A Rumor of Empathy

Rewriting Empathy in the Context of Philosophy

L. Agosta

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137465344
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

A rumor of empathy in vicarious receptivity, understanding, interpretation, narrative, and empathic intersubjectivity becomes the scandal of empathy in Lipps and Strachey. Yet when all the philosophical arguments and categories are complete and all the hermeneutic circles spun out, we are quite simply in the presence of another human being.

1

A Rumor of Empathy in Hume’s Many Uses of Sympathy

Abstract: David Hume has at least four distinct meanings of “sympathy.” These are mapped in detail to the multi-dimensional aspects of empathic receptivity, empathic understanding, empathic interpretation, and empathic responsiveness. In turn, “sympathy” is engaged as receptivity to affects; as understanding of exemplary other individuals as possibilities (from ancient Roman and Greek times); as the empathic interpretation of the other using a general point of view of an ideal observer; finally, as the optimal response of benevolence. Hume delimits the difference between sympathy and emotional contagion as a double representation. Hume leaves undeveloped the parallel between a “delicacy of taste” and a “delicacy of sympathy,” the latter capturing today’s “empathy.” The “delicate” aspects of sympathy are gathered together with “delicacy of taste” and considered here.

Keywords: aesthetic taste; benevolence; David Hume; empathy; ideal observer; narrative; sympathy; the other

Agosta, Lou. A Rumor of Empathy: Rewriting Empathy in the Context of Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/978113746534.0005.

“Humanity” as a leading thread in Hume

Hume’s philosophy is a part of the deep history of empathy. The intention is not to evaluate Hume’s work from the perspective of the limited understanding of empathy that we have today in philosophy, neuroscience, or psychoanalysis, but to appropriate anew the possibilities Hume saw for empathic relatedness to other persons. “Humanity” provides a leading thread, connecting the dots between Hume’s many meanings of “sympathy” and the unified multi-dimensional process of empathy. These include recognition, acknowledgement, humor, friendship, compassion, taste, and especially an enlarged humanity. Hume exhibited many of these qualities in his relationships and commitments. As such, Hume was an exemplary individual, a magnanimous and gracious spirit who envisioned possibilities for human development irreducible to mere self-interest or an austere formalism. This is Hume at his most empathic, tracing how an enlarged humanity emerges in a person: delicate sensitivity to the affects of others, human understanding as presence of mind and practical wisdom, interpretation of the other from the standpoint of a general but sympathetic spectator, and optimal responsiveness as expressions of fellow-feeling (e.g., 1751: 67). These aspects of our humanity provide a foundation for our rewriting of Hume’s uses of empathy—the capability, not the word—as that which provides relatedness to the other person in empathic receptivity, empathic understanding, empathic interpretation, and empathic language. These in turn point to an expanded definition of empathy that makes empathy the foundation of human relatedness.

Hume’s development of sympathy maps closely to the four aspects of the unified, multi-dimensional process of empathy proceeding—in Humean terms—from (1) a form of receptivity to ideas and impressions through (2) grasping possibilities of understanding of character that define human relations to (3) interpretation as a sympathetic but detached, general observer to (4) benevolent responsiveness to the other individual in an interpersonal context—empathic receptivity, empathic understanding, empathic interpretation, and empathic responsiveness. This multi-dimensional definition organizes Hume’s penetrating and incisive remarks about “sympathy” and their contribution to the debate about empathy. In no way does this inquiry merely substitute “empathy” for “sympathy” (or vice versa), though there are moments where the overlap unavoidably and productively confronts us.

Hume sets the standard for qualities of humanity that are unsurpassed and indeed neglected in the mad whirl of today’s dizzy world. Hume is indirectly describing himself in portraying “the man of humanity” (e.g., 1739: 604) as an attentive and sensitive individual of integrity and taste that we would today call an “empathic person.” This person does not surreptitiously substitute “empathy” for “sympathy,” but allows the applications of sympathy to unfold so as to leave the reader experiencing the presence of “empathy” as we understand it today.

