Stein 2 pages 11-20
between empathy and sympathy. When a friend tells me that his brother has died, and I have not the slightest knowledge of his brother, I can only empathize with him as described. Yet, if I was a good friend of his brother I can sympathize with him. In this case the two of us will be drawn to the same primordial object and I can feel with him the grief over the death. The two "I's" still remain distinct, but one does not non-primordially have to be led into a primordial experience as in empathy. Thus, in sympathy or fellow feeling we have the same mode of being given and while empathy may also be present at the same time the mode of givenness is enough for us to distinguish between them.
Another experience that is often confused with empathy is a "feeling of oneness." Stein gives us the example of an acrobat going through his act at the circus. It has been argued,21 that the spectator is so moved by the acrobat that he is one with him. On the contrary, Stein holds that it is through empathy that the "feeling of oneness and the enrichment of our own experience become possible."22 The "I" is never quite free of its independent character. The "I" of the acrobat and the "I" of the spectator never actually become one. The assertion that, "I am one with the acrobat and go through his motions innerly . . .is not only refuted by its consequences but is also an evidently false description."23 Hence empathy leads into oneness but is different from it.
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21 Lipps, for example, held that as long as empathy is complete there is no distinction between our own and the foreign "I"--that they are one.
22 Stein, p. 17.
23 Stein, p. 16.
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The first act of consciousness, however, the grasping of foreign experience in this situation, is one of empathy. To further explain:
I am not one with the acrobat but only "at" him. I do not actually go through his motions but only quasi . . . I do not outwardly go through his motions. But neither is what "innerly" corresponds to the movements of the body, the experience that "I move," primordial; it is non- primordial for me. And in these non-primordial movements I feel led, accompanied, by his movements. Their primordiality,is declared in my non-primordial movements which are only there for me in him (again understood as experienced, since the pure bodily movement is also perceived outwardly). Every movement the spectator makes is primordial.24
Therefore, if the spectator picks up a dropped program, he is making a primordial movement even if, in his enthusiasm for watching the acrobat, he does not remember what he is doing. Here it is not denied that one can be so drawn to and to be so living in the other's experience that self-forgetfulness takes place. This self-forgetfulness is what Stein calls a feeling of oneness. It can occur when one is fully concentrating on an act or when two or more people are viewing the same object with similar reactions. They could be joyful over the same event. And seeing this, it seems that
the non-primordial character of the foreign joy has vanished. Indeed, this phantom joy coincides in every respect with my real live joy, and theirs is just as live to them as mine is to me. Now I intuitively have before me what I feel. It comes to life in my feeling, and from the "I" and "you" arises the "we" as a subject of a higher grade.25
The "we" however still contains the "I" of one and the "I" of the second person. Even at this high level of sharing the independent character of the "I" is maintained. Husserl held that: "within the monad ("I"-cogito in the transcendental
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24 Stein, p. 17.
25 Stein, p.17.
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realm) which is given to me apodictically and originally are the reflections of alien monads. These reflections are confirmed consistently."26
Leaving aside examples, and returning to the description of the essence of empathy we find that Husserl held that: "in my own self, however, the experiences of others appear in a secondary sense, as 'co-experienced' (i.e.) in the mode of a unique perception of similarity."26a In her description, Stein holds that empathy or the
experience of being led by the foreign experience takes place in three steps as follows-
1. the emergence of the experience;
2. the fulfilling explication;
3. the comprehensive objectification of the explained experience."27
These three grades or modalities are the key to distinguishing empathy from other acts and set empathy aside as an act of perceiving sui generis.
On the first and third grades, the representation exhibits the non-primordial parallel to perception, and on the second grade it exhibits the non- primordial parallel to the having of the experience. The subject of the empathized experience, however, is not the subject empathizing, but another.28
Hence, in the second grade we have the mode of similarity that Husserl finds necessary for the establishment of the transcendental alter ego. And it is at this point that transcendental subjectivity becomes transcendental inter-subjectivity. The two subjects "are separate and not joined together, as pre viously, by a consciousness of sameness or a continuity of experience."29 In this case we are not talking about our own "I" and one of our past or future "I's" (which is the case with memory, expectation and fancy) but the cogito
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26 Husserl, p. 35. 26a Husserl, p. 35.
27 Stein, p. 11.
28 Stein, p. 11.
29 Stein, p. 11.
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of another person. Men can be mistaken about another's experience but they can only grasp the foreign experience by way of the above modalities. So the epistemological question of how we can know the existence of other people, is resolved at this point in phenomenology.
