another's shoes", suppressing the consciousness of our separateness to imagine another's world. Stein writes that this may be a strategy to prompt or engender empathy, but it is not in itself empathy, which is distinct from mere imagination.
Stein saw her account of empathy as necessitating an account of personhood, and began to develop such an account, a theme she would return to in later work. Building on other phenomenologists, she describes the experience of personhood as an orientation around a physical and spiritual "zero-point of orientation". Applying this to empathy, she describes how empathy can be understood as becoming aware of (which is to say, being lead by) the presence of a foreign zero-point. While some might object to the mystical tone of this argument, to me it represents a useful framework for capturing what empathy is, how it can be developed and practiced, and how it can help us examine our own identities, all of which Stein discusses.
I spend a lot of time thinking about empathy, in part because I believe that many people I otherwise agree with ethically and politically have become convinced of its meaningful impossibility, a position I consider deeply misguided. While Stein's investigation of empathy is academic, and sometimes difficult to penetrate, I find her account of empathy is not only an appropriate rejoinder to many anti-empathetic arguments but also the best description I have yet encountered of empathy's presence in my own life. Stein's framework allows for fruitful further development of ideas related to the balance between physical embodiment and empathetic personhood, the relationship between empathy and storytelling, and the active force with which empathy "leads" us to some previously unrealized terminus.
All in all, these ideas will continue to be extremely important to me, even if I would love to find an annotated version for any future encounters with this text.
See also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14zv0c7cQmo