Perspective chapter: a phenomenological approach to empathy

In this chapter, we will seek to determine the role that empathy plays in the relationship between different human beings. In the phenomenological tradition, empathy was often considered the primordial form of relationship with others. According to classical phenomenology, bodily externalizations of inner psychic phenomena play an important role here. In this chapter, we will critically evaluate this approach to empathy. We will argue that empathy presupposes a prior recognition of the other in everyday life. From this perspective, empathy would constitute a second—although fundamental—moment of intersubjective life. The experience of a shared world entails an immediately shared understanding of that world and of those who live in it. Empathy would awaken only when anonymous relationships with other human beings become problematic. In the twentieth century, this concept has been appropriated by psychology on different levels: as a device to analyze how far the lack of empathy may be at the origin of certain pathologies and as a clinical tool that allows the psychologist to gain a deeper insight into the patient’s problems. Unfortunately, dialog between the two disciplines around this issue was almost never carried out. This chapter tries to foster the possibilities of such a dialog.