Husserl: Intersubjectivity, Misc

The behavior of an organism, according to Merleau-Ponty, lays out a milieu through which significant phenomena of varying degrees of optimality elicit adjustment. This leads to the dialectical co-emergence of milieu and aptitude that is both the product and the condition of life. What is present as a norm soliciting optimization is species-specific, but it also depends on the needs of the organism and its prior experience. Although a rich entry point into biological phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty’s work does not adequately describe (...) milieu–aptitude development in interactions between organisms, but it can be assisted through employing Husserl’s three levels of analysis identified by Steinbock, extending all three modes into the biological world. In particular, generative analyses can address inter-organismal behavioral structures slighted in Merleau-Ponty’s work. Generative phenomenology is concerned with the cultural, historical, and intersubjective constitution of human experience and is generally thought to be solely of value in examining the structure of human phenomenality. However, the possibility of human generativity presupposes structures produced widely in the biological world. Ecological, embryogenic, and evolutionary development already depend on protocultural and historical processes creating and created through intercorporeal interaction. After developing the concept of biological generativity through a consideration of plant ecology, mammalian embryology, and insect mimicry, I conclude with implications for humans, who can participate in biological generativity not merely phenomenally, but phenomenologically. (shrink)

In the this article I try to show how an interaction between the phenomenological works of Enzo Paci and of Bernhard Waldenfels can lead to some interesting results concerning Husserl's search for a rigorous and apodictic ground for knowledge and for a universal science which involves the whole life of consciousness also in its intersubjective aspects. I do not try to compare the two thinkers, nor to assess the correctness of their interpretation of Husserl's thought, but to show through their (...) thoughts some remarks concerning problems which are still crucial in the philosophical and phenomenological debate. Paci's insistence on the practical and existential value of phenomenological reflection leads to constantly have to face the question “what is to be done?”, demanding in this way for an answering to the provocation of the Alien so well analysed by Waldenfels. Through such a process a common constitution does preserve from the lost of diversity and, at the same time, does not escape responsibility. (shrink)

En este documento, debato ampliamente sobre la fenomenología de la intersubjetividad presentada por Husserl y por Sartre, centrándome en los conceptos de empatía y ser-para-otros. Contrariamente a la opinión más común, rechazo la objeción de solipsista dirigida a Husserl y sostengo que es la descripción de Sartre la que da lugar a esa objeción, en la medida en que él describe la conciencia de otro sujeto como una forma de autoconocimiento como un "objeto" (para "otros"). Termino señalando algunas directrices para (...) convertir el análisis de Husserl de la aprehensión de otros sujetos en una fenomenología de la comunicación del más alto nivel. (shrink)

This dissertation evaluates the contributions of Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein, and Emmanuel Levinas to a phenomenological description of empathy. Einfuhlung was introduced by Husserl in terms of analogical apperception and intersubjective transcendental constitution . ;Max Scheler described empathy in contrasting terms, noting the primary givenness of the emotions over cognition, which Husserl had stressed. In 1916, Edith Stein wrote On the Problem of Empathy, in which she retained Husserl's analogical model but modified it with Scheler's notion of the person as (...) ordor amoris. Co-emphasizing its ethical and epistemological importance, Stein's "reciprocal model" describes the constitution of the person in emotional experiences. She modified Husserl's model of transcendental monadology with Scheler's account that others are given prior to individuation. Edith Stein served as Husserl's assistant from 1916--1918 and edited his notes on intersubjectivity and social constitution theory. Her description of the relation between individual and community is developed in Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, published in Husserl's 1922 Jahrbuch. ;Martin Heidegger rejected Husserl's description of empathy in Being and Time. Arguing that the "They" [ das Man] is always already given in fallen Dasein's everydayness, Heidegger laid the groundwork for a more radical exposition of the Other than Husserl's cognitive and analogical analysis would allow, one that reduced empathy to a derivative or founded status. Emmanuel Levinas argues that Husserl's "arrow of intentionality" is not simply founded but in need of reversal. Whether the Other is constituted through analogical apperception or co-constituted in an emotive relationship , the result manifests an economy of sameness in terms of the ego-origin of constitution. As a foreign signification, the face speaks and commands me to respond. The infinite alterity of the wholly Other is the origin of ethics. ;Jacques Derrida notes that only a transcendental symmetry in the order of knowledge makes possible ethical asymmetry. Derrida's notion of "empathic antipathy" is similar to Edith Stein's notion of "solidarity," in that the genuinely moral significance of empathy lies in its other-directedness. The analogical imagination, of extreme importance to St. Thomas Aquinas, is thus vindicated by the phenomenology of empathy. (shrink)

