Tag: empathy

The Feeling of Oneness

Another disagreement with Lipps arises. And it is the case of the “feeling of oneness.” While Stein believes that there is a feeling of oneness, but it is not the position of Lipps.

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For Lipps, there is a feeling of oneness, in the sense that the empathizer and the empathized become one. In other words, their experiences become exactly the same. Following this, there would a suspension of my real self due to the experience of empathy. I become the other.

However, Stein would say that Lipps’ position could not stand if “reflection” is brought into the picture. Sure, I might not have been aware of my own self when empathizing or that I was so absorbed into the empathized experience, but when I come to my senses and reflect about the experience, I know that the experience was non-primordial. So, in the end, what I experience as an empathizer is not mine, but another’s.

So, in contrast, Stein would say that properly speaking the feeling of oneness is the case of “we-feeling.” We-feeling means enriched sympathy. In other words, it is the act of sympathy enriched by empathy. This is proper to a group setting, where there are several members feeling the same feeling over the same event. The feeling of oneness here is when we know each other’s feelings to the point where each one of us identifies with the “we” (i.e. the group) rather than with ourselves.

Watching a concert together, then feeling the same intense feeling, and reacting in the same way is an example of this feeling of oneness.

Does the foreign experience become my own?

In her doctoral dissertation On the Problem of Empathy, Edith Stein brings into the discussion Lipps’ account of empathy, appreciating its merits while at the same time being critical. Doing this, Stein further clarifies the essence of empathy.

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While she agrees that empathy is an “inner participation,” Stein disagrees with the radical interpretation that in empathy there is a tendency for “full experiencing,” that the empathized experiences become the empathizer’s own experiences. It is as if their experiences collide and become one.

Of course, Stein would say that this is not the case because my experiences are my own, and the other’s experiences remain his or her own. This is the non-primordial character of empathy. I do not become the other, and the other does not become me. Individuality is preserved even in the most intimate level of empathy.

Stein says that Lipps conflated the fulfilling explication of empathy and the relationship of primordiality and non-primordiality. It is not that in empathy the foreign experience become my own, but rather this foreign experience may motivate me to produce other acts, which are primordial to me (e.g. sympathy).

How to improve yourself through empathy?

We all want to become the best version of ourselves. In this video, I present a holistic approach to personality development.

How to improve yourself through empathy? Become the best version of yourself.

Empathy’s New YouTube Channel

Hello everyone!

I started a new YouTube channel.

I’m gonna stick with Edith Stein’s empathy as the topic. Then, I might widen the scope in the future.

I already uploaded three videos. Please watch, like, share and subscribe. Thanks! 🙂

The Phenomenology of Empathy
How Unique is Empathy?
Empathy in the Time of COVID-19

I’m also gonna post my succeeding videos here on my blog.

The Limits of Empathic Experience

Edith Stein delineated the limits of empathy. She would say that though empathy is an experience of foreign consciousness, this consciousness determines how empathic projection proceeds.

I, as the subject, would be able to empathize with all things that have at least a living body. To be sure, this perception of living body is a precondition to any empathic experience.

Image by Mircea Iancu from Pixabay

Thus, I would be able to empathize with plants, animals, and of course, humans. Stein says that as the difference between my type and the other’s type increases, the smaller the range of empathic experience becomes.

Obviously, I would be able to empathize with my fellow man more because my type (human being) is the same as this man’s type (human being). Thus, I would be able to get a great deal of knowledge of this man’s experiences.

With the animals, the empathic projection is very limited because the type is different than mine. I could not understand many things the animals have and do. But I could perceive their suffering and pain. I could certainly understand when a dog cries in pain, for example.

Lastly, I would have the least empathic experience with the plants. Plants are very far from my type. The knowledge that I could get from them is only about their “life.” In short, I know that they are at least alive in contrast to a cement block, for example.

The limits, thus, of empathic experience is determined by the type of the subject and the object of the experience. The closer the object’s type is to mine, the greater the possibility of empathic experience.

The Precondition of Empathy

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.

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

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.

Acts of Perception and Their Objects

Pure acts are acts of the subject targeting objects of the real world. These acts are, precisely, the mediation between the subject and the object world.

After a few days of reading On the Problem of Empathy, I finally came up with a matrix showing the targets of some pure acts, categorizing them into two (2): the “I” and the other.

What is shown below is that the acts (the ones in the rows) can or cannot access certain parts of the individual (the ones in the columns).

The Matrix

Outer perception can access the physical body of the self, and also the physical and living body of the other. Bodily perception can access both physical and living body of the self. Inner perception can only access one’s own psyche. Empathy, which is a sui generis form of perception, can access the psyche of the other.

An insight that I get from this is that the subject, which is a psycho-physical individual, has itself acts which may be of help in getting a clearer picture of itself and of the other individual.

Clarification of Terms

  • The “I” is, of course, the self.
  • The other is another self, another “I.”
  • The psychic refers to the mind, the spirit, or the soul.
  • The physical body refers to the human body, but treated as a thing comparable to a pen or a chair.
  • The living body refers to the human body that has sensations.

Empathic Fulfillment

Stein would say that a person’s empathic experience might stay at empathic awareness, the first level. This would probably be due to various reasons. But it can proceed to the second level if the situation permits.

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.

Empathic Fulfillment

The second level of empathic experience is fulfilling explication. This refers to the intimate experience of being “at” the place of the other subject as if the subject becomes one with the other subject. In layman’s terms, this would be “putting oneself in the other’s shoes.” For Stein (p.12), this level is the “highest level of the consummation of empathy,” agreeing with Lipps.

Whereas in the first level the subject faces the other subject, in the second level the subject is at the other subject’s place.

It should be pointed out that for Stein, individuality is still preserved even in this intimate connection. Meaning to say, I do not become the other. While empathizing, I would always be myself and the other would still be a wholly other. It is just that, in empathy, I would be experiencing things as if I am in the other’s place.

Also, it should be noted that even at this level, emotional response from the subject is not warranted, and therefore may not happen. But, of course, sympathy might happen because of empathy.

Empathic Fulfillment in Practice

What does empathic fulfillment look like in practice?

Have you not experienced losing yourself (i.e., not conscious of yourself) when you were listening with your best friend? Have you never wondered that you know why a person feels this or that way? Have you not noticed that you seem to truly understand your friend’s grief over the loss of a loved one? Have you not experienced knowing the plight of a street vendor? Have you not noticed that you seem to understand the wrath your mother feels over your father?

This kind of understanding of what the other feels, as if you are the other, is what Stein calls empathy. This level is indeed the peak of the empathic experience.

P.S. All of the above is based on Edith Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy.

P.P.S. A disclosure: “empathic fulfillment” is my own term as I describe the second level of empathic experience.

Empathic Awareness

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.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Empathic Awareness In Practice

What does this level look like in practice?

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.

Sympathy (Fellow Feeling)

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

“Should empathy persist beside primordial joy over the joyful event… and, moreover, should the other really be conscious of the event as joyful…, we can designate this primordial act as… fellow feeling (sympathy) (p.14).”

For Edith Stein, sympathy is when two (or more) subjects feel the same feeling over the same event. To sympathize with the other, then, means to feel what the other is feeling (i.e. to have a primordial feeling relatively the same as the other’s) over the same event. The caveat, of course, inherent in Stein’s argument for empathy, is that the feeling of the “I” will never be one and the same as that of the other. Individuality is still preserved. On the above passage, Stein uses the example of when the two subjects feel joy over a joyful event.

The question now is: is empathy necessary for the fulfillment of sympathy? In other words, is empathy the condition for sympathy?

*All of the above is based on Edith Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy.

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