Empathy and Agency: The Problem of Understanding in the Human Sciences

329 Pages·1999·14.02 MB·English

by  Hans Herbert Kögler

EMPATHY
ISBN 0-8133-9119-9
,!7IA8B3-djbbjj!:t;K;k;K;k
HANS HERBERT KOGLER & KARSTEN R. STUEBER
6.00 x 9.00 6.00 x 9.00
,!7IA8B3-djbbjj! .734
Empathy and Agency

Empathy and Agency
The Problem of
Understanding in the
Human Sciences
edited by
Hans Herbert Kogler
University of North Florida
Karsten R. Stueber
College of the Holy Cross
.
-,,-,.
~ \
est'JY!~
,--,,~
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Copyright © 2000 by Westview Press, A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Published in 2000 in the United States of America by Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue,
Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom by Westview Press, 12 Hid's
Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ
Find us on the World Wide Web at www.westviewpress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Empathy and agency: the problem of understanding in the human
sciences I edited by Hans Herbert Kogler and Karsten R. Stueber.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-9120-2 (hc).-ISBN 0-8133-9119-9 (pb)
1. Psychology-Philosophy. 2. Science and psychology.
3. Empathy. I. Kogler, Hans Herbert, 1960-. II. Stueber,
Karsten R.
BF64.E67 2000
12 8' .4-dc21 99-35722
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials 239.48-1984.
PERSEUS
POD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
ON DEMAND
Contents
Preface VB
Introduction: Empathy, Simulation, and
Interpretation in the Philosophy of Social Science,
Hans Herbert Kogler and Karsten R. Stueber 1
1 Simulation and the Explanation of Action,
Robert M. Gordon 62
2 The Theory of Holistic Simulation:
Beyond Interpretivism and Postempiricism,
Georg Vielmetter 83
3 Imitation or the Internalization of Norms:
Is Twentieth-Century Social Theory Based
on the Wrong Choice?
Stephen Turner 103
4 Simulation and Epistemic Competence,
David Henderson and Terence Horgan 119
5 Understanding Other Minds and the
Problem of Rationality,
Karsten R. Stueber 144
6 Simulation Theory and the Verstehen School:
A Wittgensteinian Approach,
Theodore R. Schatzki 163
7 From Simulation to Structural Transposition:
A Diltheyan Critique of Empathy and Defense
of Verstehen,
Rudolf A. Makkreel 181
8 Empathy, Dialogical Self, and Reflexive Interpretation:
The Symbolic Source of Simulation,
Hans Herbert Kogler 194
v
VI Contents
9 The Importance of the Second Person:
Interpretation, Practical Knowledge,
and Normative Attitudes,
James Bohman 222
10 The Object of Understanding,
Paul A. Roth 243
11 Reenactment as Critique of Logical Analysis:
Wittgensteinian Themes in Collingwood,
Simon Blackburn 270
References 289
About the Editors and Contributors 303
Index 305
Preface
In philosophy of mind and cognitive psychology, we have recently wit
nessed a revived interest in empathy, or simulation, as a cognitive tool for
understanding others. By focusing on the question of how we gain knowl
edge of other minds, and whether we use simulation/empathy or theory as a
means for this task, philosophy is rediscovering a topic that has been at the
center of controversy in the philosophy of social science. "Simulation," as
presented in recent cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind, is a chal
lenge to the established orthodoxy that the understanding of others is based
on theory or rationality. Evidence about the cognitive development of
young children suggests that instead of using a "theory" to predict and un
derstand others, we rather imaginatively put ourselves into the other's situ
ation. In this vein, the role of emotions and motivations for making sense
of others is emphasized. Understanding human agency is thus not the same
as explaining how something in the material world occurs. This idea dove
tails well with the conception of empathic understanding, or Nacherleben
(reliving), of some paradigms in the philosophy of social science. In early
hermeneutic thought, "empathy" was construed as a special method of ac
cess to historical and cultural phenomena due to the psychological similar
ity between interpreter and interpretee. It has been taken to break the mo
nopoly of explanatory methods established by the natural sciences. Instead
of just explaining and constructing external phenomena, interpreters in the
human and social sciences "understand" the social or cultural world, that
is, they relive and reexperience its meaning.
Yet in light of the cognitive revolution, linguistic turn, and what we
