A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy

A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy PDF Author: Lou Agosta
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781727134414
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description
You don't need a philosopher to tell you what empathy is; you need a philosopher to help you distinguish the hype and the over-intellectualization from a rigorous and critical empathy. In this volume, Lou Agosta engages thirty-three key articles from the great contributors to empathy studies such as William Ickes, Shaun Gallagher, and Dan Zahavi and the soon to be greats such as Eileen John, Adam Morton, and Matthew Ratcliffe. Agosta distinguishes the hype from the substance, the wheat from the chafe, and the breakdowns of empathy from a rigorous and critical empathy itself as the foundation of community. This volume engages with the key issues of the methods of accessing empathy (social psychology, phenomenology, neural science, critical practice), the history of concept empathy (not merely the word), the intersection of aesthetic empathy with cognitive and affective empathy, empathy and ethics, empathy and biology (mirror neurons, evolution), empathy in the arts (painting, film, music, literary fiction), and radical empathy (in cross cultural studies, major mental illness, and Eastern spiritual disciplines).This is not a survey but a critical engagement with key thinkers and their publications, designed to create a context for a conversation about how to make a difference in the individual and community by expanding empathy. The result is a rigorous and critical empathy that carries the struggle against over-intellectualism to the ivory tower of social psychologism. After debunking the prevailing scientism of empathy, this volume lays out a rigorous and critical empathy, leading the way forward with empathy studies that actually enable us to relate to one another. Every parent, teacher, health care worker, business person with customers, and professional with clients, knows what empathy is: Be open to the other person's feelings, take a walk in their shoes, give them back their own experience in one's own words such that they recognize it as theirs. So if this is the age of empathy, why is empathy in such short supply? Because we are mistaking the breakdowns of empathy - emotional contagion, conformity, projection, gossip, and getting lost in translation - for authentic empathic being with one another in community. Drive out cynicism, shame, resignation, bullying, and empathy naturally shows up. There is enough empathy to go around. Get some here.

A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy

A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy PDF Author: Lou Agosta
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781727134414
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description
You don't need a philosopher to tell you what empathy is; you need a philosopher to help you distinguish the hype and the over-intellectualization from a rigorous and critical empathy. In this volume, Lou Agosta engages thirty-three key articles from the great contributors to empathy studies such as William Ickes, Shaun Gallagher, and Dan Zahavi and the soon to be greats such as Eileen John, Adam Morton, and Matthew Ratcliffe. Agosta distinguishes the hype from the substance, the wheat from the chafe, and the breakdowns of empathy from a rigorous and critical empathy itself as the foundation of community. This volume engages with the key issues of the methods of accessing empathy (social psychology, phenomenology, neural science, critical practice), the history of concept empathy (not merely the word), the intersection of aesthetic empathy with cognitive and affective empathy, empathy and ethics, empathy and biology (mirror neurons, evolution), empathy in the arts (painting, film, music, literary fiction), and radical empathy (in cross cultural studies, major mental illness, and Eastern spiritual disciplines).This is not a survey but a critical engagement with key thinkers and their publications, designed to create a context for a conversation about how to make a difference in the individual and community by expanding empathy. The result is a rigorous and critical empathy that carries the struggle against over-intellectualism to the ivory tower of social psychologism. After debunking the prevailing scientism of empathy, this volume lays out a rigorous and critical empathy, leading the way forward with empathy studies that actually enable us to relate to one another. Every parent, teacher, health care worker, business person with customers, and professional with clients, knows what empathy is: Be open to the other person's feelings, take a walk in their shoes, give them back their own experience in one's own words such that they recognize it as theirs. So if this is the age of empathy, why is empathy in such short supply? Because we are mistaking the breakdowns of empathy - emotional contagion, conformity, projection, gossip, and getting lost in translation - for authentic empathic being with one another in community. Drive out cynicism, shame, resignation, bullying, and empathy naturally shows up. There is enough empathy to go around. Get some here.

Being Me Being You

Being Me Being You PDF Author: Samuel Fleischacker
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022666192X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Get Book Here

Book Description
Modern notions of empathy often celebrate its ability to bridge divides, to unite humankind. But how do we square this with the popular view that we can never truly comprehend the experience of being someone else? In this book, Samuel Fleischacker delves into the work of Adam Smith to draw out an understanding of empathy that respects both personal difference and shared humanity. After laying out a range of meanings for the concept of empathy, Fleischacker proposes that what Smith called “sympathy” is very much what we today consider empathy. Smith’s version has remarkable value, as his empathy calls for entering into the perspective of another—a uniquely human feat that connects people while still allowing them to define their own distinctive standpoints. After discussing Smith’s views in relation to more recent empirical and philosophical studies, Fleischacker shows how turning back to Smith promises to enrich, clarify, and advance our current debates about the meaning and uses of empathy.

