The perceived object in media-based empathy

Applying Edith Stein’s concept of Wortleib

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21150136
AutoresMinna-Kerttu Kekki (0000-0003-0707-2413, University of Helsinki, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume57
Fascículo2
Páginas165-184
Data de publicação2024-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoMan and World (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0025-1534 • E-ISSN: 1573-1103
EditoraSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11007-024-09633-7
OpenAlexW4396791705
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas27

The question of how other consciousnesses appear via media has forced us to re-think the classical phenomenological accounts of sociality. However, as the phenomenological account of empathy is very much centred around the perception of the other’s living body, it has faced challenges in discussing the empathic experience in media-based contexts, where we cannot perceive the other’s body, but something else, such as a screen or a text. In this article, I provide the concept for describing the perceived object in media-based empathy: a living textual body, based on Edith Stein’s concept of Wortleib (a living word body) referring to words as “living,” as bearers of meaning in her early work On the Problem of Empathy [ Zum Problem der Einfühlung ]. I divide the term Wortleib in two different cases—the empathic and non-empathic object—and thereby argue that, while the object of media-based empathic experience cannot be the other’s body, it is an empathic Wortleib , a communicative empathic object. While Stein herself discussed media-based empathy merely in paper media, I demonstrate the unique usefulness of these concepts in analysing any media-based communication and thus the timeliness of her work in this respect

Empathy · Epistemology · Linguistics · Media studies · Media theory · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Digital Games and Media · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology