Empathy Intersubjectivity And The Social World

The volume gathers together over twenty contributions that emerged from a conference held in in honour of Dermot Moran on the occasion of his retirement from University College Dublin. The book explores the contribution of phenomenology to empathy, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and the constitution of the cultural and social world, from both a historical and an applied philosophical perspective. Theoretical and methodological differences in approach notwithstanding, phenomenologists have converged in the recognition that self and others are fundamentally related, and have provided fine-grained accounts of the origin, forms, and implications of such relationship. The volume critically reconstructs and further develops central aspects of this body of research within a pluralistic framework. It offers a renewed investigation of the work of classical phenomenologists like Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as an original application of phenomenological concepts and theories to contemporary discussions on intentionality, culture, emotions, and morality. The book provides insights for scholars in phenomenological philosophy as well as in philosophy of mind and interpersonal and social experience.

The volume gathers together over twenty contributions that emerged from a conference held in in honour of Dermot Moran on the occasion of his retirement from University College Dublin. The book explores the contribution of phenomenology to empathy, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and the constitution of the cultural and social world, from both a historical and an applied philosophical perspective. Theoretical and methodological differences in approach notwithstanding, phenomenologists have converged in the recognition that self and others are fundamentally related, and have provided fine-grained accounts of the origin, forms, and implications of such relationship. The volume critically reconstructs and further develops central aspects of this body of research within a pluralistic framework. It offers a renewed investigation of the work of classical phenomenologists like Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as an original application of phenomenological concepts and theories to contemporary discussions on intentionality, culture, emotions, and morality. The book provides insights for scholars in phenomenological philosophy as well as in philosophy of mind and interpersonal and social experience.

Dieser Band beleuchtet die mannigfaltigen Aspekte von Intersubjektivität und bringt verschiedene Philosophen miteinander in einen fachlichen Dialog. Der Autor setzt sich mit den verschiedenen Ebenen und Dimensionen von Husserls Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität auseinander und vergleicht diese mit Ideen von Scheler, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Schutz, Buber und Habermas. Einen direkten Bezug stellt Nam-in Lee zwischen den Positionen von Husserl und Levinas zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität her und bringt sie in einen fruchtbaren Austausch miteinander. Darüber hinaus regt der Band auch einen interkulturellen philosophischen Dialog zwischen Philosophen an, deren Denken vorrangig westlich beziehungsweise fernöstlich geprägt ist, wie etwa Husserl und Konfuzius, Scheler und Mencius oder Hutcheson und Chong Yak-Yong.

This introductory textbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the main issues in contemporary philosophy of social cognition. It explains and critically discusses each of the key philosophical answers to the captivating question of how we understand the mental life of other sentient creatures. Key Features: · Clearly and fully describes the major theoretical approaches to the understanding of other people’s minds. · Suggests the major advantages and limitations of each approach, indicating how they differ as well as the ideas they have in common. · Tests each philosophical theory against the best available empirical data from psychology, neuroscience and psychopathology. · Includes suggestions for additional reading and practice study questions at the end of each chapter. Philosophy of Social Cognition is essential reading for all undergraduate and graduate students taking introductory courses on social cognition. It is also ideal for courses on cognitive neuroscience, social psychology and sociological theory.

Animal ethics is generating growing interest both within academia and outside it. This book focuses on ethical issues connected to animals who play an extremely important role in human lives: companion animals ("pets"), with a special emphasis on dogs and cats, the animals most often chosen as pets. Companion animals are both vulnerable to and dependent upon us. What responsibilities do we owe to them, especially since we have the power and authority to make literal life-and-death decisions about them? What kinds of relationships should we have with our companion animals? And what might we learn from cats and dogs about the nature and limits of our own morality? The contributors write from a variety of philosophical perspectives, including utilitarianism, care ethics, feminist ethics, phenomenology, and the genealogy of ideas. The eighteen chapters are divided into two sections, to provide a general background to ethical debate about companion animals, followed by a focus on a number of crucial aspects of human relationships to companion animals. The first section discusses the nature of our relationships to companion animals, the foundations of our moral responsibilities to companion animals, what our relationships with companion animals teach us, and whether animals themselves can act ethically. The second part explores some specific ethical issues related to crucial aspects of companion animals' lives--breeding, reproduction, sterilization, cloning, adoption, feeding, training, working, sexual interactions, longevity, dying, and euthanasia.

This volume critically discusses the role empathy plays in different processes of understanding. More precisely, it clarifies empathy’s role in interpersonal understanding and appreciating works of literature and art. The volume also includes a section on historical theories of empathy’s role in understanding. When it comes to understanding other persons, empathy is typically seen as a process that enables the empathizer to recognize a target person’s mental states, a process which is in turn seen as “understanding” this person. This volume, however, explores empathy’s role in understanding beyond mere mental state recognition. With contributions on processes of interpersonal understanding and understanding of literature and art, it provides readers with an overview over both differences and similarities regarding empathy’s epistemic role in two rather different areas. Since important roots of the debate about empathic understanding lie at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, the historical section of the volume focusses specifically on this period. Empathy’s Role in Understanding Persons, Literature, and Art will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, aesthetics and the history of philosophy, as well as in literary studies and art history.

This book examines the concept of empathy in sociological and neuroscientific discourses using innovative perspectives from sociology and social neuroscience. Through a transdisciplinary approach, the author delves into the history of empathy and its social, cultural and semantic changes, and then reviews the conception of empathy in neuroscientific discourse. Distancing itself from the traditional neuroscientific literature of biological universalism, this volume offers an innovative perspective on empathy. It also opens a new avenue for neurosociology, which is presented as the discipline that can emphasize all the cultural and emotional aspects that govern empathy. Key themes addressed in the text are: empathy in all its meanings, from Hume to TenHouten; neurosociology as one possible avenue for embracing the cultural and neuroscientific aspects of empathy; and empirical research. A valuable resource for sociology students and academics in the field of empathy and neurosociology, this book is also of interest to those studying sociological thought, and social neuroscience.

The authors offer a phenomenological reflection on the problem of the interconnection between empathy and ethics; essential reading for professionals and scholars of philosophy, psychiatry, health science, psychology, and sociology.