Thus, Hume’s humanity is front and center. Hume sometimes used the word “humanity” as over-lapping with “social sympathy” (1751: 83) or “fellow-feeling“ (1751: 47f). This distinction of “humanity” will enable us to connect the dots between Hume’s many meanings of “sympathy” in his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) (and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals [1751]) and the multi-dimensional process of empathy. Hume writes of “the force of humanity and benevolence” (1751: 47), which, in turn, indicates what is altruistic, generous, and charitable. Likewise, he writes of the “principles of humanity and sympathy” (1751: 57). In all these instances, “humanity,” “sympathy,” “fellow-feeling,” and “benevolence,” are closely related, yet distinct aspects of his inquiry into human conduct and relations, or why would he call them out separately? To compound the challenge, one passage exists in which Hume uses all three synonymously— “general benevolence, or humanity, or sympathy” (1751: 115f). But then Hume retreats: they are all alike only in the limited sense that none of these three is reducible to self-love. They are all distinct, though over-lapping, once self-love is acknowledged in human conduct. But self-love is not the foundation of morality. All these qualities—benevolence, humanity, sympathy—live in the hearts of mankind as separate and independent dispositions, calling forth moral approbation in humanity. Hume understands “humanity” in a wide and deep sense, encompassing possibilities shared by all human beings. “Humanity” starts to sound like a rumor of empathy, even if too merger-like, and with ethical implications:

[T]he humanity of one man is the humanity of everyone; and the same object touches this passion in all human creatures.

But the sentiments which arise from humanity are not only the same in all human creatures and produce the same approbation or censure, but they also comprehend all human creatures. (Hume 1751: 94; italics added)

“Humanity” is a shared capability underlying our experience and inspiring moral actions. Hume continues by proposing to investigate “the sentiments dependent on humanity” that “are the origin of morals” (1751: 94). These sentiments start out as sympathy in the Treatise (1739), but end up as benevolence in the Enquiry (1751). Hume exemplifies both.

Hume provides in his own person an example of an exemplary individual, who, in his self-description, transforms qualities of narcissism—self-love in a limited but not entirely negative sense—into positive qualities of the self such as humor, wit, the wisdom of experience, the encounter with finitude, an appreciation of art, benevolence (compassion), and qualities of an enlarged humanity (see also Kohut [1966] where empathy, wit, wisdom, and art appreciation are transformations of the self). These are the personal qualities that make one a good friend, “some one worth knowing,” living life to its fullest, a credit to the community, and an exemplary human being. These are the qualities that call forth empathic relatedness. These transformations of the self are a useful reminder that Hume provides a standard for our own time that knows the negative aspects of narcissism, exhibitionism, selfishness, and grandiosity without greatness.

The inquiries into the role of sympathy in Hume—where “sympathy” echoes “empathy” without the reduction of either one to the other—have overlooked the contribution of Hume’s aesthetic dimension. The role of taste in the aesthetic appreciation of nature and art is part of the underground history of empathy. For Hume “a delicacy of taste” is not the truncated, subsidiary ability with which we sadly regard and neglect it today. Taste was a capability along with sympathy that provided a complement to our humanity as feeling, imagining, thinking persons in relationship not only with art but also with other persons. The matter is complex. The two dimensions of relatedness to art and relatedness to humanity resound like a rumor of empathy, and, come together in Hume’s “delicacy of taste” and “delicacy of sympathy” only to find the latter swallowed up by taste.

Hume has no formal architectonic (such as Kant’s), but if he were true to his own categorization, a “delicacy of sympathy” would operate on the violent passions in parallel to a “delicacy of taste” on the calm ones (e.g., 1741: 25). Hume develops no explicit use of sympathy in relation to the violent passions (e.g., love, joy, pride, desire, aversion, grief, etc.) parallel to that of taste in the calm passions (e.g., benevolence, love of life, settled principles of action, etc.). He mentions “a delicate sympathy” one time (1739: 576–577), and then asserts that “Thus it appears, that sympathy is a very powerful principle in human nature, that it has a great influence on our sense of beauty, and that it produces our sentiment of morals in all the artificial virtues” (1739: 577–578). Still, Hume does leave a logical place for a kind of “delicacy of sympathy“ corresponding to “delicacy of taste”—which enables one to discriminate feelings in persons that less discriminating others would overlook. If we follow up the hint, this breaks new ground in the analysis of empathy. Such a Humean “delicacy of sympathy” would be what we call “empathic receptivity.” Hume’s distinction “delicacy of taste“ relates directly to “empathic receptivity” through the appreciation of fine-grained distinctions in experience. The one person is receptive to impressions to which the other person is not open.