The fifth and final meditation of Edmund Hussefl's Cartesian Meditations has been the subject of a great deal of attention over the years. A number of commentators have focused on Husserl's treatment of the experience of other subjects there and the majority of them have been quite critical. What is not often remarked on, however, is that Husserl's initial intention at least in the Fifth Meditation is to address another topic, one that he evidently considers to be of even greater (...) urgency. 1 This topic comprises what Husserl calls "transcendental problems pertaining to the Objective WorM. ''2 This topic is an urgent one, he tells us, because unless such problems can be solved his phenomenology remains open to "what may seem to be a grave objection. ''. (shrink)

This work attempts to solve a central problem facing Husserl's phenomenology. The phenomenologist implements the transcendental epoche and abstains from considering whether the objects of mental processes actually exist in order to reach a clearer understanding of the nature of these processes. Among the objects of consciousness, however, are other conscious subjects. Extending the epoche to cover these other subjects appears to raise two serious problems. How can phenomenology then explain our experience of other conscious subjects as distinct from inanimate (...) objects, since what sets the former off from the latter, the other's mind or consciousness, cannot be directly experienced, and that perceptual objects are experienced as public or there for all perceiving subjects? ;In my first chapter I analyze the solution that Husserl offered to this problem in his Cartesian Meditations and judge that it should be rejected on the basis of certain objections commentators have made against it. In the second chapter I turn to Husserl's last work, the Crisis, where, I argue, he began to take a new approach to the issue of intersubjectivity. His stress on the role of intersubjectivity in the generation of meaning, his explicit rejection of mind-body dualism and his focus on the intentionality of others instead of their physical presence in space in the Crisis represents a significant departure from his position in the Cartesian Meditations. ;The new direction that Husserl took in the Crisis provides a rationale for my subsequent attempt to craft an alternative solution to the problem. In my third chapter I extend Husserl's idea of how kinaesthesis or bodily movement is directed towards and responsive to objects in the world in order to explain how we distinguish other subjects from inanimate objects. In the fourth chapter I argue that the function of intersubjective meanings in perception accounts for the possibility of the publicity of objects of perception. Then I show how Husserl's concept of the perceptual horizon of an object already captures the sense that one has that objects can be perceived by other subjects besides oneself. (shrink)

Alors que les phénoménologues prétendent avoir dépassé le solipsisme, la plupart n’ont en fait que repousser les frontières de l’intersubjectivité des individus humains aux individus des autres espèces. Pourtant, Husserl reconnaît l’existence d’une intersubjectivité interspécifique, c’est-à-dire d’une intersubjectivité dépassant les limites de l’espèce. Il va même jusqu’à affirmer qu’on comprend parfois mieux un animal familier qu’un humain étranger. Toutefois, même s’il admet que plusieurs animaux sont capables d’une vie de conscience subjective et qu’ils vivent dans un monde de sens partagé, (...) il ne les considère pas comme des « personnes » selon sa conception exigeante de la « personne » associée à la rationalité, à la maturité, la normalité et l’historicité. Reste qu’être une « personne », en son sens le plus primordial – et plus décisif puisque c’est celui sur lequel s’édifient des conceptions politiques,juridiques et éthiques – signifie simplement être le sujet d’un monde environnant, d’un monde commun et d’une existence biographique. Distinguer deux sens du concept de personne permet de reconnaître que les animaux ont part à la transcendantalité, qu’ils ne sont pas simplement en vie mais ont une vie à la fois biographique et communautaire, même s’ils ne sont pas en mesure de réfléchir à cette vie de conscience qui est la leur pour considérer leur place dans l’enchaînement des générations et pour adopter ce que Husserl appelle une « vocation ». La phénoménologie husserlienne des anomalies permet ainsi de reconnaître que les animaux ressortissent bien de la figure d’autrui, qu’ils sont des alter ego sujets d’une vie de conscience, et qu’à ce titre ils participent pleinement, comme les enfants, les fous et les étrangers, à la co-constitution du monde de l’esprit. (shrink)

