ON THE ISSUE OFEMPATHY:ANANALYSIS OFEDMUND HUSSERL'S THEORYOF INTERSUBJECTIVITY

Abstract

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the emotions of the other person. Empathy may be understood as a particular topic within the larger discussion of the nature of 'intersubjectivity', that is, discussion about how we are to understand the basic communicative relations between subjects and the importance of such interpersonal relations for our way of relating to the world as a whole. The problem tackled in this paper arises from the question: why is it that a subject can only constitute objectivity after having experienced an 'other'? Using the phenomenological method of analysis, the paper aims to show Husserl's analysis of how the other is a necessary condition for the possibility of the experience of an objective world.According to Husserl, the objectivity and transcendence of the world is constituted = and that, a clarication of this constitution consequently demand an analysis of transcendental intersubjectivity, and more concretely an examination of any experience of another subject. Husserl was convinced that intersubjectivity contained the key to a comprehension of the constitution of objective reality and transcendence, and since Husserl regarded that as one of the most important tasks of transcendental phenomenology, it should be obvious what kind of systematic importance his analysis of intersubjectivity possess and how much is actually at stake.