PROOF Contents - macmillanihe.com · PROOF Contents vii Constitutive acts of ... For Heidegger,...

PROOF

Contents

List of Figures x

Series Editor’s Preface xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgements xviii

Introduction 1Three key distinctions defined 1Historical limits constraining the word ‘empathy’ 4The trajectory of a special hermeneutic of empathy 7From the hermeneutic of empathy to its intentionality 8The neurology of empathy 12Empathy and ethics 14

1 A Heideggerian Interpretation of Empathy 16Authentic being with others is neglected in Being and Time 16

Empathy – the ontological bridge between selves? 17The historical matrix by which ‘empathy’

was constrained 18‘Empathy’ – the name of a problem 20

A feeling that something is missing 21The possibility of authentic human interrelations 22A detour through ontology 22Distinctions for a design for being human 24Set up 25Honing in on the neglected interpretation 27

2 Delivering Heidegger’s Hermeneutic of Empathy 30Human beings are designed to be affected by

each other’s feelings 30Navigating the ‘inner–outer’ divide: mineness

and displaced perception 32The example of vicarious feeling 35The other shows up in the paradigm of respect 36

v

PROOFvi Contents

A design for empathic understanding: the other aspossibility 39

Ontic and ontological possibilities of empathy 41A design for empathy as interpretation implemented

in the hermeneutic circle 43The fore structure of interpretation applied to empathy 43The other as structure of interpretation applied to

empathy 44A design for different perspectives: taking a walk

in the other’s shoes 46Empathic interpretation as perspective taking: social

referencing 47The rich silence of empathic listening by design 50

The paradox of empathic speech – quiescing the idlechatter 52

The authentic, committed listening of empathy 54

3 Empathy between Death and the Other 56Empathy: the third alternative to the inauthentic

crowd and authentic aloneness 56Empathy as becoming the conscience of the other 57Between the other and death: humanization and

individualization 58Empathy as foundational being with 61Empathy as taking a stand for the other 63Empathy and trauma 65

Empathy and altruism 69Empathy can be used for good or harm 70

Empathy: brought to language as narrative 77Example of the act of empathic receptivity between

Thomas and Hanno Buddenbrooks 77The hermeneutic of empathy: a bridge over troubled waters 82

4 The Roundtrip from Hermeneutics to Intentionality 84Empathy and intentionality 84

A single statement about the positive structure ofconsciousness 85

Language as a method of access to intentionality 86‘Mineness’ and navigating the inner–outer distinction

(continued) 86Intentional acts of empathy target expressions of life 87

PROOFContents vii

Constitutive acts of empathy 90Situating empathy in Searle’s account of intentionality:

preliminary distinctions 92Searle’s account of intentionality: access through

speech acts 96The limits of access to empathy through language 108

5 Empathy from Periphery to Foundation 112Husserl’s account of empathic intentionality:

pre-predicative synthesis 112Husserl’s noema not a Fregian sense (Sinn) 115The example of sight restored after a lifetime of

blindness: access through breakdown 116Radicalization of the other in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian

Meditation 120The explosion of inter-subjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian

Meditation 123Empathic intentionality aims at communalization 126

Example of the constitutive act of empathy inthe human face 127

The case of acquired face blindness (prosopagnosia) 128

6 Empathy as Vicarious Introspection in Psychoanalysis 132Vicarious introspection and the constitution

of a psychoanalytic fact 132Without empathy, the inner life of man is unthinkable 136

Example of the act of empathic receptivity inpsychoanalysis 143

Example of the act of empathic understanding inpsychoanalysis (continued) 148

Empathy, the self and selfobject 150Conclusion: empathy and translation 155

Notes 158

Bibliography 166

Index 176

PROOF

1A Heideggerian Interpretationof Empathy

Abstract

In Heidegger’s Being and Time, the alternative of being with otherindividuals inauthentically is contrasted with authentically being alonein the face of death, one’s own individualizing and inevitable demise.The third choice of authentically being with other human beings isneglected, relegated to a few parenthetical remarks that dismiss empa-thy (Einfühlung). The possibility of authentic being human with oth-ers is delimited but, for the most part, not developed. This chaptergathers together and develops those remarks, applying the basicHeideggerian distinctions of affectedness, understanding, interpreta-tion, assertion and speech to an interpretation and implementation ofempathy.

Authentic being with others is neglected inBeing and Time

The challenge is this: Heidegger has much to contribute to our under-standing of empathy, freeing it from entanglements in philosophicalpuzzles, cognitive disputes, existentialism and the penumbra of spiritualfog. That said, he would not necessarily have felt the undertaking to bejustified. For Heidegger, empathy was derivative and not foundationalfor human interrelations. It was empirical not ontological, a superfi-cial and inauthentic way of being – even worse, a module in facultypsychology, at best, philosophical anthropology.

The argument of this chapter is that, when properly engaged andcleared in the spirit of key Heideggerian distinctions, empathy movesfrom a footnote to a foundation of human relations. This argument

16

PROOFA Heideggerian Interpretation of Empathy 17

takes distinctions in Heidegger’s design of a human being (Dasein) thatarticulate the structure of human being in the world with other humanbeings. It shows how these distinctions provide a clearing for empathyas the foundation of human interrelations. This results in a rehabil-itation of empathy and an authentic definition and implementationof empathy in the spirit of Heidegger’s approach. However, this def-inition must be wrested from what Heidegger explicitly says. It mustalso amplify what is understood in the everyday meaning of empathy ascoming to appreciate what another individual feels because one feels ittoo. This chapter will thus revise Heidegger’s dismissal of empathy; andprovide what is, in effect, a description of a human being with anotherthat was arguably missing from Being and Time. Since it was Heideggerthat dismissed empathy as not worthy of being the ‘ontological bridge’between individual human beings, we shall begin with a reinterpreta-tion of Heidegger’s explicit statement, thus retrieving empathy as thefoundation of human relatedness.

Empathy – the ontological bridge between selves?

Naturally much turns on what is meant by the ordinary, everyday‘human being with one another’ (Mitdasein) and the closely relatedontological distinction, being-with (Mitsein). But then the logic is directenough. If empathy is really the foundation of human being with oneanother, then the syllogism is simple. Being with one another is thefoundation of the ontological bridge between selves; empathy is authen-tic being with one another; therefore, empathy is the foundation of theontological bridge between selves.