While phenomenologists claim to have overcome solipsism, most have not pushed beyond the boundaries of individual human intersubjectivity to that of individuals of other species. Yet Husserl recognizes the existence of an interspecific intersubjectivity, an intersubjectivity beyond the limits of the species. He even goes so far as to say that we sometimes understand a companion animal better than a foreign human. However, even if he admits that many animals are capable of a life of subjective consciousness and live in (...) a world of shared meaning, he does not consider them to be “persons” according to his strict conception that associates personhood with rationality, maturity, normality and historicity. Being a “person” in its most primordial sense – and its most decisive as the basis for political, legal and ethical conceptions – simply means being the subject of a surrounding world, of a common world and a biographical existence. Distinguishing two meanings of the concept of person allows us to recognize that animals share transcendentality; they are not simply alive but have a life that is both biographical and communal, even if they are not able to reflect on their own conscious life in order to consider their place in the chain of generations and to adopt what Husserl calls a “vocation”. The Husserlian phenomenology of anomalies allows us to recognize that animals truly come under the figure of the other, that they are alter ego subjects of a conscious life, and as such they participate fully, just as do children, the insane, and foreigners, in the co-constitution of the spiritual world. (shrink)

Drawing upon Husserl and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological constitution of the Other through Einfülhung, I argue that the hierarchical distinction between higher and lower animals – which has been dismissed by Heidegger for being anthropocentric – must not be conceived as an objective distinction between “primitive” animals and “more evolved” ones, but rather corresponds to a phenomenological distinction between familiar and unfamiliar animals.

En este artículo describiremos la vitalidad del sistema fonológico del mapudungun hablado por escolares pewenches de la Provincia del Biobío, VIII Región. Específicamente, nos hemos propuesto: a) Determinar los fonos/fonemas, y su fonotaxis, que se relevan como indicadores de vitalidad, b) Identificar las transferencias fonético-fonológicas presentes en la fonología del pewenche hablado por estos escolares y c) Interpretar las transferencias encontradas en términos del grado de vitalidad de la fonología de la lengua. La muestra está conformada por un grupo de (...) 20 escolares bilingües de entre 12 y 15 años de edad, que se encuentran cursando 7° y 8° año básico en escuelas rurales pertenecientes a dos comunidades pewenches del valle del Queuco, en la comuna de Alto Biobío. Para la recolección del material fonológico, se aplicó a los participantes una lista léxica de 65 ítems, material que se complementó con la narración oral en mapudungun de un cuento. Según nuestros datos, hemos podido constatar la existencia de una serie de rasgos fónicos en el mapudungun hablado por los escolares pewenches que obedece a la influencia de las estructuras fonológicas del castellano. Sin embargo, el grado y la difusión de los fenómenos de transferencia se desarrollan de manera heterogénea en ambas comunidades en estudio, debido, entre otros factores, a la intensidad del contacto. In this article we will describe the vitality of the phonological system Mapudungun spoken by Pewenche schoolchildren from the Biobío province, VIII Region. We intend: a) To determine the phones/phonemes, and their phonotactics, which are revealed as vitality markers. b) To identify the phonetic-phonological transferences which are present in the Pewenche spoken by these schoolchildren, and, c) To interpret the transferences found in terms of the degree of the language phonological vitality. The sample is composed of 20 bilingual schoolchildren from 12 to 15 years old, who are in 7th and 8th grade in rural primary schools belonging to two Pehuenche comunities from Valle del Queuco, in the city of Alto Biobío. To collect the phonological material, we applied a 64-item lexical list, which was complemented with the oral narration of a tale in Mapudungun. According to our data, we have been able to verify the existence of a series of phonic features in the Mapudungun spoken by Pewenche schoolchildren, which originate because of the influence of the Spanish phonological structure. However, the degree and spread of the transference phenomena develop in a heterogeneous way in both of the studied communities. due to the contact intensity, among other possible factors. (shrink)

