Listening With Empathy

Join me in a conversation about empathy and neurology.  The short version is that the individual experiences empathy and the light goes on! Today’s inquiry explores the philosophical significance for empathy of the research on the mirror neurons, the related shared manifold hypothesis, micro expressions and the investigations that have grown up around them. Three of the consequences will be explicitly addressed. Evidence that such a capacity as empathy exists at all will be provided, but in the ironic spirit of proofs of common sense. In turn, the inquiry into existence will lead to the rehabilitation of introspection as a method of investigation proper to empathy, albeit with certain conditions and qualifications. Finally, the scope and limits of the shared manifold hypothesis, which conceptually implements the functional and causative role of mirror neurons, will be engaged. The result will be that the shared manifold is less transparent the more that it is shared. A bigger magnet will not make a difference.  [Please see chphilsignifempathyneurology20081118 ]