Listening With Empathy

March 18, 2012

Call for Participation: Empathy Conference

Filed under: Altruism,Einfühlung,Emotions,Empathy,Ethics,Intentionality,Introspection,mindreading,Neurology,Other Minds,Philosophy,Psychoanalysis,psychotherapy,Self,sympathy — Lou Agosta @ 10:00 am
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What is empathy and what do we need it for?

At Södertörn University August 16-18, 2012, arranged by Centre for Studies in Practical Knowledge

The last ten years we have witnessed an exploding interest in the phenomenon of empathy. The wave of empathy studies is psychology, philosophy, psychiatry and other disciplines is linked to a parallel theoretical interest in the phenomena of feeling, selfhood, inter-subjectivity and morality, but also to practical attempts to understand and improve meetings between workers and clients in different professions, such as health care professions, teaching professions, psychotherapy or social work. To be empathic is increasingly viewed as a must for any person working in cooperation with and/or helping other people, although, as is also pointed out, the empathy must be professional in character to not produce destructive intimacy or burn out. The question of what “professional empathy” might be and how it is possible, or, indeed, fruitful to attain such ability is an interesting one in itself.

The theoretical underpinnings of empathy studies roughly divide it into two camps: the theory-theory approaches, and the simulation-theory approaches. The ideas that to have a theory of mind or an ability to put oneself in the shoes of another are necessary for empathy can serve either as philosophical clarifications of empathy or as taken for granted starting points of the empathy studies; in both cases, however, it is becoming increasingly evident by way of empirical results as well as conceptual clarification that the two approaches are relying on ideas of inter-subjective understanding which do not get the relationships between feeling, thought and action in empathy exactly right. To be empathic does not seem to consist in being able to think that the other is like me, or imagining what it is like to be him, in feeling or acting on his behalf. It is true that most adults that show empathy are able to think and imagine that the other is like me and what it would be like to be in his predicament, but this is neither necessary nor sufficient for being empathic. Rather these two abilities can reinforce and develop an empathic attitude which in its basic form is developed as a feeling in its own right.

To talk about affective and cognitive empathy as two parts or stages of the phenomenon does not solve the issue of how the two belong together, and it, indeed, seems to leave the account of action (acting in order to help the person one feels and understands is suffering) out of empathy altogether. Most suffering persons would surely prefer a fellow being who actually does something for them in contrast to just telling them that they understand and feel sorry for them. This issue connects the discussion of what empathy is to ethics. Is empathy a corner stone of morality, perhaps a necessary constituent in the makeup of every moral subject, or is it rather a bad substitute for ethical concepts such as respect and responsibility, allowing people to think and say that they really know what it is to be in the position of the other, and perhaps, also, to feel sorry for the other rather than doing anything about his suffering?

In the conference we want to gather academics and practitioners from different disciplines who try to move beyond (not beside) the theory-theory and the simulation-theory approaches to empathy. We want to address the question of what empathy is from an empirical as well as theoretical perspective, and we want to connect the issue to what role empathy serves in the development of human beings as well as the exercise of human based professions. Abstracts for presentations addressing these issues and not exceeding 600 words should be sent to the conference secretary martin.gunnarson@sh.se no later than the 15 of April (2012). Final program will be distributed in May 2012.

Fredrik Svenaeus and Martin Gunnarson

Keynote speakers:

Lou Agosta, Chicago School of Professional Psychology

Thomas Fuchs, University of Heidelberg

Jodi Halpern, University of California Berkeley

Matthew Ratcliffe, Durham University

Jan Slaby, Freie Universität Berlin

Speaking personally (and this is Lou Agosta speaking), I struggle with a misunderstanding about my work in empathy studies. When I say that I work on empathy that sometimes lands int he listening of the audience as if empathy were only over here with me and “over there” with the audience was a need for more or better or different empathy. This is misunderstanding. Empathy does NOT belong to any one individual. It lives in the relatedness between speaker and listener. It lives in the community. Empathy in any form or context causes expanded empathy in every form and context.

September 26, 2011

Empathy and Sympathy in the Context of Ethics

Filed under: Altruism,Einfühlung,Empathy,Ethics,Feeling,Psychoanalysis,Self,sympathy — Lou Agosta @ 12:14 pm
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This work is now available thanks to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Empathy and Sympathy in Ethics.
URL: http://www.iep.utm.edu/emp-symp/
This work is in effect an unpublished chapter (now published)  from my book Empathy in the Context of Philosophy (Palgrave 2010) in the refereed on-line journal (iep).  Several typos and “wordos” in this essay from last April 2011 have now been corrected (with my thanks to all those who called them to my attention).