Although Alfred Schutz appreciated many of the contributions of Edmund Husserl’s Ideen, he objected to the treatment of intersubjectivity. This paper shows how Schutz’s criticism of the sense-transfer of “animate organism” ignores the genetic nature of Husserl’s account, the widespread tendency of mental life to identify and assimilate, the level beneath the controlling ego on which the sense-transfer occurs, the massive similarities between animate organisms, the widespread dynamism of consciousness to transpose itself, and the massive and unique manner in which (...) the sense-transfer is validated. (shrink)

This paper argues that Husserl’s account of adult recognition of another allows for immediate, noninferential, analogical access to the other, though onedoes not experience the other’s experience as s/he does. The passive-associative processes at work in adult recognition of another make possible infant syncretic sociability and play a role in constituting the infant’s self prior to reflection. The reflective perspective of the psychologist and philosopher discovers that such infant experiences, though at first seeming indistinguishable from their parents’ experience, belong to (...) their own stream of consciousness and constitute a non-eliminable Cartesian residue and an inescapable solitude of identity. Finally new research in joint attention reveals that the infant self is constituted not only by passive experience but also by active movements evident in the infant’s attempt to shape the direction of adults in joint attention, however this may fall short of high-level reflection. (shrink)

This paper reflects on certain working assumptions of Husserlian phenomenological practice, using an investigation of interkinaesthetic affectivity as an example. I suggest that in some cases, Husserl’s “stratificational” model should be replaced with the notion of the ongoing dynamic efficacy of mutually co-founding, interpenetrating, and interfunctioning moments-“through”-which experience proceeds. Finally, I relate the latter model to Patočka’s call for a genuine integration of the three movements of embodied human life.

Wittgenstein, Husserl, and Heidegger – the intersubjectivity. of sense].

Søren Overgaard's Wittgenstein and Other Minds (WM) makes two interesting contributions to the Wittgenstein literature. First, it approaches contemporary debates about the problem of "other minds" (WM 2) as a conceptual and ontological problem -- viz., how we conceive of mind in the first place[1] (before turning to determinations concerning the minds of others). It also extends that question to ethics, since the way in which we pose the question of other minds, or subjects, frequently concerns what behaviors are appropriate (...) to adopt in regard to those others. (shrink)

The notion of empathy has more recently seen a considerable revival—notably (first) in connection with Quine's empathy model of radical interpretation, in contrast to which Davidson has developed his triangulation model, and (secondly) in the context of the debate between simulation theory vs. theory theory about propositional attitude ascription. So far, these debates have been carried on fairly independently of each other. This paper is an attempt to utilize the interpretation-theoretical discussion in order to argue for a moderate version of (...) simulation theory. To this end, Davidson's explanation of the radical interpretation scenario in terms of triangulation is reconstructed by comparison to some relevant ideas of Husserl's. (shrink)

