Abstract
Empathy is a term used to denote our experience of connecting or feeling with an
Other. The term has been used both by psychologists and phenomenologists as
a supplement for our biological capacity to understand an Other. In this paper
I would like to challenge the possibility of such empathy. If empathy is employed
to mean that we know another person’s feelings, then I argue that this is
impossible. I argue that there is an equivocation in the use of the term ‘empathy’
which conditions the appropriation of the Other as we think that we know how
the Other feels. To claim that we do know an Other’s feelings – or any kind of their
intentional experience – means to appropriate their experience through our own.
I will first reveal the equivocal use of the term ‘empathy’ and, then, I will explore
Husserl’s use of the term. In Husserl, the understanding of an Other as empathy is
only partial. I shall conclude by reiterating a thesis from philosophy of existence
and feminist theory according to which to know another person comes from
creating a community with them and not because we have a biological structure
that can mirror each other’s feelings