Empathy as the Opposite of Egocentrism: Why the Simulation Theory and the Direct Perception Theory of Empathy Fail
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Empathy as the Opposite of Egocentrism: Why the Simulation Theory and the Direct Perception Theory of Empathy Fail Robert Blanchet1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract This paper presents a new, third-personal account of empathy that characterizes empathy as being sensitive to others’ concerns as opposed to remaining stuck in one’s egocentric perspective on the world. The paper also demonstrates why this account is preferable to its two main rivals, namely the simulation theory of empathy, and the direct perception theory of empathy. Keywords Empathy · Theory of mind · Social cognition · Moral psychology · Zahavi · Gallagher · Goldman
1 Introduction In the current debate about spectator engagement, film scholars and philosophers often describe empathy as a process of perspective taking. Based on the influential distinction between central and acentral imagining introduced by Richard Wollheim (1999) and the simulation theory (e.g. Goldman 2006; Stueber 2006; De Vignemont and Jacob 2012), this process is usually understood to involve either: (a) the spectator imagining feeling the character’s emotion in an experiential, first-person manner; or more prominently (b) the spectator actually feeling and thus replicating the character’s emotional state. The spectator’s sympathetic and antipathetic emotions, in contrast, are usually said to require no perspective taking in the sense of (a) and (b) but only an external assessment of the character’s well-being and a desire that the character should or should not fare well. Hence, while defenders of the observer account of narrative engagement, such as Carroll (2011),1 reject the notion of empathy in general because they hold that we never replicate the character’s emotion, defenders of the participant view of narrative engagement, such as Gaut (2010),2 usually view empathy as an additional process that is independent from sympathy.
An alternative view, which has gained some prominence in recent years, is the direct perception theory of empathy (e.g. Zahavi and Overgaard 2011; Zahavi 2014, 2017; Gallagher 2017; Jardine and Szanto 2017), or what, due to its roots in the writings of Husserl (2016), Stein (2008), and Scheler (2008), one might also call the phenomenologist account of empathy. According to this view, empathy involves no isomorphic feeling states or simulation, but rather is constituted by the supposed fact that we can directly perceive other people’s intentions, emotions, and possibly other mental states in their expressive behavior.3 Not all advocates of the phenomenological tradition share this view. Although he agrees with the direct perception theory as such, Gallagher (2001, 2007, 2012a, b, 2015), for example, prefers not to equate this theory with empathy, and instead adopts a somewhat agnostic position according to which empathy can be tentatively characterized as: (1) a primary, nonreducible, other-directed feeling of concern or interest that (2) is characterized by a clear distinction between empathizer and the other person, that (3) targets the oth
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