The contribution of Husserl's phenomenology to the foundations of social and political theory can be appraised at both the methodological and the normative level. First, it makes intersubjective interaction central to the constitution of social reality. Second, it stresses reciprocity as a constitutive feature of intersubjectivity. In this context, individuals can be seen to be both ‘constituting’ and ‘constituted by’ their participation in communities, under a constraint of mutual recognition as intentional agents. This view is in no way atomistic, as (...) it allows individual identities to be constituted intersubjectively; still, it remains individualistic, since it does not permit the ontological independence of collective entities. At the epistemological level, this provides a foundation of methodological individualism; at the normative level, it suggests that social order is a deliberative task and political legitimacy ultimately rests on moral principles of reciprocity and equal respect. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to motivate the need for and then present the outline of an alternative explanation of what Dan Zahavi has dubbed “open intersubjectivity,” which captures the basic interpersonal character of perceptual experience as such. This is a notion whose roots lay in Husserl’s phenomenology. Accordingly, the paper begins by situating the notion of open intersubjectivity – as well as the broader idea of constituting intersubjectivity to which it belongs – within Husserl’s phenomenology as an approach (...) distinct from his more well-known account of empathy in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. I then recapitulate and criticize Zahavi’s phenomenological explanation of open intersubjectivity, arguing that his account hinges on a flawed phenomenology of perceptual experience. In the wake of that criticism, I supply an alternative phenomenological framework for explaining open intersubjectivity, appealing to the methodological principles of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and his theory of developmentally primitive affect. Those principles are put to work using the resources of recent studies of cognitive developmental and social cognition. From that literature, I discuss how infants learn about the world from others in secondary intersubjectivity through natural pedagogy. Lastly, the paper closes by showing how the discussion of infant development explains the phenomenon of open intersubjectivity and by highlighting the relatively moderate nature of this account compared to Zahavi’s. (shrink)

In this paper I piece present an account of Husserl’s approach to the phenomenological reconstruction of consciousness’ immemorial past, a problem, I suggest, that is quite pertinent for defenders of Lockean psychological continuity views of personal identity. To begin, I sketch the background of the problem facing the very project of a genetic phenomenology, within which the reconstructive analysis is situated. While the young Husserl took genetic matters to be irrelevant to the main task of phenomenology, he would later come (...) to see their importance and, indeed, centrality as the precursor and subsoil for the rationality of consciousness. I then argue that there is a close connection between reconstruction and genetic phenomenology, such that reconstruction is a necessary component of the program of genetic phenomenology, and I set out an argument of Husserl’s compelling one to enter into reconstructive territory. With that impetus, I schematically lay out the main contours one finds in Husserl’s practice of reconstructive techniques. We find him taking two distinct approaches, that of the individual viewed egologically (through the abstract lens of a single individual’s consciousness) and as embedded in interpersonal relations. Husserl occasionally calls these the approach “from within” and “from without,” respectively. Ultimately, the two approaches are not only complementary, but require one another. In closing, I argue that these considerations lead to a blurring of lines between the genetic and generative phenomenological registers, which challenges the prevalent view that there is a sharp demarcation of the two. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore the validity of phenomenology in the psychiatric setting. The phenomenological method - as a mode of research, a method of engagement between self and other, and a framework for approaching what it means to know - has found a legitimate home in therapeutic practice. Over the last century, phenomenology, as a philosophical endeavour and research method, has influenced a wide range of disciplines, including psychiatry. Phenomenology has enabled an enrichment of such practice through deepening the (...) way in which we can come to know the experiences of the other. This knowing-of-the-other is explored here within the context of psychiatric and clinica assessment. The question asked is: How best can we come to know those we work with? What method of engagement can be used to most completely come to understand and narrate the experiences of the individual, and how can this be applied in the context of an assessment aimed at psychiatric or psychological intervention? Elements of phenomenological praxis are presented as definitive of the most integral way of approaching the human subject. Husserlian and Heideggerian notions are explicated and related to phenomenological conceptions of intersubjectivity, in an effort to describe a phenomenology that can be used effectively within the psychiatric setting. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 7, Edition 1 May 2007. (shrink)

La présente étude prend son point de départ dans les cours donnés par Husserl à Göttingen dans les années 1904-1905, Hauptstücke aus der Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis . À partir des notions ébauchées dans ces cours de jeunesse, nous aimerions indiquer quelques possibilités encore largement inexploitées concernant l’analyse de l’intersubjectivité. Les thèmes de l’attentionnalité ( Attentionalität ) et de l’interattentionnalité seront ainsi présentés à partir d’une comparaison entre l’attention ( Aufmerksamkeit ) active et passive d’une part, et l’attentivité ( (...) Aufmerksamsein ) à l’égard de l’Autre et la responsivité dans la coexistence humaine d’autre part. L’attentionnalité apparaîtra alors comme la structure fondamentale de l’expérience humaine, constituée de l’alternance d’une formation de sens ( Sinnbildung ) dans l’indisponible et d’une institution de sens ( Sinnstiftung ) de la conscience intentionnelle. Notre réflexion sur la notion de l’interattentionnalité nous amènera à démontrer que cette alternance constitutive de l’expérience possède des caractéristiques spécifiques qui se manifestent dans la rencontre avec l’Autre. Ce sont ces caractéristiques que nous aimerions pouvoir démontrer à partir des analyses phénoménologiques qui suivent. (shrink)

