Episode 344: Heidi L. Maibom
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The Philosophy of Empathy
Many scholars and philosophers have taken the stance that empathy hinders the true pursuit of knowledge and justice. But our guest today takes the opposite approach.
Heidi L. Maibom is a professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati and the University of the Basque Country. Her book, The Space Between: How Empathy Really Works, argues that not only is empathy indispensable, but that it’s impossible to acquire knowledge about this world and ourselves without it.
She and Greg discuss the place empathy occupies in philosophy, the different types of perspectives that go along with empathizing, and whether or not it’s possible to have too much empathy.
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Episode Quotes:
Empathy is many things
44:18: Empathy is many things, and that's partly why I find it distressing to read so many dismissals of empathy which focus on it as one thing. Either you have to understand the other person entirely—their entire history, their experiences, and so forth and so on. Of course we can't empathize in that way. Or you are empathizing with them as an act of "I know better than you," and so forth. We're empathizing with people for all kinds of reasons. It's important to appreciate that and also to then focus your empathy in the right way, depending on what kind of project you're engaging.
Does empathy require identification?
21:08: Empathy requires some amount of identification. But the identification is interesting because, in essence, what you're trying to do is map the other person's subjectivity onto your own. That's why you have to find a situation of your own that you have experience with to map that situation on. But at the same time, of course, you have to be aware of the ways in which you differ from the other person.
Can you have too much empathy?
49:05: People who are empathetic are more vulnerable to exploitation from others, to gaslighting perhaps, right? So, being empathetic comes with dangers and advantages. But I think that if we try to go back to this notion of the shape of subjectivity, being how I experience things as the one who acts and who thinks and so forth, then I think that when you then try to understand yourself, taking the perspective, as it were, from the inside, taking a perspective from the outside, as little engaged with yourself as you can be, as it were, and then if you are in a particular interaction with somebody else, the victim or the perpetrator perspective, in addition.
How does philosophy of emotions tie with philosophy of empathy?
36:02: There's a tremendous amount of information that we can derive from a successful act of emotionally empathizing with someone. And more information than from simply empathizing with a thought or thinking, okay, here is exactly what they're thinking. I think emotions are richer. It just gives us more information, and there's important aspects to an emotion, namely from the perspective of closeness with another person, from feeling understood, just seeing that another person is emoting. It's incredibly important, but there's also all this information that we shouldn't ignore that is really crucial and very helpful for understanding this.