From empathy to sympathy. On the importance of love in the experience of the other

Abstract

Edmund Husserl’s theory of empathy as a kind of experience of the other is a fundamental element of his theory of intersubjectivity. As is well-known, Husserl thinks that the point of departure for the analysis of empathy is the primordial sphere, or sphere of ownness. The antecedents of the phenomenological analysis of the experience of the other must be sought in texts from the end of the nineteenth and the beginnings of the twentieth century. The “enrichment” of empathy that takes place in sympathy is especially clear, according to Husserl, in the case of the “community of love”. The chapter presents a contextualization and summary of the fundamental features of the Husserlian theory of Einfuhlung. The antecedents of the phenomenological analysis of the experience of the other must be sought in texts from the end of the nineteenth and the beginnings of the twentieth century.