Separately, Hume juxtaposes “taste“ in the aesthetic sense with moral qualities. In the Treatise he writes, “The approbation of moral qualities . . . proceeds entirely from a moral taste, and from certain sentiments of pleasure or disgust, which arise upon the contemplation and view of particular qualities or characters” (1739: 581–582; emphasis added). Amidst Hume’s discussion of “virtue in rags” and how sympathy is a source of high regard for virtue, the contemporary reader is surprised suddenly to be reading about the esteem shown to beautiful houses and the handsome physical qualities of a strong man (1739: 584–585) in what seemed to be sustained argument about moral worth. Where did this material about beauty come from? In some second thoughts documented in an amendment to the Treatise’s original edition, Hume asserts that sympathy is too weak to control the passions but has sufficient force to influence our taste. Part of this switch is explained by the analogy between our sentiments of approval in the cases of virtuous action and beautiful artifacts. But not all of it, since Hume explicitly writes,

Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste are easily ascertained. The former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood; the latter give the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue (1751: 112; emphasis added).

Thus, Hume is pointing to a path back from morality to its infrastructure in taste. By 1751, “sympathy” has been reduced in Hume’s work to “natural sympathy,” which is what we would today call the power of suggestion: “others enter into the same humor and catch the sentiment, by a contagion or natural sympathy” (1751: 74). Instead of sympathy, the merits of benevolence and its utility in promoting the good of mankind through attributes agreeable and useful to oneself and others become the basis of morality (e.g., Hume 1751: 241). Thus, the path traversed by Hume’s “sympathy.” At every step it is necessary to call out whether the alleged relatedness of “sympathy” to “empathy” is in terms of receptivity, understanding, interpretation, or responsiveness.

Sympathy as receptivity to affects

What both Hume’s sympathetic individual and the aesthetic one share in common is a capability for fine-grained distinctions—a “delicacy”—of feeling (sensations and affects). “Taste” is the capability for judging the beauty of something by means of the feelings aroused by the object, and Hume’s name for this in aesthetics is “delicacy of taste.”

Although Hume does not have an implementation mechanism for sympathy that exists at the level of neurology, in a rightly celebrated passage, Hume appreciates that “the minds of men are mirrors to one another” and that emotions are “reflected” back and forth (1739: 365). Indeed it does not matter if mirror neurons are a neurological nonstarter, existing only in monkeys and not in human beings (see Decety et al. 2013 and Hickok 2014 for a skeptical view). Given human relatedness, a regression to the substrate occurs, suggesting an implementation mechanism, even if hypothetical, to account for the experiences that we do in fact have in emotional contagion, contagious laughter, motor mimicry, and subtle forms of synchronization of bodily gestures. Even if mythical, the entire human being is one giant, ultimate mirror neuron (Hickok 2014). Even more significant than mirror neurons, Hume’s “delicacy of sympathy” provides guidance to the work of emotional micro-expressions. Paul Ekman’s (2003) micro-expression facial coding scheme connects fine-grained details of the expression of animate life and the basic emotions.

By “sympathy” Hume does not initially mean the particular sentiment (emotion) of pity or compassion or benevolence, but rather the communicating of feelings as such. Sympathy reverses the operation of the understanding, which converts impressions of sensation into ideas. In the case of sympathy, the operation is in the reverse direction—from ideas to impressions. Sympathy arouses ideas in the recipient that are transformed into impressions—though this time impressions of reflection—through the influence of the ideas. Thus, the operation of sympathy:

‘Tis indeed evident, that when we sympathize with the passions and sentiments of others, these movements appear at first in our mind as mere ideas, and are conceiv’d to belong to another person, as we conceive any other matter of fact. ‘Tis also evident, that the ideas of the affections of others are converted into the very impressions they represent, and that the passions arise in conformity to the images we form of them (1739: 319–320).