Of course, Heidegger uses ‘bridge’ as a metaphor to be dismissed; how-ever, it points to empathy as the possibility of authentic being with theother. The matter is complicated in that Mitdasein is a structure thatis called out as significant but arguably incompletely developed in Beingand Time. After the famous Heideggerian Turn (Kehre) from human beingto the event of being occurs, issues relevant to individual human beingsare off the critical path (Richardson 1963). The result is that authen-tic human being with one another is not fully developed. This workproposes to fill the gap. A fundamental analysis of human being withone another as empathy is provided by this chapter (and the next two).Arguably this restores the balance between ‘human being’ and ‘being’(as that which is ultimately worthy of thinking, as Heidegger phrasesit); so that both the early and the late Heidegger are able to make acontribution to the foundation of human interrelations.

PROOF18 Empathy in the Context of Philosophy

This turn away from human being to being as such is not just anotherlost opportunity nor is it an exclusive choice. An intrinsic motivation forsuch an inquiry into empathy is the way in which the concept of empa-thy itself has failed to live up to its full potential and is a function of thedistortions to which the term has been subjected.1 The argument hereis that a fundamental analysis of empathy is capable of freeing it for itsfull potential as the foundation of human relations. By way of introduc-tion, a pre-ontological document that bears witness to this is the sciencefiction novella of Philip K. Dick (‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’(1969); see also the movie Blade Runner) – totally different yet parallelto the folktale about Grüseln in which humanness is delimited by empa-thy. Without empathy, individual human being (Dasein) is reduced tothe status of robotic automata as in some negative fantasy of the future,as depicted in the movie Blade Runner where the humans have lost theirempathy, the clones are sufficiently advanced to acquire it and (almost)everyone behaves violently. This is far from being proof; however, a pat-tern is starting to emerge. Nor is this to say that yet another scholarlytreatise will reduce the suffering in the world; but cleared and undis-torted, empathy does (Kaj Björkqvist 2007). Meanwhile, we are left towrest the phenomena of empathy from the historical matrix in which itwas embedded and to which Heidegger himself was limited.

The historical matrix by which ‘empathy’ was constrained

Heidegger is on target when he asserts that ‘the theoretic problematic ofunderstanding other minds’ looms large, even if ‘other minds’ are notthe issue. For Heidegger, the ‘other mind’ is readily accessible as beingin the world.2 For Heidegger, the philosophical puzzle of other mindsdoes not arise at all as an issue in theory of knowledge or even theoryof being (‘ontology’). A human being’s participation in the public groupis complemented by the public’s participation in the constitution of theindividual – in the community of Mitsein (ontological) and Mitdasein(ontic). If the other is a constituent of the individual, then the prob-lem of transcendental solipsism does not have anything like the sameproblematic meaning for Heidegger as for his teacher or philosophicaladversaries. Edmund Husserl’s solution is significantly different thanHeidegger’s. In the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl constitutes thesense ‘other’ within the system ‘own’. Husserl’s ‘system of ownness’ wasthe latter’s take on Heidegger’s statement that ‘Dasein is always mine’,where ‘mineness’ is translated back into phenomenology. Heideggerdisclosed a world of human beings in interrelations (Mitsein) alreadyopen and receptive to one another (H127). This was the point at which


Husserl suggested that Heidegger was no longer doing phenomenol-ogy in Husserl’s sense of the word; and, in fact, Husserl was right onthis point.

In particular, what Heidegger was doing was engaging in a dialoguewith the philosopher Max Scheler. The following are evidence of theproximity of Heidegger to Scheler (except that Heidegger discards thevocabulary of ‘consciousness’ in favour of his own radically innovativeidiom). Both Heidegger and Scheler begin with an undifferentiated com-munity of engaged practice, and then distinguish the individual andother within this inter-human context:

By ‘others’ we do not mean everyone else but me – those over againstwhom the ‘I’ stands out. They are rather those from whom for themost part, one does not distinguish oneself – those among whomone is too.

(Heidegger 1927b: H118)

And from Scheler (1913/1922: 247):

A man tends, in the first instance, to live more in others than inhimself; more in the community than in his own individuality.3

The first access to the self of the individual human being is throughothers. The individual is one among many of the anonymous ‘others’.The individual does not distinguish him- or herself from them. Indi-viduals are content to follow the authority of these anonymous others.We do what ‘they say’. We do what ‘one does’, conforming to implicitnorms of behaviour. ‘Don’t let them see you sweat’. ‘Don’t rock theboat’. ‘The nail that sticks out gets pounded down’. Heidegger is notproposing any revisions in the structure of the everyday ‘they’ self (alsodesignated as ‘the one’ (das Man)), although he has often been read asengaging in social criticism and protesting against the decline to massman. One might think of Marcuse’s ‘one dimensional man’, Riesman’s‘lonely crowd’ and Nietzsche’s ‘herd instinct’.

It is worth noting that the German language and Scheler distin-guish Mitgefühl – variously rendered as ‘feeling with’, ‘sharing feeling’or ‘sympathy’ – and Nachgefühl and Nachfühlen – ‘feeling like’, ‘feel-ing after’, an ‘after-image-like-feeling’ or, most precisely, ‘vicarious feel-ing’. Both are distinct from pity or compassion (Mitleid). The role ofvicarious feeling and experience will loom large as an input to empathicprocessing as will emerge in the course of this analysis. In another sense


and at so many levels, empathy, though mentioned, is what is miss-ing from Heidegger’s approach. Yet there is a place for it in Heidegger’sanalysis.

‘Empathy’ – the name of a problem

Once a human being is deprived of – de-worlded from – his humanworld and abstracted into the subject – and is disconnected from theenvironment of communal engagements and attachments, then evenempathy cannot undo the fragmentation. Empathy, when narrowlydefined as a form of cognition, cannot provide the ‘first ontologicalbridge from one’s own subject . . . to the other subject, who is ini-tially quite inaccessible’ unless these individuals are open and receptivetowards one another (Heidegger 1927b: H124). But if one only grantsthat human beings live in an interrelational world of affective, conver-sational, practical understanding, then empathy can be a way of over-coming the contingent breakdowns in sociability (‘lack of intimacy’)even if social relations are distorted, inauthentic misunderstandings:

‘Empathy’ does not first constitute being-with: only on the basis ofbeing-with does ‘empathy’ become possible: it gets its motivationfrom the lack of intimacy of the dominant modes of being-with.


