The Direct-Perception Model of Empathy: a Critique
Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2 (3):519-540 (2011)
| Abstract | This paper assesses the so-called “direct-perception” model of empathy. This model draws much of its inspiration from the Phenomenological tradition: it is offered as an account free from the assumption that most, if not all, of another’s psychological states and experiences are unobservable and that one’s understanding of another’s psychological states and experiences are based on inferential processes. Advocates of this model also reject the simulation-based approach to empathy. I first argue that most of their criticisms miss their target because they are directed against the simulation-based approach to mindreading. Advocates of this model further subscribe to an expressivist conception of human behavior and assume that some of an individual’s psychological states (e.g. her goals and emotions, not her beliefs) can be directly perceived in the individual’s expressive behavior. I argue that advocates of the direct-perception model face the following dilemma: either they embrace behaviorism or else they must recognize that one could not understand another’s goal or emotion from her behavior alone without making contextual assumptions. Finally, advocates of the direct-perception model endorse the narrative competency hypothesis, according to which the ability to ascribe beliefs to another is grounded in the ability to understand narratives. I argue that this hypothesis is hard to reconcile with recent results in developmental psychology showing that preverbal human infants seem able to ascribe false beliefs to others | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJay Schulkin (2001). Psychobiological Basis of Empathy. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (1):46-47.
Pierre Jacob (2012). Sharing and Ascribing Goals. Mind and Language 27 (2):200-227.
Dan Zahavi (2012). Basic Empathy and Complex Empathy. Emotion Review 4 (1):81-82.
Jack C. Lyons (2009). Perception and Virtue Reliabilism. Acta Analytica 24 (4):249-261.
Mitchell Herschbach (2008). Folk Psychological and Phenomenological Accounts of Social Perception. Philosophical Explorations 11 (3):223 – 235.
Dorothy M. Owens (1999). Hospitality to Strangers: Empathy and the Physician-Patient Relationship. OUP USA.
Douglas James McDermid (2001). What is Direct Perceptual Knowledge? A Fivefold Confusion. Grazer Philosophische Studien 62 (1):1-16.
Sydney Shoemaker (1994). The Phenomenal Character of Experience. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (2).
Linda Mealey & Stuart Kinner (2001). The Perception-Action Model of Empathy and Psychopathic “Cold-Heartedness”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (1):42-43.
Douglas J. McDermid (2001). What is Direct Perceptual Knowledge? A Fivefold Confusion. Grazer Philosophische Studien 62 (1):1-16.
Hanne De Jaegher (2009). Social Understanding Through Direct Perception? Yes, by Interacting. Consciousness & Cognition 18 (2):535-542.
Robert Schwartz (1996). Directed Perception. Philosophical Psychology 9 (1):81-91.
Alvin I. Goldman & Chandra S. Sripada (2005). Simulationist Models of Face-Based Emotion Recognition. Cognition 94 (3):193-213.
Rebecca Copenhaver (2010). Thomas Reid on Acquired Perception. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (3):285-312.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-08-06Total downloads72 ( #11,673 of 549,088 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,722 of 549,088 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
