On her On the Problem of Empathy, Edith Stein
presents three acts of perception. These are empathy, outer perception and
inner perception. These three acts are acts of pure consciousness.
Outer perception is a form of perception that grasps the physical attributes of concrete beings. This is what Stein said about outer perception: “Outer perception is a term for acts in which spatio-temporal concrete being and occurring come to me in embodied givenness. This being has the quality of being there itself right now; it turns this or that side to me and the side turned to me is embodied in a specific sense. It is primordially there in comparison with sides co-perceived but averted (On the Problem of Empathy, 6).” Outer perception, then, is an act that announces to the subject that there is another embodied concrete being before it. This is without mediation. Through the act of outer perception, the subject directly recognizes the object. The object is “there itself right now” before the subject. The object is directly present before the subject. Moreover, the act of outer perception grasps the whole object, its whole embodiment, even when there may be parts not shown. The subject, for example, may see a ball from a certain angle, so it has a limited view of the ball, but the subject is directly aware that it is seeing the whole embodiment of the ball. Through outer perception, thus, the subject can directly recognize embodied objects.
Inner perception is a form of perception that grasps the psychic life of one’s own self. Stein said, “To consider ourselves in inner perception, i.e., to consider our psychic ‘I’ and its attributes, means to see ourselves as we see another and as he sees us (On the Problem of Empathy, 88).” This means that inner perception is an act that directly perceives the subject’s psychic life. It is making oneself the object of one’s own inquiry. When it does this, it discovers its own attributes. The attributes that are perceived are the subject’s capacities. Remembering, perceiving, willing and moving are some of these attributes. Stein said, “Further, I may view my experiences in such a way that I no longer consider them as such, but as evidence of the transcendence of my individual and its attributes. My recollections announce my memory to me; my acts of outer perception announce the acuteness of my senses (not to be taken as sense organs, of course); my volition and conduct announce my energy, etc. And these attributes declare the nature of my individual to me. We can designate this viewing as inner perception of self (On the Problem of Empathy, 29-30).” So, when the subject perceives its own self through inner perception, it perceives its individuality and the attributes of this individuality.
Empathy, according to Edith Stein, is a sui generis form of perception. Even if it is still a perception, it is a class on its own, and therefore it is not an outer perception nor an inner perception. Empathy is the act that grasps or comprehends the other subject’s psychic life. The object, then, of empathy is the other subject. “Empathy is the form of perception in which ‘foreign experience is comprehended’ (Stein 2008). The object of empathic experience is consciousness that belongs to an I that is not the empathizer’s own (Burns, From I to You to We, 3).” In this sense, empathy would mean direct access to the experiential life of the other subject. When one empathizes with another subject, the empathizer grasps the experience of this other subject. Empathy, then, is a unique act because of the fact that the experience of the empathizer is primordial, while at the same time, the content of this experience is non-primordial. The content is non-primordial in the sense that the psychic life that is grasped is foreign in nature. Empathy, thus, is a pure act announcing the presence of another subject.
Empathy is similar to outer perception, but different from
inner perception, in the sense that empathy’s object is another subject. In
other words, what is being grasped through empathy is a concrete being other
than oneself.
Empathy is similar to inner perception, but different from
outer perception, in the sense that empathy targets the psychic life of the
other subject. In other words, what is being grasped through empathy are
experiences, but that these are not one’s own.
Empathy 