Self-Affection and Perspective-Taking: The Role of Phantasmatic and Imaginatory Consciousness for Empathy
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Self-Affection and Perspective-Taking: The Role of Phantasmatic and Imaginatory Consciousness for Empathy Thiemo Breyer1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract This article distinguishes between several modifications of perception and perspective-taking in order to grasp the relevance of phantasmatic and imaginatory consciousness for empathy. Drawing on insights from phenomenology, it tries to elucidate the complex process of empathically perceiving and understanding the other by looking at the structures of anticipation and fulfilment from the level of self-affection, to perceptual, personal, and narrative perspective-taking. Thereby, the problem of objectifying the personal background of the other in empathic transposition is addressed and the intertwinements of expectation-driven and stimulus-driven components of the empathic process are reviewed. Keywords Self-affection · Perspective-taking · Phantasy · Imagination · Perception · Empathy
1 Introduction Empathy is a basic anthropological capacity and a complex psychological process involving multiple dimensions of experience. There has been much debate recently about the precise nature of empathy and numerous divergent definitions have been put forward. Some concentrate on the bodily foundations of empathy (Gangopadhyay 2014), e.g. in interactional synchrony and resonance, others take it to be a matter of vicariously sharing emotions (Smith 2006). Empathy is even regarded to a cognitive ability to simulate the minds of others (Goldman 2006) or to make inferences about them on the basis of certain kinds of knowledge and information (Gopnik and Wellman 1994), while others are interested in the volitional component, i.e. our motivations to take action and help others, which are founded in empathic feelings such as compassion (De Waal 2008). Lately, there is growing interest also in the relevance of imagination for empathy and social perspectives (Summa et al. 2017). In light of this convolution of accounts (for critical reviews, cf. Batson 2009; Slote 2017), I will focus on the description of certain ways in which phantasmatic and imaginatory * Thiemo Breyer thiemo.breyer@uni‑koeln.de https://www.thiemobreyer.com 1
Department of Philosophy, University of Cologne, Albertus‑Magnus‑Platz, D‑50923 Cologne, Germany
consciousness inform the process of empathy and as a result our understanding of other minds, ranging from the kind of self-affection that shapes our perception of the other, to the ways in which we adopt the other’s spatial perspective by imagining their position, to grasping their subjective experience by imagining their personal situation and background, and to being led by and constructing narratives that enrich our understanding of an individual fate.
1.1 Phantasmatic Self‑Affection in the Perception of the Other As a preliminary clarification for the following descriptions, it is helpful to differentiate between implicit phantasy, which operates on the level of passive constitution, and explicit phantasy, which actively brings about mental rep
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