Also without leaving the realm of transcendentals we can make a few more distinctions. First, empathy differs from perception where the object stands before us in embodied giveness. "Both have their object itself there and meet it directly where it is anchored in the continuity of being."30 Perception is always primordially given, empathy non-primordially given. Secondly, empathy differs from knowledge.
Mere knowledge (Wissen) is also characterized by this 'encountering'by the subject, but is created in this encounter. It is nothing more. Knowledge reaches its object but does not 'have' it. It stands before its object but does not see it. Knowledge is blind, empty and restless, always pointing back to some kind of experienced seen act. And the experience back to which knowledge of some foreign experience points is called empathy.31
Thirdly, the question of whether empathy has the character of an idea (Vorstellung) which is totally intellectual or whether it contains emotional experience can be decided. The examination of the given does not reveal a dicotomizing element in consciousness. Edith Stein held that empathy could not be pigeonholed into one classification of psychology. Therefore, the question of whether empathy is an idea or an emotion is an equivocal question.
Yet, in a very interesting part of section one, Stein comments upon
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30 Stein, P. 19.
31 Stein, p. 19.
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the problem of misleading emotions and prejudice.
This analysis is a part of the discussion of inner perception which is not in the realm of the pure transcendental. I include it in this paper because it does relate directly to empathy and shows how phenomenological analysis can have important social-political impact.
At this point of the argument a distinction has been made between reflection which is not subject to deception, and inner perception which is. Simply put: "As we live in the feelings of our environment, we take them for our own, though they do not clarify our own feelings at all."32 We can, for instance acquire feelings by reading.
The problem of prejudice, however, is also based upon deception and is inclined to be reinforced with age. In the light of phenomenology Stein briefly analyzed prejudice. Let us view her argument:
Suppose that I have taken over from my environment a hatred and contempt for the members of a particular race or party. For example, as the child of conservative parents, I may hate Jews and social democrats . . . . this would be an entirely genuine and sincere hatred save for the fact that it is based on an empathic valuing, rather than a primordial one. This hatred may also be increased by contagion of feeling to such a degree that it is not legitimately related to the felt disvalue. Thus I am not under a deception when I grasp my hatred. Two deceptions can be present here: 1) a deception of value (as I think I grasp a disvalue that does not exist at all); 2) a deception about my person, should I think, on the basis of my own insight, that these feelings are exalted and view my prejudice as loyalty.33
In order for one to overcome prejudice, he need first to bring the experience to primordial givenness. Thus, by facing the unembellished phenomenon he
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32 Stein, p. 31.
33 Stein, P. 30.
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can get rid of acquired deceptions and make a honest assessment of his feelings relating to the subject and to the object. The phenomenologist as a therapist can help to show forth the given and reveal deceptive feelings that may have been reinforced for years in a personality. The freshness of the phenomenological method brings one back to the unvarnished primitive world of the child and the mind of the patient is freed to constitute a world view (Weltanshauung) that can be based upon concrete fact. The act of empathy being in the realm of the transcendental does not imply moral values as the above quotation shows. Hate, anger and sadness are as much a part of empathetic acts as love and joy.
II.
The Constitution of the Psycho-physical Individual
While in section one the heart of the discussion centered around acts of consciousness, section two deals with the given phenomenon of the psycho- physical individual. Stein distinguishes this phenomenon from physical things noting:
This individual is not given as a physical body, but as a sensitive, living body belonging to an "I", an "I" that senses, thinks, feels, and wills. The living body of this "I" not only fits into my phenomenal world but is itself the center of orientation of such a phenomenal world. It faces this world and communicates with me.34
Hence this section deals in part with Descartes' question of how an
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34 Stein, p. 6.
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extended substance (matter) is related to a non-extended substance (mind). It also sets the stage for the sciences of inter-personal psychology. For phenomenology does not presuppose any science, particularly not a factual science like psychology. If correct, however, psychology must bear out the results of phenomenology. For the phenomenologist, examining the pure essence of a given is dealing in the area of absolute certitude. This is not to say that the two disciplines are by any means at odds with one another. As Stein recognized:
A rigorous delineation of what phenomenology and psychology are to accomplish for the problem of empathy by no means proclaims their complete independence from one another . . . psychology pretends to no assertions about the circumstances of the problem it is investigating . . . .Genetic psychology presupposing the phenomenon of empathy, investigates the process of this realization and must be led back to the phenomenon when its task is completed. If at the end of the process of origination it delineates, a genetic theory finds something other than that whose origin it wanted to discover, it is condemned.35
Further, when Descartes arrived at his cogito, he found that far from being simple, it contained a number of properties. "What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands (conceives), affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels."36
In order to keep the discussion in this section brief, I shall examine Stein's notions of feeling and will as they apply to the constitution of the psycho- physical individual. In particular I will examine these notions with regard to how they relate to her theory of empathy.