An excerpt from the article’s abstract: After discussing the early uses of “sympathy” in David Hume and Adam ASmith, this article is organized historically. Two traditions are distinguished. The first is the Anglo-American tradition, and it extends from Hume and Smith to the twenty-first century work of Michael Slote. Stephen Darwall’s contribution is applied in engaging Hume and Smith. Finally, the interrelation of empathy, sympathy and altruism is explored in the work of John Rawls and Thomas Nagel.  The second tradition is the Continental one. It extends from the spirituality of Johann Herder to the phenomenological movement of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, and Edith Stein. The intentional analysis of empathy is directly relevant to the constitution of the social community in a broad, normative relationship with the “Other.” Empathy (Einfühlung) is sui generis an intentional (mental) act that starts out in the superstructure of intersubjectivity in Husserl and steadily migrates towards the foundation of community under the influence of Heidegger, Scheler, and Stein. The choice of which philosophers and thinkers to include is also determined by the contingent facts that those chosen are most likely to be encountered in contemporary debates about empathy, sympathy, and ethics. Stein, Husserl, and Heidegger are primarily epistemological, ontological, and post-onto-theological, and are in the background of any contemporary, formal engagement with ethical theories, which is the focus of the present article. Scheler turns his phenomenological intuition of essence (wesenschau) towards the moral sentiments; and his analysis of the diversity of sympathetic forms is a lasting contribution to the topic. Contemporary Continental thinkers such as Larry Hatab and Frederick Olafson associate empathy with Heideggerian Mitsein and Mitdasein (being in the world with others) as the existential foundation of ethics). The roles of Friedrich Nietzsche, the Holocaust, and the “Other,” especially in Emmanuel Levinas, are distinguishing marks of the ethical approach on the Continent. The article ends with a discussion of how the discipline of psychoanalysis contributes to the role of empathy.  Please see the above-cited URL for the complete article.
Please give me the benefit of your feedback on this work. Let me hear from you.

January 17, 2010

Kant’s Treasure Hard-to-Attain: Why Kant Scholars are Engaged by Folktales

Filed under: Altruism,Emotions,Ethics,Hermeneutics,Philosophy,Taste (aesthetic) — Lou Agosta @ 10:33 pm
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In the Anthropology (1797: §16; 33; 154), Kant calls out “The thrill that comes over us at the mere idea of the sublime and the gooseflesh [grüseln] with which fairy tales put children to bed late at night are vital sensations; they permeate the body so far as there is life in it.” The point is, anyone lacking such an experience, as depicted in the Märchen, is hardly alive, is an emotional zombie. But this discussion goes beyond the one explicit example in Kant to the issue of the highest good, a moral idea of which we have no decisive experience. In our human lives, rarely is virtue rewarded, and when such a thing happens it is as often by accident or a happy good fortune, and nothing like a strict causal connection. Still, for those, like Kant,relying on a healthy human understanding, who are persuaded that the world is governed by rules and is a cosmos, not a radom chaos, the underling reason (rationality) urges that virtue should be rewarded. According to Kant (1785: 21/404): ‘But the most remarkable thing about ordinary reason in its practical concern is that it may have as much hope as any philosopher of hitting the mark. In fact, it is almost more certain to do so than the philospoher, because he has no principle which the common understanding lacks, while his judgement is easily confused by a mass of irrelevant considerations…’  Textual evidence is available that Kant regarded the dialectical concept of the highest good as the possession of the ordinary person’s reason (1790, II: 128-9;458). Indeed,  in this case, saying that the ordinary person contradicts himself in confusion is not necessarily a reproach from which the philosopher escapes. The short answer is that Kant scholars are engaged by folktales because certain of the latter are sourced in aesthetic ideas that depict the highest good, which is nowhere else exemplified in our human experience. Taking a step outside the explicit framework of Kant’s practical philosophy is a radical move, but, I submit, a necessary one if we are to make sense of Kant’s appeal to untutored reason.  The details are complex and require further argument – KantStudienKantsTreasureHardToAttainAgosta

November 16, 2009

The Development of Sympathy in Hume’s Thinking: From a ‘Delicacy of Sympathy’ [i.e., Empathy] to a Taste

Filed under: Empathy,Ethics,Introspection,Philosophy,sympathy,Taste (aesthetic) — Lou Agosta @ 8:21 pm
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Draft article: DraftHumeSympathy20091116Agosta 