Here ‘empathy’ is more the title of a problem than the answer to one.Once human beings are treated scientifically as things present at handto be observed and described in abstraction from their habitat (‘habitus’)in the inter-human world, our puzzlement about the understandabilityof their behaviour begins to grow. Once the world is reduced to a sphereof ownness in which it is reflected in transcendental consciousness, theworld becomes a lonely place for the self itself and very alone (‘solusipse’). ‘The theoretic problematic of understanding other minds’ gets afoothold; and an alternating egocentrism and behaviourism are varia-tions on a theme of ‘other minds’ (Heidegger 1927b: H124). Heideggerwrites:

But the fact that ‘empathy’ is not a primordial existential phe-nomenon . . . does not mean that there is nothing problematic aboutit. The special hermeneutic of empathy will have to show how being-with-one-another [Miteinandersein] and human being’s knowing ofhimself are led astray and obstructed by the various possibilities


of being which human being himself possesses, so that genuine‘understanding’ gets suppressed, and human being takes refugein substitutes; the possibility of understanding the other correctlypresupposes such a hermeneutic.


The establishment of the possibility of authentic human interrelationswith the other turns on the success of a ‘hermeneutic of empathy’. Inturn, the hermeneutic of empathy has to disentangle everyday forms ofbeing-with-one-another from the authentic being-with-one-another ofhuman beings.

A feeling that something is missing

As indicated, ‘being-with-one-another [Miteinandersein]’ can be ledastray into mere role playing or into egocentrism. Such role playing isnot normatively critiqued by Heidegger in this context. Nor should itbe. It is just what human beings do; however, it is not authentic beingwith one another. Given Heidegger’s explicit position, the reader cannothelp but feel that something is missing. Where is authentic being withone another?

The hermeneutic of empathy is supposed to provide the presupposi-tion for understanding the other, but, according to Heidegger, empathyitself is not ‘primordial’. ‘Being-with-one-another’ falls into busy dis-tractions of the everyday ‘rat race’, role playing, or keeping up with theJoneses. This is what human beings do. It is a part of the way humanswere designed. It is normal. It is not ‘bad’ or ‘pathological’. It is oneof the possibilities that human beings already possess. But it is a refugeand a substitute. A substitute for what? For authentic human interrela-tions! If empathy is not a fundamental and authentic way of being withone another as human beings, then what is? This is not just a rhetor-ical question; it is an assignment. The question for any reader who isinspired by Heidegger’s account of human existence, but is not neces-sarily constrained by its undeveloped possibilities, is: can an account ofinterrelations be provided in which the mask of inauthenticity dropsaway and human being in the full sense (not just atomized ego poles)are able to meet one another in empathic interaction?

The point here is not so much an objection to what Heidegger haswritten, especially given his conditions and qualifications, as a call foramplification. We are seeking the possibility of authentic human inter-relations. With the exception of the way in which ‘empathy’ is dismissedby Heidegger, to which this approach takes strong exception, all of what


Heidegger says is relevant to the amplification of a positive and foun-dational sense of empathy. This ‘hermeneutic of empathy’ constitutesan unwritten chapter of Being and Time. This is an incompleteness at adifferent level and prior to the unwritten third part of the first half andthe entirety of Part II of Being and Time. In a sense, this is a much moremodest incompleteness, relating to the possibility of creating a placefor authentic human inter-relations within the scope and limits of thefirst half.

The possibility of authentic human interrelations

Heidegger has much to contribute to authentic being with one another.A first clue is available as Heidegger acknowledges the possibility ofauthentic human being-with-others in the discussion of caring for –Fürsorge – translated as ‘solicitude’, ‘concern’ or literally as ‘caring for’.The argument of this section is to develop this clue further.

There is the possibility of a concern [Fürsorge] which does not somuch leap in for the other as leap ahead of him, not in order to take‘care’ [Sorge] away from him, but to first give it back to him as such.This concern [Fürsorge] which essentially pertains to authentic care[die eigentlich Sorge]; that is, the existence of the other, and not to awhat which it takes care of, helps the other to become transparent tohimself in his care and free for it.

(Heidegger 1927b: 115/H122)

If this is not an explicit description of – or better, re-description of –empathy, then it still comes very close. Occurring just prior to the anal-ysis of care as the fundamental structure and process of human being,Heidegger knows very well that these are powerful terms that have notyet been made the target of an explicit inquiry. But, as indicated, ‘car-ing for’ is less developed in Heidegger than the individuation of thehuman being in the face of the inevitable and unavoidable anticipationof death.

A detour through ontology

At this point, a detour through ontology is required since the analysisinvites a conversation about ‘being with human being’ and ontology isthe access to ‘being’. It is as simple as that, although being simple doesnot mean easy. Heidegger recommends abandoning discourse about thesubject, subjectivity, the cognitive self, empathy as a form of cognitionof the other. All these are not ontologically fundamental. These are not


nothing – but they are derivative. As noted, ‘consciousness’ is men-tioned on the very last page of Being and Time (1927: H437) as havinga positive structure above and beyond the ‘thinking thing’ into whichit has been reified. This will be significant when we engage the inten-tional structure of empathy in detail (see Chapter 4). But prior to suchengagement Heidegger grasps the other pole of the dilemma – the ten-dency of human existence to fall into conformity with what ‘one does’in order to ‘look good’ to the anonymous norms of what ‘they all do’.Well and good. For the most part the way human beings show they aresucceeding or just surviving is by coping with everyday busyness andbreakdowns – struggling to make a living, winning at having ‘meaning-ful relationships’ with others, ‘making it’ professionally and personally,however one may define the details of success.

