On Imagining Being Someone Else
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20078418 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Julia Langkau (0000-0001-8351-1284, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Pages | 260-278 |
| Publication date | 2021-05-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Epistemic Uses of Imagination (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.4324/9781003041979-18 |
| OpenAlex | W3156596780 |
| ISBN | 9781003041979 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
In philosophical and psychological literature, it is common to distinguish two kinds of perspective-taking: imagining oneself in another person’s situation, in-their-shoes perspective-shifting; and imagining being the other person in their situation, empathetic perspective-shifting. Peter Goldie has cast doubt on the distinction and argues that empathetic perspective-shifting is conceptually impossible. This chapter first presents Goldie’s view and then argues that while we can distinguish two different aims in perspective-taking, the underlying processes can be similar, and the only challenges we face are epistemic or psychological in nature. As a consequence, skepticism toward empathetic perspective-shifting leads to skepticism toward in-their-shoes perspective-shifting, and optimism toward the second justifies optimism with respect to the first. Using the example of perspective-taking with fictional characters, the chapter finally shows how an epistemically ideal context can pose psychological challenges, and how an epistemically less ideal context can make it easier to imagine being someone else
Aesthetics · Art · Psychoanalysis · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · History · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Psychology
| Citations per year | 2.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |