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Empathy and Emotions Empathy and Emotions On the Notion of Empathy as Emotional Sharing Errata p. 17, line 24 Change “he” to “she” p. 50, line 22 Insert “as” between “has” and “a” p. 50, line 25 Insert “as” between “has” and “a” p. 73, line 28 Change “asumptions” to “assumptions” p. 112, line 20 Insert “of” after “kind” p. 136, line 4 Change “(3)” to “(iii)” p. 139, line 33 Change “Davis 1996” to “Davis 1994” p. 140, line 3 Change “Davis 1996” to “Davis 1994” p. 154 Insert reference: Verducci, S. (2000) “A Conceptual History of Empathy and a Question it Raises for Moral Education”. In Educational Theory 50: pp. 63-80. p. 154 Insert reference: Wilson, M. D. (1996) “Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge”. In The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (1996). Pp. 89-141. Umeå Studies in Philosophy 7 Empathy and Emotions On the Notion of Empathy as Emotional Sharing Peter Nilsson Umeå 2003 © Peter Nilsson Series editors: Gunnar Andersson, Ingvar Johansson and Sten Lindström Department of Philosophy and Linguistics Umeå University SE-901 87 Umeå ISSN 1650-1748 ISBN 91-7305-428-3 Printed in Sweden by Print & Media, Umeå University, 2003:303057 Distributor: Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden. ABSTRACT The topic of this study is a notion of empathy that is common in philosophy and in the behavioral sciences. It is here referred to as ‘the notion of empathy as emotional sharing’, and it is characterized in terms of three ideas. If a person, S, has empathy with respect to an emotion of another person, O, then (i) S experiences an emotion that is similar to an emotion that O is currently having, (ii) S’s emotion is caused, in a particular way, by the state of O or by S’s entertaining an idea of the state or situation of O, and (iii) S experiences this emotion in a way that does not entail that S is in the corresponding emotional state. The aim of the study is to clarify this notion of empathy by clarifying these three ideas and by tracing the history of their development in philosophy. The study consists of two parts. Part one contains a short and selective account of the history in Western philosophy of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing. In chapter 2 Spinoza’s theory of imitation of affects and Hume’s theory of sympathy are presented. It is argued that these theories only exemplify the second idea characteristic of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing. Chapter 3 contains presentations of Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy, and Schopenhauer’s theory of compassion. These theories are shown to exemplify the second and the third idea. In chapter 4 there are presentations of Edith Stein’s description of Einfühlung, and Max Scheler’s account of empathy and fellow-feeling. It is shown that these accounts contain explicit specifications of the third idea, and it is argued that they also exemplify the second idea. In part two, the three ideas are further clarified and the notion of empathy as emotional sharing is defined. Chapter 5 contains a discussion of the main contemporary philosophical analyses of empathy. Three different views are distinguished: one that construes empathetic emotions as emotional states, one that construes them as imagined emotions, and one that construes them as off-line emotions. The first two views are criticized and rejected. The third is accepted and further developed in chapter 6, which contains a general analysis of the emotions. A distinction is made between two ways of experiencing an emotion, and it is argued that it is possible to have the affective experience characteristic of a particular kind of emotional state without being in that kind of state. In chapter 7, a definition of ‘empathy’ is proposed. This definition contains specifications of the three ideas characteristic of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing, and it shows both how the empathizer’s emotion resembles the emotion of the empathee, and how this emotion is caused and experienced. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have many people to thank for assisting me in the work on this thesis. First and foremost, I wish to thank my supervisor Ingvar Johansson. Ingvar has been a constant source of inspiration, criticism, and support. He has provided me with innumerable comments and suggestions, and I have always felt that I could rely on him both for advice and for encouragement. I am deeply grateful for this. I also wish to thank my assistant supervisor Mats Furberg, and my former assistant supervisor Ulla M. Holm. Mats and Ulla have been of great help and support, especially during the early and middle stages of this work. I am truly thankful for this, and I only wish that I could have followed their suggestions more often than I have. Most parts of the thesis have been discussed at different seminars at the Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, Umeå University. I thank all the participants in these seminars for their efforts at improving my work. For special assistance and support, I wish to thank Gunnar Andersson, Anders Berglund, Sten Lindström, Jonas Nilsson, Bertil Strömberg, and Pär Sundström. I am also grateful to Marie Lundstedt for providing me with plenty of encouragement, and to Ulrika Sahlén for helping me with some practical matters and for cheering me on. Anders Berglund also deserves special thanks for formatting the manuscript and for helping me with the cover. Of the people outside the department, I wish to thank Mats Johansson and Wlodek Rabinowicz for valuable comments and support, Patricia Sanderson Gill for pushing me on and cheering me up, and Katherine Munn for being most helpful in correcting my English. I also wish to express my gratitude for the constant support I have received from my parents, Anita and Håkan Nilsson, and from my brother, Thomas Nilsson. The main financial support for this work has been received from The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation via the research project “Medvetande, Materialism och Möjlighet” (“Mind, Materialism, and Modality”). Additional support has been provided by J C Kempes Minnes Stipendiefond, and the Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, Umeå University. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................ vii 1. INTRODUCTION.............................................. 1 1.1 Aim and Background......................................... 1 1.2 Structure and Content........................................ 5 PART 1. ON THE HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF EMPATHY AS EMOTIONAL SHARING 9 2. SPINOZA AND HUME........................................ 11 2.1 Introduction................................................ 11 2.2 Spinoza on the Imitation of Affects............................ 13 2.3 Hume on Sympathy......................................... 25 3. SMITH AND SCHOPENHAUER................................ 43 3.1 Introduction................................................ 43 3.2 Adam Smith on Sympathy................................... 44 3.3 Schopenhauer on Compassion ................................ 55 4. EINFÜHLUNG AND EMPATHY................................ 65 4.1 Introduction................................................ 65 4.2 Einfühlung in German Philosophy and Psychology .............. 67 4.3 Edith Stein on Einfühlung.................................... 73 4.4 Max Scheler on Empathy and Fellow-Feeling................... 79 PART 2. EMPATHY AS EMOTIONAL SHARING 91 5. CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS OF EMPATHY................. 93 5.1 Introduction................................................ 93 5.2 Empathy and Sharing Emotional States......................... 95 5.3 Empathy and Imagining Emotions............................ 103 5.4 Empathy and Off-line Emotions.............................. 106 ix 6. EMOTIONS AND EMOTIONAL STATES...................... 111 6.1 Introduction............................................... 111 6.2 Emotional States........................................... 112 6.3 Compassion............................................... 125 6.4 Merely Feeling an Emotion.................................. 128 7. A DEFINITION OF ‘EMPATHY’............................... 135 7.1 Introduction............................................... 135 7.2 Type Similarity............................................ 136 7.3 On the Causes of Empathetic Emotions....................... 138 7.4 How Empathetic Emotions are not Caused..................... 142 7.5 Knowing that O is in the Emotional State e.................... 144 7.6 Concluding Remarks....................................... 145 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................... 147 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Aim and Background The topic of this study is a view of empathy that is common in philosophy and in the social and behavioral sciences. Simply put, this view characterizes empathy as a state in which a person shares the emotion of someone else in a particular way. The study aims to clarify this view of empathy and to develop a better understanding of its historical and philosophical roots. In recent years the everyday use of the word ‘empathy’ has become more and more frequent. Nowadays you can actually hear people use such phrases as ‘I can empathize with her’, ‘I have empathy with him’ or ‘I felt empathy for her’. In most cases, what people seem to mean when they use phrases like these is that they are somehow aware of and concerned about the mental state or condition of another person. Calling a person ‘empathic’ or ‘empathetic’ seems to be the same as saying that this person is sensitive to and cares about the conditions of others. Thus, in ordinary language, ‘empathy’ and derivations
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