For example, another individual expresses anger or displeasure. One witnesses the other individual’s expression of anger. One takes up this sentiment as an idea in one’s mind, stimulated by the other’s expression of animate life, which is then converted into an impression of the same within the one. The other’s emotion is expressed and, through sympathy, is apprehended as an idea, which, in turn, is converted into an impression of one’s own. Thus, one is receptively open to experiencing what may be variously described as a signal affect, a counter-part feeling, a trace emotion, a sample feeling, or a vicarious experience—of sadness. This can be redescribed as “empathic receptivity.” The basis of Hume’s sympathetic conversion of ideas into impressions is the imagination. In this view, sympathy is not to be mistaken for some particular affect such as pity or compassion, but it is rigorously defined by Hume as “the conversion of an idea into an impression by the force of imagination” (1739: 427). As noted earlier, the other person’s sadness gets expressed and is apprehended sympathetically as an idea, which idea is communicated to the observer/listener, and, in turn, through the sympathetic work of the imagination, arouses a corresponding impression of one’s own. Strictly speaking, this is an impression of reflection that is fainter and calmer than the initial idea (or impression) of sadness.

In short, one now knows what the other is experiencing because one experiences it too, not as the numerically identical impression, but as an impression that is qualitatively similar. This is no mere substitution of “sympathy” for “empathy” or vice versa. It is the function of empathic receptivity redescribed in Humean terms. This operation of sympathy (empathy) is also crucially distinct from emotional contagion, as in the mass behavior of crowds, since the passion and sentiments are “conceived to belong to another person.” This is crucial. This introduces the other. Significantly for Hume, the idea of the other accompanies the impression that is aroused in one as a result of the other’s expression. The inclusion of the other at this point indicates that we are dealing with a phenomenal totality—a whole, complete process of relatedness.

For example, Hume finds a paradigm example of the mechanism of sympathy in the theatre. The experience allows for a kind of emotional contagion as when laughter contagiously spreads through the audience, but is not limited to it:

A man who enters the theatre, is immediately struck with the view of so great a multitude, participating of one common amusement; and experiences, from their very aspect, a superior sensibility or disposition of being affected with every sentiment, which he shares with his fellow-creatures. (1751: 49)

Empathic receptivity is exemplified as every audience member has a “vicarious experience” of the emotions of the “several personages of the drama”—the actors—on the stage:

Every movement of the theatre, by a skillful poet, is communicated, as it were by magic, to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety of passions, which actuate the several personages of the drama. (1751: 49)

The “magic” is the conversion of idea to idea and idea to impression in a process that occurs beneath the threshold of awareness. Every “movement . . . is communicated” by means of sympathy. The result is the vicarious experience of the audience—an experience of the experience of the other. Hume is an astute phenomenologist, and the “vicarious” in vicarious experience is a function of sympathy:

A spectator of a tragedy passes thro’ a long train of grief, terror, indignation, and other affections, which the poet represents in the persons he introduces [ . . . ] [T]he spectator must sympathize with all these changes [ . . . ] Unless, therefore, it be asserted, that every distinct passion is communicated by a distinct original quality, and is not derived from the general principle of sympathy above-explained, it must be allowed that all of them arise from that principle [of sympathy]. (1739: 369; italics added)

Hume’s language of the “more or less liveliness and vivacity” of impressions and ideas is well-suited to clarifying vicarious experiences as feelings that are attenuated, diluted, as it were, watered-down. Sympathy provides a trace affect of the other’s experience. Sympathy provides a sample of the other’s ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: Rewriting the Definition of Empathy
• 1  A Rumor of Empathy in Humes Many Uses of Sympathy
• 2  A Rumor of Empathy in Kant
• 3  From a Rumor of Empathy to a Scandal of Empathy in Lipps
• 4  Rewriting Empathy in Freud
• 5  Rewriting Empathy in Max Scheler
• 6  Husserls Rewriting of Empathy in Husser
• References
• Index