Abstract
Feeling empathy is something that happens, an experience we can remember once we have had it, or an experience we would like to have. I consider empathy, from an integral point of view (i.e., cognitive and emotive aspects are part of empathy), as the capacity of putting oneself in the place of others. Although, by this time, my general characterization of empathy will not be discussed, I will focus on one question about empathy for which there is still no agreement: whether the emotion of the person experiencing empathy must be identical or not to the emotion felt by the person being empathized with. The aim of this work is, firstly, to reduce the four possibilities about the relationship between the empathizer’s emotion and the emotion felt by the person who is the target of empathy to two exhaustive and exclusive views: (1) the idea of identity of emotions between the empathizer and the target and (2) the point of view of the congruence of emotions between the empathizer and the target, both being cases of personal emotional experiences. Secondly, I suggest that these possibilities may make up an exclusive disjunctive argument, showing that problems with the first part of the argument or the premise would lead us to accept the second part: to feel empathy we do not need to feel exactly the same emotion that the object of empathy feels.
Highlights
In recent years, the study of empathy as an intersubjective and non-reciprocal capacity has become increasingly relevant
Using a notion of empathy that I have been developing in other papers1 as a starting point, I will focus on one particular characteristic of empathy to consider and to itemize that for which there is still no agreement: whether the emotion of the person experiencing empathy must be identical or not to the emotion felt by the person being empathized with
As I expressed above, I will dedicate this part of the work to eradicate, as a possibility of empathic emotive experience, cases of identity or congruence of emotions between the empathizer and the person who is the object of empathy at a subpersonal level
Summary
The study of empathy as an intersubjective and non-reciprocal capacity has become increasingly relevant. Nowadays, taking into account studies in cognitive social neuroscience and philosophy of mind, it is possible to assume that there is a general agreement in considering empathy as a capacity of attaining the neuronal, affective, and cognitive levels to define it from a purely neuronal conception to an affective and/or a cognitive one. It is conceived of as an integral view. An interesting analysis that coheres all the different views about empathy described above is the Preston, S. and de Waal, F., (2001) [14] model of empathy that, by means of what they call the Action-Perception Model and its evolution processes, in different species, integrates diverse basic phenomena and higher cognitive processes as different levels of empathy
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