Empathy Lessons

Empathy Lessons PDF Author: Lou Agosta
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781981215850
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Get Book Here

Book Description
Breezy yet brainy, Empathy Lessons provides 30 compelling and actionable lessons in restoring and expanding empathy in relationships and emotional well-being, at home and at work, in parenting and in business, at school and in the private consulting room, in the corporate jungle and in the empathy desert, in the public market and in the intimacy of the bedroom. Empathy is oxygen for the soul. So if you are short of breath due to life stress, get the expanded empathy delivered in this book. Just as the body needs oxygen to live physically, the soul needs empathy to live emotionally. Most people are naturally empathic, but the cynicism and denial needed to survive everyday life drives empathy away. Remove the obstacles to empathy and empathy naturally develops and grows. That is the training in a nutshell without all the details, guidance, and practice needed to succeed. Find out how to take your empathy to the next level in this book. The empathy lessons in this book include how- To perform a readiness assessment; establish a set up for success in cleaning up inauthenticities that block empathy so that empathy can expand and flourish; Empathy is not an "on-off" switch but a tuner (dial or dimmer) that expands or contracts in accessing the vicarious experience of the other person; Empathy works as a method of data gathering about the other person, providing a vicarious experience of the other person without being flooded by the experience; Introspection, vicarious experience, listening to one's own "voice over" and radical acceptance are the royal road to empathic receptivity; Empathic receptivity overcomes emotional contagion, creating a set up for clear communication of feelings and experiences; Empathic understanding overcomes conformity and enables shifting out of stuckness into contribution, transformation, and leadership, including satisfying and flourishing relationships; Empathic interpretation overcomes projection and is the folk definition of empathy, walking in another's shoes, adding "top down" empathy to "bottom up," empathic receptivity; Empathic responsiveness drives out anger and rage, acting as a soothing balm to suffering and emotional upset, deescalating conflict and aggression; Scientific, peer-reviewed, evidence-based research confirms that empathy reduces inflammation and stress; Relationships get "weaponized" in bullying and, coming from empathy, how to overcome bullying, reestablishing boundaries: recommendations to students, teachers, administrators on how to stop bullying (including cyber-bullying) and promote empathy; Disorders of empathy such as Asperger's and autism and (in a different context) the psychopathic person, the "Natural Empath" (caught between nature and nurture), and (fully buzzword compliant) mirror neurons, are related to empathy; "Corporate empathy" is not a contradiction in terms, "CEO" now means "chief empathy officer," and empathy is now the ultimate "capitalist tool"; Empathy is the "secret sauce" in sexual satisfaction within an authentic relationship, featuring the desire of desire, the "good parts," and intimate engagements that are sustainable. Empathy Lessons put you back in touch with your empathy. Empathy lessons-not merely the title of the book, the actual practices-provide applications to tough cases. The applications give back to you your power in overcoming life's social stresses and the power to expand well-being in the face of emotional upset, handling difficult relationships, meeting business challenges in the corporate jungle and empathy desert, overcoming bullies and bullying, and applying and practicing empathy in sex and romance. Not a conventional self-help book, but a writerly, intermittently humorous, romp through empathic fields, you get 30 actionable recommendations. Feeling like you are thrown "under the bus" again and it's getting crowded under there? Get the empathy you need to fight back and flourish in this book.

Intellectual Empathy

Intellectual Empathy PDF Author: Maureen Linker
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472052624
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
A guide for facilitating discussions about socially divisive issues for students, educators, business managers, and community leaders

Against Empathy

Against Empathy PDF Author: Paul Bloom
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062339354
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
New York Post Best Book of 2016 We often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers agree that the only problem with empathy is that we don’t have enough of it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, argues Yale researcher Paul Bloom. In AGAINST EMPATHY, Bloom reveals empathy to be one of the leading motivators of inequality and immorality in society. Far from helping us to improve the lives of others, empathy is a capricious and irrational emotion that appeals to our narrow prejudices. It muddles our judgment and, ironically, often leads to cruelty. We are at our best when we are smart enough not to rely on it, but to draw instead upon a more distanced compassion. Basing his argument on groundbreaking scientific findings, Bloom makes the case that some of the worst decisions made by individuals and nations—who to give money to, when to go to war, how to respond to climate change, and who to imprison—are too often motivated by honest, yet misplaced, emotions. With precision and wit, he demonstrates how empathy distorts our judgment in every aspect of our lives, from philanthropy and charity to the justice system; from medical care and education to parenting and marriage. Without empathy, Bloom insists, our decisions would be clearer, fairer, and—yes—ultimately more moral. Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, AGAINST EMPATHY shows us that, when it comes to both major policy decisions and the choices we make in our everyday lives, limiting our impulse toward empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make.