But then a new challenge occurs – the self. A fine point of ter-minology is required to appreciate it. For Heidegger to be ‘authentic’means to ‘be oneself’. ‘Authenticity’ is a terminological disguise for thehuman being’s (Dasein’s) self. The first principle of existentialism, thathuman being is always mine, lies behind the authentic or inauthenticdichotomy. It is hard to imagine what it would mean that a humanbeing did not own its experience; and yet that is precisely the wayindividuals live their lives – speaking in the first person for clarity –someone else is responsible for what is happening to me – the boss,wife or the economy – not me. I do not ‘own’ the situation into whichI am thrown and on the basis of which I have to survive and prosper.In everyday busyness, coping and distractedness, the individual is nother- or himself, not her or his authentic self. The individual is carriedalong by conforming to what ‘one does’. The way in which humanbeing is always mine – and never more than when human being is flee-ing from its own existence – is the powerful way that Heidegger hasof both appropriating and transforming much of the tradition aroundmeditation, introspection, reflection and experiences that matter to theindividual with aspirations and goals, without carrying forward thebaggage of subjectivity. (The second principle of existentialism is thatexistence precedes essence, which means that human beings get to applythe existential distinctions into which they are originally thrown tothemselves in a further parlaying forward of what matters to them andwhat possibilities they are committed to creating from the perspectiveof being human.)

If one is inauthentic towards others in an account of role playingin everyday humanness, then one will be inauthentic towards oneself(Heidegger 1927a: H42f.). The self slips away again. It is not an isolated


subject. Is it now a diffused bundle of social roles? How do we get accessto the humanness of individual human beings, the self as a centre ofspontaneous possibilities, the individual self as the ‘authentic’ centre ofits own choices, possibilities and commitments – without succumbingto a superficial existentialism or humanism? Access to the authentic selfwill emerge in the course of the analysis in taking a stand – taking a standin the face of death and taking a stand for the other in empathic humaninterrelations. However, before being able to understand how this is so,it will be useful to take a step back.

Distinctions for a design for being human

According to Heidegger, the way human beings work – ‘work’ in thesense of operate – is obviously different than either the scientificaccounts of humans as parts of physical and biological nature or thepragmatic account of tools and instrumentality. Heidegger is clear that itis improper to apply distinctions such as categories of physical objects tohuman beings. Nor does it make sense to regard the human way of beingas like that of tools and technology, although a pragmatic approachto worldly involvement does open up useful avenues for engagement.Human beings just have a different way of being – a different way ofexisting.

The proposal here is to work with Heidegger’s different way of beingby describing his ‘existentials’ as design distinctions for a human being.The design distinctions by which a human operates are ways of beingfor human being. These ways of being – summarized by Heidegger asthe structures of human being of affectedness (including thrownness),understanding, interpretation, and speech – are named ‘existentialia’(Heidegger 1927b: 70; H44) – for the way humans operate in existence,and the way human lives work or do not work. Again ‘work’ means suc-ceeding in breakthroughs in what matters to human beings or failing inbreakdowns. These design distinctions extend back into our contingentbeing in the world and the way humans are thrown into challeng-ing situations not of the individuals’ own devising and are affectivelyopen to them. Furthermore, we humans are designed such that wecan make implicit decisions of which we are not necessarily aware andon that basis create new possibilities and commitments. Alternatively,we continue to live in the constraints of our everyday interpretationof existing, on-going possibilities. Humans implement these new orexisting possibilities as particular interpretations; all the while makingexplicit declarations and commitments in language, also used to sustainand elaborate science, knowledge, social institutions.


The point is that design distinctions are different than categories. Thismakes it clear that the distinctions by which human beings operate aredifferent from those suitable for physical objects or tools. Note that‘design distinctions’ is not a term used by Heidegger, but is an inter-pretation, and, most importantly, takes no position as to the source ofwhat is really a function of this inquiry into empathy. There might be asingle source, a designer (God) who unleashed these distinctions; a prag-matic projection of an intentional stance; an impersonal designer suchas nature. ‘Design distinctions’ are a way of accessing and making senseof the phenomenon of human being in the world whose way of beingHeidegger elaborates as ‘existentials’. It gives us a lever with which toopen the intricate infrastructure of Heidegger’s text in such a way thatboth preserves its integrity and empowers us to exploit the significanceof its undeveloped possibilities. The language of ‘design distinctions’ isin principle dispensable. Its merit lies in facilitating the conversationand getting us to listen anew to what we have heard so many times inthe same form that it has become common and perhaps even a tad stale.

Set up

Some set up is required. This analysis will be applying the distinctionsfor designing a human being to authentic being with one another –that is, to empathic interrelatedness. In what follows, the account isHeidegger’s and based on a plausible reading of him unless otherwisenoted. Where alternative ‘readings’ are possible that is noted. Remem-ber, we are driving towards an interpretation that opens up empathy asthe possibility of authentic being with the other. We now proceed to it.

Each of the design distinctions has an authentic or inauthentic wayof being. ‘Authentic’ means making a commitment and decision thatopens and implements possibilities for humans that enrich the qualityof life, promote human flourishing and deepen our shared humanness;and ‘inauthentic’ means succumbing to – falling into – the ‘rat race’of looking good, controlling and manipulating others, pursuing self-ish ends, gossiping, pseudo-intellectualism and busyness. Life is not asequential process, and humans are constantly distracted, even spacedout, by the involvement with everyday concerns about making a liv-ing, avoiding the boss, pleasing the spouse and looking good in frontof peers, friends and opponents, especially the latter. Likewise, each ofthese distinctions is schematized – applied and implemented – in itsrelationship to time as a whole with thrownness coming at us humansout of the past, understanding and interpretation projecting possibilitiesinto the future and the present being grasped in the way humans bring


to language the declarations of commitments in authenticity or lack ofit. The unity of these time dimensions is consummated in the struc-ture of care – the self of human being is caring about being human, anexpression that, provocatively, does not distinguish one from the other.‘Care’ starts out with an everyday meaning as in ‘caring about the detailsof life in all their trivialness and depth’, but is taken over and enrichedwith a multiplicity of distinctions that answer the question ‘Who is (a)human being?’ The definition is that caring is the spontaneous capabil-ity to choose commitments even in the face of death, living into thefuture, anxiously free from the grip of the past and creating possibil-ity. What gives a measure of constancy to this self amidst the temporalflux and multidimensional caring will emerge in the encounter with thehuman being’s individualizing and inevitable possibility of death – and,under this interpretation, in the empathic encounter with the other.Dasein (the human being) is individualized by death out of its distract-edness of the conformity to the crowd; and Dasein is humanized by itsencounter with the other, who gives Dasein its humanness. Without theother, the human being (Dasein) dies a kind of affective, spiritual deathsimilar to being an emotional zombie to whom nothing matters. Theintroduction of the other is an interpretation of Heidegger based on theinterpretation of a hermeneutic of empathy into which further inquiryis required.

