Empathy does not just happen. In Stein’s phenomenological analysis of empathy, in order for the experience to happen, the precondition for it must be met. And the precondition is the awareness of the other as a living body.
Awareness of the other’s living body is given through outer perception. Because outer perception enables me to also grasp the “hidden” features of any physical thing, the other’s feature as living is also, then, seen. The living body is co-seen in the fulfillment of outer perception.
Of course, outer perception’s power stops there. It does not have the capability of bringing the other’s living body to givenness to oneself. I would need empathy for that.
But the point here is that I need to perceive first the other as a living body in order for empathy, as the perception of the other’s experience, to commence.
In the past few days, I’ve posted the three levels of empathic experience according to Edith Stein, going through them one by one. I attempted to have a broad presentation about them. Here, I’ll summarize the three levels.
Empathic experience is not merely an awareness of the emotional states of other people. Rather, it goes through levels, which would mean that it is a lived experience. With empathy, I live through the experience of the other.
The first level is empathic awareness. This is the start of any empathic experience. In here, I have an awareness of what the other individual is feeling. But if I follow through the other’s lead, then the experience will advance to the second level.
The second level is empathic fulfillment. This is the apex of any empathic experience. What happens here is that I would be “at” the place of the other individual, making myself as if the other. Intimacy builds here. And when this is complete, the experience advances to the third level.
The third level is empathic comprehension. This is the final phase of any empathic experience. In here, I have a relatively comprehensive knowledge of the experience of the other individual. In this level, I recognize that my experience is foreign.
Here is one example of how these three levels play out:
While walking into the hallway of the school, I saw my friend. She was sitting on the bench, but with all smiles while reading a book. Right there and then, I knew that she’s happy (empathic awareness). I was about to walk past her because I knew that I shouldn’t disturb her.
But she was able to glance at me. She called me over while she closed the book. I could tell that her eyes were filled with joy. I sat beside her and she told me about what happened that made her elated. As I listened, I was able to understand her joy as if I was her in the situation (empathic fulfillment). I understood that she and her parents were okay now, and that they were able to hug each other.
Then after a while, I was able to “get to my senses” and comprehended her joy and the reason for that joy (empathic comprehension). I recognized that it was her unique experience. I was not living my own experience, but hers.
Then, someone called her name. It was her sister. So, she said bye.
For Edith Stein, there are three (3) levels of empathic experience. This would mean that empathy lets the subject go through a unique experience, so unique that Stein would say that it is sui generis.
The first of these levels is the emergence of experience. This simply refers to an awareness of a foreign experience, whatever this foreign experience is. This is the surface level of empathy because it is what happens first in the whole empathic experience.
In this level, the subject faces its object, the other subject.
Have you never wondered how you “see” your friend as happy? Have you not experienced knowing at first glance that your sister is sad? Have you not seen your child crying in pain? Have you not noticed that your co-worker was not in the mood when she entered the door? Have you not known that your mother was excited even when she did not tell you anything yet?
All of these are cases of the first level of empathic experience. It is simply a wonderful and very unique perception of what is in the person. Yes, we see the person in the physical body. Yet, we also see his or her experiences, experiences that are truly his or her own. Precisely, this seeing of foreign experience is what Stein calls empathy.
P.S. A disclosure: “empathic awareness” is my own term as I describe the first level of empathic experience.
According to Edith Stein, empathy is “the experience of foreign consciousness in general, irrespective of the kind of the experiencing subject or of the subject whose consciousness is experienced (p. 11).”
I constantly go back to this definition of empathy because I believe, and obviously, it is crucial for my thesis. The Steinian definition of empathy given above is broad. It is probably because Edith Stein was establishing it as an act revealing the presence of other individuals. Precisely, this is the background in which Stein explored empathy. It was the fact that, as Stein pointed out in her dissertation, the subject has an awareness of other individuals. How this is so, the act of empathy is the answer. So, for Stein, regardless of the nature of the subjects, the knowledge and experience they have with each other are based on the act of empathy.
*All of the above is based on Edith Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy.
Empathy 