Modern empirical research considers happiness to be identical with a subjective feeling of pleasure. This refers to both assessments of actual satisfactions of need and representations of possible satisfactions of need. Thereby, the aspects of cognitive representations of happiness are mainly focused, while the performing subject remains disregarded. The phenomenological approach tries to counteract such a situation. Phenomenology allows us to differentiate ‘striving towards happiness’ and the ‘experienced happiness’ as different polarities of this phenomenon. Based on this three aspects can (...) be distinguished: the present experience of happiness as an experience of satisfying actual urgent needs; the temporally enduring form of satisfaction in the individual life; the ethical form of happiness as felicity implying the teleological determination of human existence realized through socialization. In this paper, these aspects are considered phenomenological through intentional genetic analysis and taking into account some psychoanalytic results. This article aims at showing that happiness, particularly in the ethical form of felicity, cannot be considered as merely an individual issue, but is rather closely related to the sociality of human experience and to the intersubjective constitution of our shared reality. (shrink)

If community is determined primarily in consciousness as a mental state of oneness, can community exist when there is no accompanying mental state or collective intentionality that makes us realise that we are one community? Walther would respond affirmatively, arguing that there is a deep psychological structure of habit that allows us to continue to experience ourselves as a community. The habit of community works on all levels of our person, including our bodies, psyches and spirits. It allows us to (...) continue to be in community even though we are not always conscious of it. Husserl would describe this as part of the passive synthesis of Vergemeinschaftung. Walther’s analysis of the passive structure of habit opens up important possibilities for the inner consciousness of time. Drawing from Husserl’s and Walther’s analyses, I argue for the possibility of a communal inner time consciousness, or an inner awareness of timeconsciousness of the community, which gives rise to three constitutive moments: communal retention or communal memory, a sense of the communal present or a communal “now,” and communal protentions or anticipations. Ultimately, I will show how Walther’s treatment of habit demonstrates that time conditions the lived experience of community. One can, therefore, speak of a time of the community—its past, present and future—even though Walther herself does not explicitly develop this possibility. (shrink)

“Politics and the Internet” is a critique of the political potential of the internet from the perspective of Husserl’s discussion of intersubjectivity and objectivity in Cartesian Meditations and Origins of Geometry. Unlike other critiques of the internet from a phenomenological perspective, this paper does not consider the limitations of internet communication from the perspective of the body. Here, rather, the prime concern is with the constitution of objectivity and the ways in which the internet limits this constitution. The paper builds (...) towards a consideration of the essential role of objectivity as a condition of possibility for politics and community. Implicit in the argument is a defence of print and broadcast media. (shrink)