In everyday being with one another, designated as ‘human being-with’ (Mitdasein) – a human being is for the most part entangled ineveryday coping and getting by. The involvement with others leads inthe direction of the seemingly inevitable routines of everyday life inwhich humans have a tendency to live out of the possibilities alreadypredefined by conformity and staying out of trouble – gossip (‘idle talk’),not asking too many questions (‘superficial curiosity’), conforming to‘the letter of the law’ and ‘gaming the system’ (‘ambiguity’), and avoid-ing responsibility for the contingent circumstances into which peopleare thrown (‘thrownness’). Taking over these predefined possibilities,especially in an indecisive, automatic pilot way, defines ‘inauthentic-ity’. No possibility, or, at best, limited possibilities that exist as dictatedby the past and by what ‘one does’. But a tendency is not inevitability.Humans can recover their authentic selves.

Human beings are led into authenticity when the individual con-fronts finitude in the necessity of death, which individualizes eachand every one down to his or her own possibility of not being. Thisencounter with death acts as a wake up call to individual humans toget engaged with what authentically matters and makes a difference.


Thus, the equation which receives the greater part of the analysis inHeidegger: the individual (Dasein) confronts his or her death authenti-cally and alone – since no one else can die the individual’s death forhim; or the individual is with others inauthentically for the most part,distractedly keeping busy with ‘making it’ in the world of everyday con-cerns. This is not an absolute choice – inauthentically with others orauthentic in the face of death, alone – and it would be a false choicein reading Heidegger, but one must read ‘between the lines’ to get thefull impact.

Honing in on the neglected interpretation

This is the way human beings are designed – inauthentically with othersand, more rarely, authentically alone and individualized (self-aware) inthe face of death. Given the distractedness in the everyday, neitherthis dichotomy nor the alternatives are generally acknowledged. Fur-thermore, no one – least of all Heidegger – is proposing a redesign.However, the result is that two other readings (‘interpretations’) areneglected.

Two additional interpretations (‘possibilities’) are available – that(1) an individual may relate to death inauthentically and that (2) anindividual may be with others authentically. These readings receivesome attention in Heidegger, but significantly less so. The first leads to akind of ‘analysis paralysis’ where preoccupation with death becomes anobstacle to deciding a course of action. It results in a stereotype of theexistential hero, or anti-hero, who is so overwhelmed by possibility thathe ends up like Buridian’s donkey, unable to choose. This leads to theexistentialist fallacy – and stereotype – hanging out in dimly lit coffeehouses, wearing one’s Che Guevara t-shirt, smoking Camel cigarettes,journaling about the meaninglessness of life, savouring the possibil-ity of action. This alternative, although significant, shall not furtherengage us here. The second interpretation leads straight into the discus-sion of empathy and where empathy should be located – the unwrittenchapter – in an analysis that draws towards the foundation of humanbeing with one another. But since it is not in the surface structure ofBeing and Time, or at least not more than parenthetical remarks that areequivalent to a footnote, it requires further discussion and motivation.(See Figure 1.1 where ‘X’ marks the standard reading.)

Look at the violent interpretations to which Heidegger subjects thewritings of Kant, the pre-Socrates and other thinkers and poets. One hasto grant a powerful originality in this rethinking. What about applying


Authentic

InauthenticDas man(the one)

the ‘They self’

Ownmostpossibility

commitment:being toward

death

Caricatureof

existentialism

Specialhermeneutic

ofempathy

Individual human being

X

X

Being together with other

Figure 1.1 The Possibility of Heidegger’s Special Hermeneutic of Empathy

some of Heidegger’s method to his own work? To interpret being-with (Mitsein), being with human being (Mitdasein) and being with oneanother (Miteinandersein) as variations of a form of empathic relatednessis an act of interpretation, and, given Heidegger’s dismissal of empathy, aviolent reinterpretation. It requires reading against the obvious and ini-tial meaning of the two above-cited passages about empathy. The needfor violent interpretation is due to our tendency to cover things up andto be distracted by everyday concerns, which, in this case, extends toempathy:

[T]his being’s own tendency [is] to cover things up. Thus the existen-tial analytic constantly has the character of doing violence, whetherfor the claim of the everyday interpretation or for its complacencyand its tranquillized obviousness . . . And if being human [Dasein]mostly interprets itself in terms of its lostness in taking care of the‘world,’ isn’t the determination of the ontic and existentiell possibil-ities and the existential analysis based upon them (in opposition tothat lostness) the mode of its disclosure appropriate to this being?Does not then the violence of this project amount to freeing the undisguisedphenomenal content of human being [Dasein]?

(Heidegger 1927a: 288f./H311; H312f)


The violence in question is rather like the violence that occurs in anarchaeological dig when shovel and pick have to be used to excavate adwelling buried under layers of sediment. What this inquiry is suggest-ing is that the use of empathy – the phenomenon, not the word – is bothso pervasive and so well buried and forgotten by everyday automaticbehaviour and its reactive responses – especially, but not exclusively, inHeidegger – that empathy will be disinterred only by a careful analy-sis of the details of the experience of the other as grasped in the keydistinctions of affectedness, understanding, interpretation and speech(discourse).

Heidegger’s call for a special hermeneutic of empathy applies hisfundamental distinctions of human being in the world – affectedness,understanding, interpretation, assertion and speech – to human beingwith one another.4 One point of the all-too-brief summary of existen-tialia (Heidegger 1927b: 70; H44) as design distinctions is that each ofthe ontological principles about the way in which human beings be –that is, exist – will feed into the definition of empathy in its interpreta-tion and amplification, and create a clearing for it in the next chapter.This opens an alternative approach to a special hermeneutic of empa-thy. It finds an alternative way between a human being who is aloneand authentic in the face of death and one who is distracted and lost inthe busyness of inauthentic being with others. In turn, this opens a read-ing, a third choice, that highlights an authentic being with others. Thisinterpretation leads straight into an analysis of empathy – the unwrittenchapter – as the foundation of human being with one another. But it isnot in the surface structure of Being and Time, at least not more thanparenthetical remarks, the equivalent to a footnote. It is to that taskof expressing what has remained unsaid in Heidegger about a specialhermeneutic of empathy to which we now turn.

