Empathy
Discover the potential
Professor Edith took her little niece by the hand and invited her to approach the piano that was located in the living room of the house, right next to the window. A few seconds before, the girl had asked her about the subject she taught at the university. It was about phenomenology, a concept that the little girl pronounced with some difficulty.
— Do you want to know what phenomenology is about? Edith asks.
— “Of course I do!” said the girl.
— “Then look at this piano,” — Edith tells her. Right now it looks like it’s just one more piece of furniture inside the house, on which we could put, for example, this box of cookies, your coat or your toys. However, if we sit in front of it, lift the lid that covers the keyboard and start playing, then the piano becomes what it was made for. Its potential, what gives it life, is hidden. Those who make it live are those, like us, who know how to play it and produce music with it.
— “Do you understand?” — Edith asks.
— More or less, — answers the girl.
— Phenomenology — Edith continues — focuses on the analysis of our conscious experiences. For example, without my conscience and your conscience, this poor piano would be doomed to be a shelf for cookies or other household items. In you, in me, in people, in the world and in things, a potential is hidden that only reveals itself before a conscience that recognizes this possibility.
This dialogue, between Edith and her niece, which I have dared to modify, is part of the film “La settima stanza”, directed by Marta Meszaros in 1995. The film tells the life of the philosopher and mystic Edith Stein, as well as, contextualizes the environment, the academic and spiritual search of this Jewish woman, in the framework of the Second World War, where she was assassinated by the German national-socialist regime, on August 9, 1942, in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz concentration.
The conclusion that flows through the dialogue between Professor Edith and her niece, on phenomenology, focuses on the fact that everything that is in front of our consciousness, that is, reality, acquires greater meaning when there is good will on our part to know this reality. When there is a spontaneous conscience, which without prejudice opens itself to the world. The concept with which Edith complements this perspective is that of empathy. In her study on The Problem of Empathy, she highlights that the person who is open to the world can perceive the experience of the consciousness of the other, can even feel “the goosebumps of the other.” Empathetic, in this sense, is the one who can capture the essence — that which springs from the interior of people and things; like music, in the case of the piano.
In someone else’s shoes
The word empathy has its origin in the Greek root epathón, which means to feel, and in the prefix in, which refers to what is inside. From its etymology, it can be deduced that empathy is related to the ability of a person to understand, from within, what another feels; but without the self dissolving into the other person’s self.
The use of this term was to become popular in 19th century Germany in the field of aesthetic understanding theory. The German term Einfühlung — empathy — meant, at first, sentimental projection. That is to say, that in aesthetic appreciation we project, both in works of art and in things, our subjectivity and feelings. This means that when a person feels represented on an emotional level, then an aesthetic experience occurs. The term empathy passed from aesthetics to psychology and philosophy. In this last discipline, authors such as Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler and Edith Stein developed the concept.
For Edith Stein, empathy is perceived as the opening, on my part, towards the experience of the conscience of others, their mental life, their experiences and their interiority. It is not understood as a sentimental projection of mine towards someone or something to represent myself in them –as in the initial meaning of the term Einfühlung. The empathic relationship is part of the psychophysical structure of the person who, as a conscious being, is open to the world.
Empathy, as a philosophical category, goes beyond the external perception of another’s pain. It cannot be confused with a trivial ideation or a matter of the imagination. Deep down, empathizing implies being oriented towards the other, being part of the other person’s project — here we would be talking about an ethical perspective, and not just an aesthetic one. However, this does not mean that you always have to agree with the other or with others, that you have to consent to their actions or share their ideas. It is about allowing the reality of the other to resonate in my consciousness, away from any possible emotional manipulation, on her part or mine.
Faced with a specific situation we can experience different forms of empathy. When we use, for example, expressions such as “I feel your pain or I feel your joy”, we would be talking about emotional empathy, because a situation or experience of another person caused a stir in me, resonated with me. In the case of the expressions: “I recognize your pain or I understand your joy”, a cognitive empathy is highlighted, where what is happening, the causes of the pain or the joy of the other person is recognized, but there is not necessarily a shock In Myself. We also associate empathic understanding with metaphors such as: “putting yourself in the other’s shoes” or “putting yourself in the other’s place”.
These expressions of everyday speech coincide with the definition that the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (DRAE) brings about empathy: “feeling of identification with something or someone. Ability to identify with someone and share her feelings”. However, beyond an emotional perspective, it is important to emphasize that empathy is related to the quality and depth of our perceptions, and our perception is tied to an intellect. Intellect and emotion make up cordial reason, another name for empathy.
Openness to others and to the world
For Edith Stein — taking up her thought — , the human being is a psychophysical unit, an open consciousness, both to the world and to the internal experience of the other. This position can be related to the concept of alterity proposed by the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas. Otherness implies an opening to the call that comes from the other’s face, as well as the reception of those who feel vulnerable and call me. It is a fact that the self and the other are, in a radical way, singular and different; however, faced with the call of the other, from his vulnerability, the responsibility to go towards him arises in me. In this line, both empathy and otherness have the task of overcoming egoic thinking, that is, egocentric.
Empathy is superior to the moral feeling of indignation, easily manipulated. While outrage leads us to be reactive, empathy makes us proactive. Human beings are faced with the challenge of carrying out a joint project of understanding and planetary coexistence. In this sense, the language of empathy allows us to speak of the existence of a we, of a community of sentient, thinking and proactive human beings.
The pandemic, which has been no respecter of persons, should have led us to understand why it is important to care about another. At the end of the day, if our perception is not refined, and if by remaining closed in on ourselves we do not open ourselves to the world of other people, then the piano, a metaphor for reality in this reflection, will be just another piece of furniture, due to that we will not be in a position to discover its potential: its music. Only empathic consciences open to the world will be able to build a hospitable future.
