Abstract
<1> All controversy over empathy is based on the implied assumption that foreign subjects and their experience are given to us. Thinkers deal with the circumstances of the occurrence, the effects, and the legitimacy of this givenness. But the most immediate undertaking is to consider the phenomenon of givenness in and by itself and to investigate its essence. We shall do this in the setting of the “phenomenological reduction.”
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Notes
I cannot hope in a few short words to make the goal and method of phenomenology completely clear to anyone who is not familiar with it, but must refer all questions arising to Husserl’s basic work, the “Ideen.”
The use of the term “primordiality” for the act side of experience may attract attention. I employ it because I believe that it has the same character as one attributes to its correlate. I intentionally suppress my usual expression, “actual experience”, because I need it for another phenomenon and wish to avoid equivocation. (This other phenomenon is “act” in the specific sense of experience in the form of “cogito,” of “being-turned-toward.”)
Of course, going over past experiences usually is an “abrégé” of the original course of experience. (In a few minutes I can recapitulate the events of years.) This phenomenon itself merits an investigation of its own.
On the concept of neutralization, cf. Husserl’s “Ideen,” p. 222 ff.
It has been stressed repeatedly that the “objectification” of the empathized experience, in contrast with my own experience, is a part of the interpretation of foreign experience, for example, by Dessoir (Beiträge, p. 477). On the other hand, when Lange (Wesen der Kunst, p. 139 ff.) distinguishes between the “subjective illusion of motion,” or the motion we intend to perform when faced with an object, and the “object,” or the motion we ascribe to the object (perhaps a presented horseman), these are not two independent viewpoints on which completely opposing theories could be built (an aesthetic of empathy and one of illusion) but are the two phases or forms in which empathy can be accomplished as we have described them.
Groethuysen has designated such feeling related to the feelings of others as “fellow feeling” (Das Mitgefühl, p. 233). Our use of “fellow feeling,” not directed toward foreign feelings but toward their correlate, must be strictly distinguished from his usage. In fellow feeling I am not joyful over the joy of the other but over that over which he is joyful.
Über Annahmen, p. 233 ff.
Scheler interprets the understanding of in-(or, as he says, after-) feeling [empathy] and fellow feeling in the same way. “Sympathiegefühle,” p. 4 f.
Scheler clearly emphasizes the phenomenon that different people can have strictly the same feeling (Sympathiegefühle, p. 9 and 31) and stresses that the various subjects are thereby retained. However, he does not consider that the unified act does not have the plurality of the individuals for its subject, but a higher unity based on them.
Das Wesen und die Bedeutung der Einfühlung, p. 33 ff.
Zur psychologischen Analyse der ästhetischen Anschauung.
Genetic-psychological investigation here does not mean an investigation of the developmental stages of the psychic individual. Rather, the stages of psychic development (the types of child, youth, etc.) are included in descriptive psychology. To us genetic psychology and psychology which explains causally are synonymous. On the orientation of this psychology to the concept of cause in exact natural science, cf. p. 56 in the following [original pagination]. We distinguish between the two questions: (1) What psychological mechanism functions in the experience of empathy? (2) How has the individual acquired this mechanism in the course of his development? In the genetic theories under discussion this distinction is not always strictly made.
Scheler criticizes the theory of imitation (Sympathiegefühle, p. 6 ff.) He takes exception to it as follows: (1) Imitation presupposes a grasping of expression as expression, exactly what it is to explain. (2) We also understand expressions that we cannot imitate, for example, the expressive movements of animals. (3) We grasp the inadequacy of an expression, an impossibility if the grasping occurred by an imitation of the expression alone. (4) We also understand experiences unfamiliar to us from our own earlier experience (for example, mortal terror). This would be impossible if understanding were the reproduction of our own earlier experiences aroused by imitation. These are all objections difficult to refute.
For a detailed analysis of the contagion of feeling, see Scheler (Sympathiegefühle, p. 11 ff.). The only divergence from our view is the contention that the contagion of feeling presupposes no knowledge of the foreign experience at all.
A discussion of “mass suggestion” could investigate which of these two [empathy or sympathy] is present and to what extent.
Scheler raises the point that, in contrast with after-feeling (our empathy), sympathy can be based on a delay in my own reproduced experiences that prevents genuine sympathy from prevailing. (Sympathiegefühle, p. 24 f.)
Biese exaggerates in the opposite direction by asserting, “All associations rest on our ability and compulsion to relate everything to us men…, to suit the object to ourselves in body and soul.” (Das Assoziationsprinzip und der Anthropomorphismus in der Ästhetik.)
On the intelligibility of expressions see Part III of this work, Section 7, letter 1.
Cf. Part III, p. 65 [original pagination].
“Symbolbegriff…,” p. 76 ff.
Die ästhetische Illusion und ihre psychologische Begründung, p. 10 ff.
For example, one of the objections raised against this theory is that it says nothing of wherein this analogy of our own to the foreign body shall consist, the basis of the inference. Only in Fechner do I find a serious attempt to ascertain this. “Zur Seelenfrage,” p. 49f. and p. 63.
On the sense in which analogies are justified, see Part III, p. 66 [original pagination].
See especially the appendix to “Sympathiegefühle.”
Cf. Sympathiegefühle, p. 124 ff., Idole, p. 31.
Idole, p. 52.
Idele, p. 42 ff.
Cf. Idole, p. 153.
“Ressentiment,” p. 42 f.
“Idole,” p. 63, 118 ff.
“Idole,” p. 114 f.
Idole, p. 45 ff., Philos, d. Lebens, p. 173 and 215. A discussion here of his concept of act, which apparently does not coincide with Husserl’s would take us too far.
Idole, p. 71 f. (note).
On the nature of reflection, see particularly “Ideen,” p. 72 ff.
Idole, p. 112 f.
I also think that Scheler is inexact when he sometimes calls the false estimation of my experience and of myself, that can be based on this deception, a deception of perception.
There are differences here, of course. The non-actually perceived feeling, in contrast with the feeling not perceived, certainly is perceived and is an object. On the contrary, feeling has the privilege of remaining conscious in a certain manner even when it is not perceived or grasped, so that one “is aware of” his feelings. Geiger has precisely analyzed this special manner in which feelings exist in “Bewusstsein von Gefühlen,” p. 152 ff.
Idole, p. 137 ff.
Idole, p. 144 ff.
Idole, p. 130 f.
Idole, p. 75.
Bergson orients himself to this duration of experiences by saying that the past is preserved. All that we experienced endures on into the present, even if only a part of it be currently conscious. (Evolution créatrice, p. 5)
These grades of simple noticing, qualitative noticing, and analyzing observation only apply to inner perception and not to reflection, as Geiger says in the work cited.
Scheler himself stresses the representational character of grasped foreign experiences (Sympathiegefühle, p. 5), but does not concern himself with it further and does not return to it at the crucial point (in the appendix).
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Stein, E. (1964). The Essence of Acts of Empathy. In: On the Problem of Empathy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-5546-7_2
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