Edith Stein and the Contemporary Psychological Study of Empathy
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Abstract
Illuminated by the writings of Edith Stein (1917/1989), this paper presents a model of empathy as a very particular intersubjective understanding. This is commonly a view absent from psychology literature. For Stein, empathy is the experience of experientially and directly knowing another person’s experience, as it unfolds in the present, together with the awareness of the ‘otherness’ of that experience. It can be conceptually distinguished, in terms of process and experience, from current models that propose that empathic understandings are ‘intellectual’ experiences (e.g., explicit simulation theories, perspective-taking) or sympathetic experiences (e.g., implicit simulation theories, contagion-related theories). As such, she provides an additional or alternative aspect to understanding other people’s experiences. Our paper provides a summary of Stein’s key analytic claims about three key facets of empathy (directly perceiving, experientially projecting, and interpretatively mentalizing). Her views are discussed in the light of debates relevant for contemporary psychology and social cognition.
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8)
Thompson (2001) offers a similar reading by explaining this level as a kind of projection. This supports our reading, even though, explicitly, in her text, Stein never connects empathic projections, discussed at length, with the second level as put forward in the beginning of the dissertation. Though, after careful analysis and consideration, this is the most reasonable and probable reading of her ideas for this level.
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9)
Chapter three of Meneses (2011) followed on the layout and content of this paper and, therefore, some similarity between these works may be observed.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 2357 | 483 | 37 |
| Full Text Views | 311 | 40 | 8 |
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Edith Stein and the Contemporary Psychological Study of Empathy
In: Journal of Phenomenological PsychologySearch for other papers by Rita W. Meneses in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Michael Larkin in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Illuminated by the writings of Edith Stein (1917/1989), this paper presents a model of empathy as a very particular intersubjective understanding. This is commonly a view absent from psychology literature. For Stein, empathy is the experience of experientially and directly knowing another person’s experience, as it unfolds in the present, together with the awareness of the ‘otherness’ of that experience. It can be conceptually distinguished, in terms of process and experience, from current models that propose that empathic understandings are ‘intellectual’ experiences (e.g., explicit simulation theories, perspective-taking) or sympathetic experiences (e.g., implicit simulation theories, contagion-related theories). As such, she provides an additional or alternative aspect to understanding other people’s experiences. Our paper provides a summary of Stein’s key analytic claims about three key facets of empathy (directly perceiving, experientially projecting, and interpretatively mentalizing). Her views are discussed in the light of debates relevant for contemporary psychology and social cognition.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 2357 | 483 | 37 |
| Full Text Views | 311 | 40 | 8 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 313 | 73 | 16 |