There is a long history in British empiricist philosophy that engages “sympathy.” There are at least four meanings of “sympathy” in the writings of David Hume, dating to his a Treatise on Human Nature (1739). In today’s post I want to qualify the statement that “sympathy” in Hume means what today we call “empathy.” In selected quotations where Hume conjoins the sympathetic communications of sentiments with the idea of an other individual, “sympathy” means “empathy.” In particular, “delicate sympathy” would capture those features of fine-grained distinction that are characteristic of empathy, but the possibility remains undeveloped by Hume. In the development of Hume’s philosophical activity, “delicacy of sympathy” is swallowed up conceptually by “delicacy of taste.” In subsequent passages (and here is the qualification), “sympathy” means “the power of suggestion” or “emotional contagion” (see above “contagious”; T 3.3.3.5; SBN 604-5). These different, over-lapping, not entirely consistent uses of “sympathy” exist side-by-side in the Treatise (1739) as demonstrated by the textual evidence cited in the attachment. Furthermore, “sympathy” is not a static concept in Hume; but undergoes a dynamic development. By the time of the Enquiry (1751), the push down of “sympathy” behind compassion and taste is complete. “Sympathy” migrates in the direction of compassion as it takes on the content of qualities useful to mankind as benevolence, leaving taste to dominate the field of fine-grained distinctions in the communicability of feelings between persons (“friends”) as well as in the appreciation of beauty.  This former point is essential. Taste gives us an enjoyment of the qualities of the characters of persons in conversation, humor, and friendship that is a super-set of what empathy does with its fine-grained distinctions in accessing the experiences of other persons. The prospect of “delicacy of sympathy” in the social realm of human interrelations is left without further development by Hume. Instead, Hume presents taste as the capacity to discriminate “particular feelings,” which are produced by beauty and deformity. [1] This special capacity to feel is dependent on the ability of our sensory organs to perceive the fine details of a composition. A detailed engagement with these distinctions is attached above.  Please give me the benefit of your comments, feedback, criticisms, impertinent remarks – you get the idea. All signed, authenticated contributions given full credit in the footnotes if this rough draft is ever formally published.

As noted, Hume has at least four distinct meanings of “sympathy” that he uses opportunistically. First, “sympathy” functions in the communicability of affect; next it encompasses what is often described as “emotional contagion,” the communicability of affect without the inclusion of the idea of the other individual as its source; thirdly, it encompasses the power of suggestion; and, finally, it comes to include an element of benevolence, approaching the meaning of “compassion” that we hear in it today. How this series of transformations unfolds is the topic of this story as the meaning of “sympathy” evolves from a communicability of affect to the (re)active sentiment of compassion with which we regard it today. The crucial difference between sympathy in the strict sense and emotional contagion is delimited in terms of a double representation. The opportunity for Hume was to develop the parallel between a “delicacy of taste” and a “delicacy of sympathy,” the latter capturing what we moderns mean by “empathy.” This opportunity is lost, however, and the “delicate” aspects of sympathy end up being gathered together with “delicacy of taste” and buried over in the discussion of aesthetics rather than as a free standing topic in (moral) psychology.

[1] David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste” (1757), in Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965): 11.

November 4, 2009

A Model Interdisciplinary Curriculum on Empathy

Filed under: Altruism,Curriculum (empathy),Einfühlung,Empathy,Ethics,Hermeneutics,Intentionality — Lou Agosta @ 10:10 am
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Please find a comprehensive bibliography attached – ComprehensiveBibliographyEmpathyCurriculumempathyModelCurriculum20080810 

For a follow up conversation on how Lou Agosta, Ph.D. can deliver this curriculum to your department and students or how he can train you to do so, please contact LAgosta@acm.org. Each of the bubbles in the graphic expands or contracts to fit the available time and varies from a single, comprehensive lecture in a multiweek series to an entire course. Comments are feedback are welcome regarding this single graphic, high level overview. How can I be of service? Let me hear from you!

November 2, 2009

Empathy and Altruism: From Possibility to Implementation

Filed under: Altruism,Empathy,Ethics,Hermeneutics,Philosophy — Lou Agosta @ 3:32 pm
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The argument of today’s conversation is that empathy is required in order to get from the possibility of altruism to its implementation. A logical space is available to establish a link between empathy and the austere ethics of duty (“deontology”). This is needed to avoid sinking into the morass of moral sentiments (shame, guilt, benevolence, compassion), which are powerful motivators of behavior but logically dubious foundations of it. The interest of the others in the world and my own interest are in balance. It is not that the world comes ahead of my own – which, arguably, would look like utilitarianism and the greatest good of the greatest number. We are not looking at consequences. Rather we are looking formally and logically at the priority of my own interest over against that of the world, and it does not have any more priority. But it does not necessarily have any less, for the majority of the world would not be justified in inflicting pain on me even if it resulted in their greater good. “Act so as to reduce the pain in the world.” Yes, I should so act. But how do I know the other is in pain? In any particular situation, altruism without empathy is like a concept without intuition. Empathy provides the implementation of the possibility of altruism. How do I know the other is in pain on this particular, objective occasion? The answer is empathy. Please give me the benefit of your comments, feedback, impertinent remarks, criticisms, and penetrating feedback on the attached: CH07EmpathyandAltruism20081218 All signed and authenticated comments will be credited in the subsequent publication (assuming there is one!).

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