PROOF

Index

affectedness, 7, 8, 11, 12, 24, 29, 30,37, 38, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 64,77, 83, 85, 155, 156

and narrative, 77exhauting the narrative brought to

it, 77affectivity

displaced, 34after-image

of another’s sensations, 35ambiguity, 26anxiety

disclosing the human being as awhole, 58

distinct from depression, 69Arendt, Hannah

analysis of animal pity, 73Aristotle, 2, 12, 39, 80Assertion, 47“as structure” of interpretation, 48authentic

alone in the face of death, 27as being with others, 58defined, 23defined by example, 25

authentic being with one another, 22authentic being with others

as authentic Mitsein, 58logical space held open, 58

authentic being with the otherlogical space created for, 58

authentic humanbeing-with-others, 22

authenticity, 26

Bambi, xiiibehaviorism, 48Being and Time, 7, 27, 54, 58, 85

missing a chapter on empathy, 22missing chapter on authentic being

with one another, 17

being humanthrough loss of the other, loss

of, 63being-with-one-another

led astray into role playing, 21belief

a state, not an act in Searle, 109believing

defined, 108Bettelheim, Bruno

documents Behavior in ExtremeSituations, 74

Blade Runner, 18Blake, William, 9blind spot

and possibility, 149and understanding, 40as cognitively impenetrable, 42as distractedness, 42kept in place by hidden

commitments, 42blind spots, 48Buddenbrooks

example of vicarious experiencein, 78

Caputo, John D.referenced, 161

care, 37, 64caring

defined, 26Cartesian

reification of the subject as thinkingthing, 9

cognitive impenetrability, 40cognitively impenetrable

penetrated by empathy, 42commitment

as requiring being with others, 54communalization

and empathy, 127

176

PROOFIndex 177

communityand empathy in Husserl, 127living with, perceiving with,

etc., 127complete

vs finished, 146concerned being with others, 57conscience, 57

and authenticity, 52as a way of relating to others, 57as calling silently, 53defined, 52

conscience, of othersas listening empathically, 57

consciousnesspositive structure of, 23structure of in Being and Time, 85

Crashing ThroughA True Story of Risk, Adventure, and

the Man Who Dared to See, 117crowd behavior

not cognitive, 32curiosity, 26

Daseinas always mine, 86defined as human being

(existence), 4one human being, many human

beings, 64Davidson, Donald, 155, 167death

alone in the face of, 56and individualization, 58as a moment-by-moment

possibility, 59as a structure of being human, 59as a structure of Dasein, 59as calling humans back from

lostness, 58as not traumatic, 59as pointing the way to

possibilities, 59inauthentic preoccupation

with, 27Decety, Jean

works in neuroscience, 167depression

distinct from anxiety, 69

design distinctionsas an interpretation of

“existentials”, 25as authentic and inauthentic, 25

displaced perception, 32–34distinctions

schematized, 25Dretske, Fred, 32–34

notion of displaced perception, 33

Eichmann in Jerusalemby Hannah Arendt, 72

eight month anxietyas fear of the other (stranger), 101

Einfühlungas empathy, 16example in Husserl’s Nachlass, 126

Elective Affinitiesby Goethe, novel, 106

emotionand narrative, 77

emotional contagion, 32, 33, 37constrasted with empathy, 74related to vicarious experience, 37

empathic interpretation, 43, 44, 150empathic listening, 42, 52, 61, 64,

83, 155empathic receptivity, 8, 11, 35, 37, 38,

42, 44, 45, 49, 52, 64, 77–79, 83,145, 155, 156

disclosed as respect, 37empathic understanding

and a pattern switch, 149and taking a stand, 64as clearing for possibility, 149example of, 148in narrative, 81

empathy, 5, 87act character of, 91an organizing principle, 140analysis needed, 18and a community of fellow

travelers, 138and belief, 107and cognitive impenetrability, 42and conditions of satisfaction

(Searle), 99and empathic distress, 82and fixing the other, 44

PROOF178 Index

empathy – continuedand intentionality, 86and narrative, 77and perception, 90and possibility, 44and speech, 51and the hermeneutic circle, 50and the other as possibility, 41articulated as listening, 52as a commited listening, 54as a form of receptivity, 11as a form of receptivity to

expressions of life, 12as a single candle in the darkness, 82as an information supply chain, 103as authentic human being with one

another, 55as conceptual tangle, 7as condition of possibility of

community, 141as consciousness of the other, 87as constituting being affected, 141as constitutive of community, 138as contingent, 143as defining authentic being with

other human beings, 7as defining psychoanalytic

observations, 140as foundation of community, xvias foundational way of being in the

world with the other, 56, 60as good or bad as humans, 76as guide, 4as guiding this inquiry, 6as humanizing the care-taker and

baby, 102as intending a community, 88as name of a problem, 20as ontological bridge, 17, 20, 48, 83as positing the other

(in Husserl), 120as primary tool in caring for a

neonate, 102as propositional, 91as the “as structure”, 44as the condition of possibility of

being affected by feelings, 141as the conscience of the other, 57

as the foundation of community,7, 10

as the foundation of community(Husserl), 126

as the foundation of human beingwith one another, 27

as the possibility of authentic beingwith the other, 25

as the possibility of the other’spossibility, 41

as transcendental aesthetic, 121as vicarious introspection, 133brought to language, 77brought to language as narrative, 77characaturized, 45compared with propositional

attitudes, 92constitutive of the mental life of

man, 136definition fed by design

distinctions, 29delicacy of, 148disorders (diseases) of, 141example of friendship, 61example of impairment of, 131example of in psychoanalysis, 143example of loss of, 11example of the Good Samaritan, 61example of the parent and

infant, 60expression part of the definition, 99from footnote to foundation, 16full deployment, 47gives us our humanness, 142hidden in plain view, xvhistorical constraints on the use of

the word, 5implementation mechanism, 12implemented in story telling, 104in narrative, 78, 81intends a social reference, 88intentional act of, 87intersects constitutional

