The Roots of Intersubjectivity – Empathy and Phenomenology according to Edith Stein

Abstract

Is empathy (Einfühlung) a special kind of embodied cognition that explains to us what intersubjectivity is? Is the phenomenological living body as a subject-body (Leib and not Körper) really the same as the neurophysiological one? And why have the neurosciences recently turned to phenomenology to answer these questions? Manganaro explores Edith Stein’s conceptualization of empathy as the foundation of intersubjectivity and the self. Stein’s radical intersubjective account strongly influenced the phenomenological concept of empathy. According to Stein, empathy means “to feel within” what the other “I” is experiencing from a first person perspective. Moreover, this intersubjectivity constitutes the original root and sense of personal subjectivity. Therefore, when turning to a phenomenological concept of empathy, neuroscience imports this complex epistemology of the human being. _____ Stein, E. (1917/1989). On the Problem of Empathy. The Collected Works of Edith Stein (vol. 3, 3rd revised ed., W. Stein, Trans.). Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications. CrossRefGoogle Scholar