The Givenness of Other People

On Singularity and Empathy in Husserl

Bibliographic Data

ID11275114
AuthorsMatt Rosen (0000-0002-2248-1314, University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume44
Issue3
Pages333-350
Publication date2021-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHuman Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-8548 • E-ISSN: 1572-851X
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10746-021-09584-5
OpenAlexW3164689744
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

Other people figure in our experience of the world; they strike us as unique and genuinely other. This paper explores whether a Husserlian account of empathy as the way in which we constitute an intersubjective world can account for the uniqueness and otherness of other people in our experience. I contend that it can’t. I begin by explicating Husserl’s theory of empathy, paying particular attention to the reduction to a purely egoic sphere and the steps that ostensibly permit a subject to re-inhabit a world of others from out of this sphere. In querying Husserl’s theory, I consider a series of problems, raised by Zhida Luo, concerning the apparent centrality of bodily similarity in empathy. I sketch Luo’s solution, which involves a shift to tactile similarity. While it makes for a better theory of empathy, this solution isn’t sufficient to make room for the givenness of another person not originally predicated on similarity. To clarify what’s at issue here, I turn to the Husserlian pictures of empathy presented by Heinz Kohut and Edith Stein. I conclude with a remark about what might be required, given the inability of Husserlian empathy to make room for the experience of others as singular and other, for a picture of our phenomenal life to have a shape that accounts for the coexistence of empathy to others who are like oneself and hospitality to others as genuine others

Empathy · Epistemology · Similarity (geometry · Sociology · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Literature and Cultural Memory · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology · Social Psychology

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