analysis, 122loss of, xiv, 63loss of the other as loss of

empathy, 59not reducible to affectedness, 30of the story teller, 101

PROOFIndex 179

personal history, xvirequires receptivity and

interpretation, 47used by Himmler, H., 72used for good or harm, 70used for good or ill, 70with belief, anomalous, 106with prosopagnosia, 130withdrawal of, 56, 60without it, emotional zombies, 10

epochereduces the world, 120

existential hero, theas inauthentic, 27

existentialia, 29, 51as distinctions not categories, 24

existentialist fallacy, 27existentials, 25

as design distinctions for humanbeing, 24

experimental philosophyexample of vision restored, 116

face, human, 127, 128as a meaningful whole, 128synethesis of the manifold of, 130

facial manifoldsynthesis of, 130

fear of flying, 40fear of snakes, 40feelings

as infectious, 31fiction

as pretend illocutionaries, 103Fifth Cartesian Meditation

most problematic statement in, 124mutual transfer of sense, 124pairing of egos in, 123

finitudeas the necessity of death, 26

first-person, the, 47folktale about empathy, xvfolktale, the

as performance andperformative, 100

as providing access to empathy, 100“fore structure” of interpretation and

empathy, 43

Forster. Michaeland transcendental arguments, 164

Frans de Waal, 162Frege, Gottlob

overlap with Husserl, notreduction, 115

Freud, S.example of Dora, 66

Freud, Sigmundempathy mentioned in Jokes and

Their Relation to theUnconscious, 5

Frings, Manfrededitor of Scheler, named, 160

Fürsorgetranslated as solicitude, caring

for, 22

Gefühlsanlageas being disposed to a

feeling, 31Gelassenheit, 9, 38, 170Gerede

as idle chatter, 53Goethe, Johann von

example of narrative, 106quoted, 38

Goldberg, ArnoldMisunderstanding Freud, book, 169referenced, 67

Good Samaritan, xivGreenspan, Pat

article on mixed feelings, 170

Hacking, Ianreferenced on child abuse, 67

Hatab, Lawrence J., 160Heidegger, 86

abandons the subject,subjectivity, 22

amplification of, 21dismissal of empathy revised, 17Kant and the Problem of

Metaphysics, 5not proposing to revise the “they”

self, “the one”, 19positive account of

consciousness, 84regarded empathy as derivative, 16

PROOF180 Index

Heidegger – continueduses key phrase from Kant, 3violence of interpretation, 6

Heidegger, Martinabandons the subject, 85acknowledges all emotions, 31and affect, 32and conscience, 52and Dretske, 32and Gelassenheit, 38and mineness, 50, 86and quiescing (Zen Koan), 53on conscience, 57self individualized by (possibility of)

death, 58Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 2,

158, 170hermeneutic circle, 46, 147

and empathy, 50and interpretation, 46and receptivity, 46

hermeneutic of empathy, 61and speech, 51as authentic being with others, 62as unwritten chapter, 22introduction of the other, 26on the path to authentic human

interrelations, 21hermeneutics

defined, 2human being

as having structures of affectedness,understanding, speech, 24

authentic in the face of theother, 7

individualized in the face ofdeath, 22

human beingsand distinctions, 25as a different way of being than

things or tools, 24as coping with busyness, 23individualized by death, 27live in an interpretation of the

possible, 43with each other and authentic, 56

human interrelationsas distractedness in the

everyday, 43

humanization, xivhumanness, xv, 7, 10, 26, 51, 61Husserl, Edmund, 8, 19, 31, 64, 85,

121, 122, 124, 156, 162, 166and empathy, 120and prelinguistic empathy,

112, 114Cartesian impasse, 123Fifth Cartesian Meditation, 18, 124five mentions of empathy in

Cartesian Meditations, 121in contrast to Searle, 91misconstrues empathy, 120on meaning, 95

idle chatter, 44, 54quiescing it, 9

idle talk, 26inauthentically

way of being with others, 27individualization

through death, 59inner

a misleading way of saying“mine”, 34

intentionalityaccess through language, 91and speech acts, 97as accessible through language, 90as prepredicative, 96infuses speech with meaning, 109

interpretation, 2, 6–8, 12, 24, 25,28–30, 37, 42, 45, 47, 51, 64, 77,85, 156, 157, 160, 161

a derivative mode ofunderstanding, 43

and empathy, 43, 45and the edge of the inarticulate, 47and understanding, 64as “violent”, 28as a set of perspectives, 47as reading against the meaning, 28defined, 43

Interpretationand receptivity, 45

intersubjectivityas Mitsein, 69constitution of (Husserl), 124constitutional analysis of, 121

PROOFIndex 181

misunderstanding of, 69synonymous with community, 69

introspection, 8, 9, 23, 32–34, 54, 86,169, 173

introspectionism, 48Iphegenia

citing gelassen, 38

Jesus, 48

Kant, Immanuel, 37derivation of the categories, 86judgments disclosing synthesis, 86

Kantian “Copernican revolution”—as phenomenological reduction, 122

Kierkegaard, S.referenced, 161

Kisiel, Ted, 159Kohut, Heinz

major contribution, 132gives a transcendental

argument, 141Korsgaard, 162

Letteri, Markreferenced, 67

letting things beas Gelassenheit, 38

Levinas, Emmanuel, 58linguistic meaning

derived intentionality (Searle), 96Lipps, Theodor, 5, 6, 31, 112, 114,

121, 172listening

as a form of receptivity, 51as empathic speech, 51

Litowitz, Bonniearticle, The Second Person, 172

Locke, Johnthought experiment about

blindness, 116thought experiment re blindness, 96

lossof the other, 59

manipulation, 45Mann, Thomas

example of vicarious experience, 78Märchen, xiv

mask of inauthenticity, theas falling away, revealing empathic

interaction, 21mass behavior, 32May, Mike

example of the man who dared tosee, 130

seeing as an experiment, 131meaning

as prepredicative, 120defined, 108intentional content vs

externalization, Searle, 108prepredicative constitution of, 120

meaning that pcontrasted with believing p, 109

minea fundamental distinction, 33replaces inner/outer distinction, 33

mineness, 32, 34as Husserlian system of

ownness, 18avoids Cartesian dualism, 4introduced, 4introspection derivative on, 33

