en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)
1 correction found
In phenomenology, empathy refers to the experience of one's own body as another.
This reverses the direction of phenomenological empathy. In Husserlian and broader phenomenological usage, empathy is about experiencing or apprehending another subject/other mind, not experiencing one’s own body "as another."
Full reasoning
Authoritative overviews of phenomenology define empathy as a way of accessing other subjects, not as an experience of one’s own body becoming another.
- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Edmund Husserl says Husserl used empathy (Einfühlung) interchangeably with “other-experience” (Fremderfahrung) or “other-perception” (Fremdwahrnehmung), and that it lets the empathizing ego experience the psychical life of other subjects.
- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Empathy likewise defines empathy as capacities that let us know what other people are thinking and feeling.
So the sentence in the article appears to invert the relation. In phenomenology, the relevant idea is the experience of the other’s body as an embodied subject (often glossed as something like “my body over there”), or more broadly the apprehension of another subjectivity through the other’s lived body. It is not standardly defined as the experience of one’s own body as another.
2 sources
- Edmund Husserl (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Husserl ... often used the term empathy (Einfühlung) interchangeably with the terms other-experience (Fremderfahrung) or other-perception (Fremdwahrnehmung). In some places, Husserl writes that empathy ... allows the empathizing ego to experience the psychical life of other subjects.
- Empathy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The concept of empathy is used to refer to a wide range of psychological capacities ... allowing us to know what other people are thinking and feeling ...