Abstract
AbstractWithin the phenomenological tradition, one frequently finds the bold claim that interpersonal understanding is rooted in a sui generis form of intentional experience, most commonly labelled empathy (Einfühlung). The following paper explores this claim, emphasizing its distinctive character, and examining the phenomenological considerations offered in its defence by two of its main proponents, Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein. Having offered in section 2 some preliminary indications of how empathy should be understood, I then turn to some characterizations of its distinctive structure, considering, in section 3, the Husserlian claim that certain forms of empathy are perceptual in nature, and in section 4, Stein’s insistence that empathetic experience frequently involves explicating the other’s own intentional experiences. Section 5 will conclude by assessing the extent to which their analyses lend support to a conception of empathy as an intuitive experience of other minds.
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