Genuine empathy with inanimate objects

Abstract

How do we enter into empathic relations with inanimate objects (IO)? Do we indirectly infer that they possess mental states, or directly perceive them as mental things? In recent years these questions have been addressed by a number of authors. Some argue in favor of an indirect approach that involves mediatory procedures; others defend a direct approach that postulates no intermediate. In this paper I argue on the side of the latter. I show that Simulation Theory (ST), one of the most elaborated versions of the indirect approach, does not have the capacity to account for our empathy with IO. Investigating ST paves the way for criticizing a special kind of indirect theory, namely Imaginative Perception, which is tailored specifically to fit the problem. Both of these indirect theories face more or less similar problems. Motor Imagining is another indirect approach that must be considered, but in spite of its capacity to overcome some of the aforementioned problems, it suffers from over-inclusiveness. In contrast with these indirect approaches, I develop a phenomenologically inspired framework for empathy, according to which the scope of objects with which we can enter into empathic relations is broadened to include IO. I argue that this direct framework is a more promising way of addressing the problem of empathic engagement with IO.