To begin, she makes a distinction between the body given as any other
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35 Stein, P. 20.
36 Descartes, p. 153.
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inanimate object (Körper) and the living body (Lieb). The living body is the center of orientation. Indeed in our language we recognize this fact. For example, we speak of bringing an object here, meaning toward the living body; or placing it there, someplace at a distance from the living body. Further the soul is described as "a substantial unity which, entirely analogous to the physical thing, is made up of categorical elements and the sequence of categories. "37
In agreement with many other philosophical writers of the same time, she saw the possibility of having a soul without a body but not a body without a soul. For our concept of a body without a soul is that of a corpse. Unlike other writers, however, she held for a close substantial unity of body and soul, arguing that it is a mistake to try to separate them. She bases this judgment upon her insight into how the psycho-physical individual is constituted. Unlike Descartes, who so separated sense perception from mind that he could solve the resulting philosophical dilemma only by appealing to the veracity of God, Stein held that sense perception is in reality a unifying actuality that could not be understood separate from a psycho-physical individual. "For the living body is essentially constituted through sensations; sensations are the real constituents of consciousness and, as such, belong to the "I".38 Descartes' cogito being a thing which could feel should never have been described by his critics
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37 Stein, p. 37. This somewhat unique definition of substantial soul was probably due to the Kantian influence in her studies.
38 Stein, p. 44.
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as pure mind. Nevertheless, Stein argued that not only are sensual feelings discovered in the realm of there,39 but that they also issue from my "I" or here. For example, general feelings such as the feeling of sluggishness may, issue from the "I" but the whole body throughout feels sluggish. Here, we have what she calls the phenomenon of fusion.40 This phenomenon accounts for the influence general feelings have upon experience. There are, however, in addition to general feelings that arise from somatic causes those that are non-somatic in nature, for example, moods. Mental feelings do not have the same characteristics as somatic ones. Hence, I may be in a cheerful mood and the world may be interpreted through this rosy glow, but, at the same time, my hand may, be giving me pain from an injury. Non-somatic feelings don't have the same characteristic of permeating the whole being like somatic ones. However, this is not to deny that psychic feelings such as cheerfulness or melancholy do not have a kind of a reciprocal influence on each other. To use Stein's example,
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39 I can localize the area of outer perception; my eyes are in my head; touch is perceived where the body is touched and likewise for the other senses.
40 Waltraut Stein gives this explanation of fusion: "By perception she (Edith Stein) means the perception of my body from the inside as distinguished from outer perception or sensations of objects. But she does not fail to note that sensations of objects are given at the living body to the living body as sensor, and so they are intimately connected with bodily perception. She calls this double mode of experiencing objects the phenomenon of 'fusion'. Quoted from the introduction On the Problem of Empathy p. xvii.
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I take a trip to recuperate and arrive at a sunny, pleasant spot. While looking at the view, I feel that a cheerful mood wants to take possession of me, but cannot prevail because I feel sluggish and tired. "I shall be cheerful here as soon as I have rested up;" I say to myself. I may know this from "previous experience;" yet its foundation is always in the phenomenon of the reciprocal action of psychic and somatic experience.41
Further, when one examines the concept of feeling they immediately find it grounded in a living body. I think this is her best psychological argument. For she held that there is simply no meaning to feeling by itself. All feelings by their very nature must be expressed. Of course she notes that in a civilized society it is not always possible to express our feelings openly. However, they do find some expression. She gives the example where, "the employee who is allowed neither to tell his superior by contemptuous looks he thinks him a scoundrel or a fool nor decide to remove him, can still wish secretly that he would go to the devil."42
Thus, repressed feelings, as in Shakespeare's saying, about murder, will out in some manner. They may take the form of fantasy or imaginative experience. Or again, rather than a passionate expression, which could be seen as someone so angry (The cardinal, Michaelangelo, painted in purgatory with the ears of a jackass) that they are literally hopping up and down, it can also be expressed in cool reflection. Here she notes that:
We usually say that reflection weakens feeling and that the reflecting man is incapable of intense feelings. This inference is completely unjustified. The feeling "terminates" in "passionate expression" just as in "cool" reflection. The type of expression signifies nothing about the intensity of the feeling expressed.43
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41 Stein, p. 46.
42 Stein, p. 48.
43 Stein, p. 49.
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