Empathy in the Context of Philosophy

Empathy in the Context of Philosophy PDF Author: L. Agosta
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230275249
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book Here

Book Description
Integrating continental and Anglo-American traditions, the author exposes empathy as the foundation of the being-with-one-another of human beings. The interpretation of empathy is applied to story telling, literature, and self psychology, rescuing empathy from the margins and revealing its role in the understanding of the other and human community.

The Ethics of Care and Empathy

The Ethics of Care and Empathy PDF Author: Michael Slote
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134002696
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
Eminent moral philosopher Michael Slote argues that care ethics presents an important challenge to other ethical traditions and that a philosophically developed care ethics should, and can, offer its own comprehensive view of the whole of morality. Taking inspiration from British moral sentimentalism and drawing on recent psychological literature on empathy, he shows that the use of that notion allows care ethics to develop its own sentimentalist account of respect, autonomy, social justice, and deontology. Furthermore, he argues that care ethics gives a more persuasive account of these topics than theories offered by contemporary Kantian liberalism. The most philosophically rich and challenging exploration of the theory and practice of care to date, The Ethics of Care and Empathy also shows the manifold connections that can be drawn between philosophical issues and leading ideas in the fields of psychology, education, and women's studies.

Empathy and History

Empathy and History PDF Author: Tyson Retz
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800734387
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since empathy first emerged as an object of inquiry within British history education in the early 1970s, teachers, scholars and policymakers have debated the concept's role in the teaching and learning of history. Yet over the years this discussion has been confined to specialized education outlets, while empathy's broader significance for history and philosophy has too often gone unnoticed. Empathy and History is the first comprehensive account of empathy's place in the practice, teaching, and philosophy of history. Beginning with the concept's roots in nineteenth-century German historicism, the book follows its historical development, transformation, and deployment while revealing its relevance for practitioners today.

Self and Other

Self and Other PDF Author: Dan Zahavi
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191034797
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
Can you be a self on your own or only together with others? Is selfhood a built-in feature of experience or rather socially constructed? How do we at all come to understand others? Does empathy amount to and allow for a distinct experiential acquaintance with others, and if so, what does that tell us about the nature of selfhood and social cognition? Does a strong emphasis on the first-personal character of consciousness prohibit a satisfactory account of intersubjectivity or is the former rather a necessary requirement for the latter? Engaging with debates and findings in classical phenomenology, in philosophy of mind and in various empirical disciplines, Dan Zahavi's new book Self and Other offers answers to these questions. Discussing such diverse topics as self-consciousness, phenomenal externalism, mindless coping, mirror self-recognition, autism, theory of mind, embodied simulation, joint attention, shame, time-consciousness, embodiment, narrativity, self-disorders, expressivity and Buddhist no-self accounts, Zahavi argues that any theory of consciousness that wishes to take the subjective dimension of our experiential life serious must endorse a minimalist notion of self. At the same time, however, he also contends that an adequate account of the self has to recognize its multifaceted character, and that various complementary accounts must be integrated, if we are to do justice to its complexity. Thus, while arguing that the most fundamental level of selfhood is not socially constructed and not constitutively dependent upon others, Zahavi also acknowledges that there are dimensions of the self and types of self-experience that are other-mediated. The final part of the book exemplifies this claim through a close analysis of shame.

Empathy

Empathy PDF Author: Susan Lanzoni
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300240929
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Get Book Here

Book Description
A surprising, sweeping, and deeply researched history of empathy—from late-nineteenth-century German aesthetics to mirror neurons†‹ Empathy: A History tells the fascinating and largely unknown story of the first appearance of “empathy” in 1908 and tracks its shifting meanings over the following century. Despite empathy’s ubiquity today, few realize that it began as a translation of Einfühlung or “in-feeling” in German psychological aesthetics that described how spectators projected their own feelings and movements into objects of art and nature. Remarkably, this early conception of empathy transformed into its opposite over the ensuing decades. Social scientists and clinical psychologists refashioned empathy to require the deliberate putting aside of one’s feelings to more accurately understand another’s. By the end of World War II, interpersonal empathy entered the mainstream, appearing in advice columns, popular radio and TV, and later in public forums on civil rights. Even as neuroscientists continue to map the brain correlates of empathy, its many dimensions still elude strict scientific description. This meticulously researched book uncovers empathy’s historical layers, offering a rich portrait of the tension between the reach of one’s own imagination and the realities of others’ experiences.