might call "the unchallenged orthodoxy of the interpretive turn," philoso
phers of social science from almost all traditions tend nowadays to be skep
tical and negligent about the role of empathy for understanding human
agency. We believe that the new and overwhelming evidence from cognitive
psychology and the philosophy of mind challenges the methodological sta
tus quo in the human and social sciences. We have conceived this anthology
in the belief that the contemporary discussion justifies a renewed investiga
tion of empathy within the realm of philosophy of social science by taking
into account the current arguments for empathy/simulation in cognitive
psychology and the philosophy of mind. At stake are issues like the relation
vii
Preface
VIII
between everyday and social-scientific interpretation, the role of empathy
or simulation in understanding human agency, the scope and adequacy of
attributing theoretical or rational assumptions in the course of interpreta
tion, and the nature of rational ancl/or causal explanations in the human
and social sciences.
This anthology is intended to be accessible to a broad audience. In order
to facilitate this goal, the introduction outlines the main features of both
the current debate and the traditional debate about empathy's role for un
derstanding human agency. Our introduction will serve two purposes in
particular. First, it will provide a systematic survey of the most important
debates that have shaped the contemporary field of the philosophy of social
science. We are focusing on the debate among Collingwood, Dray, and
Hempel about the function of laws in social-scientific explanation, the con
troversy about rationality and relativism triggered by Winch and Macln
tyre, the debate between Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Gadamer on the em
pathetic or dialogical nature of hermeneutics, and on the Erklarenl
Verstehen debate in the social sciences. Second, the introduction will clarify
the importance of the simulation debate for the methodological problems
in the social sciences. We will point out many connections that exist be
tween earlier models of empathy and recent simulation theory, and discuss
those correspondences in light of their relevance for a methodology con
cerned with understanding human agency.
The various contributions presented here will explore the role of empa
thy for understanding agency from different perspectives. It is the editors'
hope that such "cooperation" among various philosophical traditions is
beneficial to both the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of social sci
ence, and that it will allow us to get a precise understanding of our epis
temic relation to other minds and agents. The chapters in this book also
show that the shared interest in simulation (or empathy) as a method for
interpretation has organically produced a convergence of philosophical in
terest of formerly rather separated philosophical fields. The methodological
paradigms presented here include the philosophy of mind, simulation the
ory, social theory, naturalized epistemology, Davidsonian theory of mean
ing, Wittgensteinian, Diltheyan, and critical-hermeneutic approaches to un
derstanding, and normative-pragmatic and antirealist positions. They thus
encompass a wide range of methodological perspectives that are relevant
for the disciplines of cognitive psychology and cognitive science, for sociol
ogy, anthropology, and history, and, of course, for all interested in the phi
losophy of the human and social sciences.
Philosophical writing in general tends to be the result of intellectual co
operation and conversation. This is even truer for Empathy and Agency:
The Problem of Understanding in the Human Sciences, which approaches
contemporary simulation theory from a variety of different perspectives in
Preface IX
the philosophy of human and social sciences. The editors are grateful to nu
merous people who helped us bring this project to completion. We would
like to thank the contributors for their enthusiastic cooperation. Similarly,
thanks are due to our editor, Sarah Warner, of Westview Press for her gen
erous support. We are particularly grateful to Rosa de Jorio and Manisha
Sinha for their intellectual companionship and for their comments on the
introduction. In the end we would also like to express our gratitude to our
academic institutions, the University of North Florida and the College of
the Holy Cross, who supported this project through a summer research
grant and a faculty fellowship, respectively.
Hans Herbert Kogler and Karsten R. Stueber