In his paper on transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl, which refers mainly to the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Schutz (1966a) marks out four stages in Husserl's argument and finds what are for him insurmountable problems in each stage. These stages are: (1) isolation of the primordial world of one's peculiar ownness by means of a further epoche; (2) apperception of the other via pairing; (3) constitution of objective, intersubjective Nature; (4) constitution of higher forms of community. Because of the problems Schutz encounters (...) in each of these stages, he concludes that Husserl's theory is unacceptable (Schutz, 1966a, p.82). Having already proved that it is unacceptable, he now explains why these problems arise in Husserl's theory. Intersubjectivity, says Schutz, is "a datum of the life-world," (1966a, p.82) not a transcendental problem. In other words, intersubjectivity must be dealt with as a problem of the life-world of the natural attitude, not a "problem of constitution which can be solved within the transcendental sphere." (Schutz, 1966a, p.82). There is no such thing as transcendental intersubjectivity, if by that is meant intersubjectivity of a plurality of transcendental egos. The role of transcendental phenomenology in the problem of intersubjectivity is to explicate within the transcendental reduction the sense: "intersubjectivity in the life-world." Husserl was diverted from this proper role of phenomenology--in his words, to "explicate the sense which this world has for us prior to all philosophy" (trans. and quoted by Schutz from "Cartesianische Meditationen, para. 62, in fine," in Schutz, 1966a, p.82)--because of the unobtrusive transformation of sense of his concept of constitution from that of explication and clarification to "creation," in the sense of providing an ontology of the lifeworld. The fact that phenomenology is in principle incapable of doing this lies behind the failure of Husserl's theory of intersubjectivity (Schutz, 1966a, pp.83-84). Unlike Schutz, I will deal with this general issue explicitly in the context of the stages in Husserl's argument and Schutz's objections. It seems to me that Husserl does remain within the sphere of clarification of sense, but to do explication and clarification of certain "senses" results inevitably in doing a kind of ontology. (shrink)

This dissertation contributes to the philosophy of empathy and biomedical ethics by drawing on phenomenological approaches to empathy, intersubjectivity, and affectivity in order to contest the primacy of the intersubjective aspect of empathy at the cost of its affective aspect. Both aspects need to be explained in order for empathy to be accurately understood in philosophical works, as well as practically useful for patient care in biomedical ethics. In the first chapter, I examine the current state of clinical empathy in (...) medicine including professional opinions about empathy, the dominant definition being employed, and the problems that arise from this definition. By trying to define empathy in a way that is useful to the current presuppositions in medicine, clinical empathy aligns with simulation theory, which has three problems: the discrepancy between the way empathy is defined and the way it is explained, the lack of diversity that this theory of empathy allows in our understanding of others, and the lack of affective understanding and affective engagement involved in the patient-physician interaction. These three problems are used to derive three questions that are important for any theory of empathy: What is the phenomenon being explained? What is the intersubjective context of empathy? What is the affective dimension of empathy? The best theory of clinical empathy can be formulated by answering these three questions as they relate to phenomenological theories, which are more attuned to overcoming presuppositions. Chapters two and three each examine a different phenomenological approach to empathy from opposite extremes in their theories of intersubjectivity. Husserl and Stein begin from an isolated, transcendental subject that needs empathy to bridge the gap between itself and others, while Scheler begins from a primary intersubjectivity in which self and other are undifferentiated, making empathy a largely unnecessary skill. Despite their strongly opposed positions, and the acknowledgement that their theories of intersubjectivity necessitate their theories of empathy, I argue that both fail to understand the affective dimension of empathy. Husserl and Stein leave no room in empathy for it to be an affect, while Scheler prioritizes affects that reunite subjects, but leaves empathy itself as a non-affective skill. Chapter four explains Gallagher’s interaction theory as a more moderate approach to the relation between empathy and intersubjectivity. He draws on the insights of the other two theories, but conceives of empathy as a multi-leveled phenomenon that allows for an understanding of others. While this theory does aid in addressing the intersubjective context of empathy in a way that best solves the first two problems with clinical empathy, interaction theory still fails to fully address the affectivity of empathy, maintaining empathy as a largely cognitive ability. Gallagher does acknowledge the affective core of empathy, but he does not explain the way in which it is affective. In response to this problem, I explain Anya Daly’s application of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of reversibility to affectivity as a possible solution to the problematic gap in Gallagher’s theory. Chapter five focuses on theories of clinical empathy in order to address the neglected affective aspects of empathy, and respond to the problem of detached concern. The problems caused by detached concern are explained, as well as why the theories discussed in the middle chapters are still unable to solve them. This is done in two parts. In the first part, I explain the basis of this issue in the cognitive/feeling divide, as explained in the philosophy of emotion. Then, I give a brief overview of the phenomenology of affectivity to be used as a guide to the affectivity of empathy. In the second part, I examine three theories of clinical empathy that attempt to solve the problem of detached concern, noting their strengths and weaknesses based on their similarities to phenomenological approaches to empathy and affectivity. (shrink)