mirror neurons, xv, 6, 12, 13, 33, 80,155–157, 169

misplaced affectivity, 34Mitbefindlichkeit

as co-affectedness, 51Mitdasein, 17, 26, 28, 37, 51, 58Miteinandersein

as being with one another, 20,21, 28

Mitgefühl, 19Mitleid, 19Mitsein, 17, 28, 58, 66, 69, 160, 173Mitteilung

as communication, 51mood, 31

world disclosed as, 32

Nachfühlenas an after-image (vicarious

feeling), 19naïve realism, 110

causality of, 110narcissistic transferences

defined by Kohut, 132

PROOF182 Index

narrativeand emotion, 77

neurophenomenology, 111noema

as the invariants in perception, 119noetic act, 119noetic acts

acts of synthesis, 119

Olafson, Frederick A., 160once upon a time

as illocutionary device, 103Ontic

defined, 3ontological

defined, 3original experience, 125other minds, 18, 20, 159other, the, 26

abandonment by, 102and community of monads, 123and trust as storied, 105as anonymous others, 19as causing me pain, 88as hostile force, 70as the source of being human, 7become the conscience of, 57becomes the conscience, in

empathy, 54being there for as empathy, 62closing of possibility through

death, 59death of, 59empathy extends the individual to

the other, 10engaged authentically with, 57exemplifying Kant’s moral law, 37experience of, disclosed in

respect, 36face of, deleted, 101giveness of, 123loss of, 7, 63mutual constitution of

intentions, 124open for possibility in

understanding, 40receptivity to, 37sense-giving of, 124takes a stand for me, 57

target of empathy, 87traumatic loss of, 59trusted vs untrusted, 101

other, the, loss of, 38otherness

workshop of hammers and jugsfor, 160

painas an information processing

system, 93as non-intentional, 93

pain, I feel yoursas an example, 94

paradoxcalling silently, 53expressing in stillness, 53speech as listening, 53

pattern switchseeing a new possibility, 42

philosophyexperimental, 96

possibility of not beingas death, 26

post traumatic stress disordermodern name for trauma, 66

Preontologicaldefined, 3

Pretty Words that Make No senseas speech act (Kaye), 163

prosopagnosiaas “face blindness”, 112, 128example of Mike May, 130

Putting oneself in the other’sshoes, 47

quasi-perceptionsas vicarious perceptions, 127

quiescingand empathy, 54and idle chatter, 54and listening, 54

reasons of the heartnamed, 77

receptivityand interpretation, 45empathic, 35

PROOFIndex 183

Redeas speech, 51

respectand listening, 38as a clearing for the other as

possibility, 37disclosing empathic receptivity, 37openness to one another in, 37

Rhetoricof Aristotle, 31

Richardson, William J.work on Heidegger, 173

role playingas normal, yet a refuge, 8, 21, 23

Scheler, Max, 5, 6, 19, 31, 37, 121, 160Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 2, 158Schweigen

as silence, 53Searle, 107, 109

on meaning, 95Searle, John, 98, 103, 104, 107,

108, 110and propositional attitudes, 91speech acts disclosing

intentionality, 86second-person, 47self

and commitment, 58as authentic, 26as caring, 26as individualized by death, 58as taking a stand, 62as to be “won”, 58Dasein not itself in

inauthenticity, 23engaged with others, 58linked with empathy as being

with, 61other as constituent of, 19question of access to, 24structure maps to care, 62

shared manifold, 13, 155, 156,159, 169

silenceas an essential possibility of

speech, 53social referencing, 49, 50Socratic ignorance, xiii, xiv, 1

solipsism, 121special hermeneutic of empathy, xvi,

8, 20, 29, 77, 82, 85speech, 7–9, 24, 29, 30, 47, 51–54, 62,

83, 86, 96, 156speech act

as method of access tointentionality, 128

speech actsaccess to intentions, 96and conditions of satisfaction, 98and direction of fit, 97and illocutionary force, 97connected with intentions, 97exhaust representation, 99express an intention, 98freeze the flux, 98

spiritual death, 7, 26Ständigkeit

as taking a stand, 62Stein, Edith, 5, 121Stolorow, Robert

analysis of death and trauma, 65story telling

as a separate language game,Searle, 103

as higher level speech act, 103sympathy

distinct from vicariously, 35

taking a stand, 62and empathy, 64as giving constancy to the self, 62informed by respect for the

other, 64taking a stand for the other

in empathy, 62talking cure, the

as the gift of empathy, 139the community of monads

in Husserl’s CartesianMeditations, 123

The Wolf and the Seven Little Kidsas witness to

the other”, 100folktale as witness to empathy, 101

therapisthumanized by the patient, 42

PROOF184 Index

therapist, empathicas inquiry into being human, 42

therapyand the other as possibility, 41

third-person, the, 48thrownness, 26, 67Titchner, E.B.

coined ‘empathy’, 6tough love

as taking a stand for the other, 64Toulmin, Stephen

book, Human Understanding, 175transcendental

defined, 141transcendental argument

as applied to empathy, 140trauma, 66

“burned” into neural circuitry, 66and neurosis, 66distinguished from mere upset, 68

unconsciousas unacknowledged commitment to

a possibility, 40understanding, 8, 85

defined, 39as a distinction structuring human

beings, 39as the source of possibility, 40not primarily a form of

cognition, 39of possibilities, 41of possibility, 149schematizes empathy as

possibility, 41

Vergemeinschaftendeas communalization, 127

vicarious experience, 13, 34, 36, 37,47, 87, 104, 155

described/encoded as mine, 135distinct from shared experience, 35

vicarious feeling, 19, 34, 35, 45, 86in the telling of the folk story, 102

vicarious introspectionand empathic receptivity, 134as a double representation, 134not Russellian knowledge by

acquaintance, 133vicarious perception

as quasi-perception, 127voice over, 44

walking in another’s shoes, 47War and Peace, 36Washington, George, 47Wimsatt, William, 155, 159Wisdom, John, 64Wispé, Lauren, xiiiWittgenstein, Ludwig, 45Wolf, Ernest

book, Treating the Self, 175working through

and a pattern switch, 150

Zen Koan, 53, 54zombie (emotional), xv, 26, 63

affectively dead, 140us without empathy, 141

PROOF Contents - macmillanihe.com · PROOF Contents vii Constitutive acts of ... For Heidegger,...

Documents

Transcript of PROOF Contents - macmillanihe.com · PROOF Contents vii Constitutive acts of ... For Heidegger,...