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Empathy has for a long time, at least since the eighteenth century, been seen as centrally important in relation to our capacity to gain a grasp of the content of other people's minds, and predict and explain what they will think, feel, and do; and in relation to our capacity to respond to others ethically. In addition, empathy is seen as having a central role in aesthetics, in the understanding of our engagement with works of art and with fictional characters. A
fuller understanding of empathy is now offered by the interaction of research in science and the humanities. Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives draws together nineteen original chapters by leading researchers across several disciplines, together with an extensive Introduction by the
editors. The individual chapters reveal how important it is, in a wide range of fields of enquiry, to bring to bear an understanding of the role of empathy in its various guises. This volume offers the ideal starting-point for the exploration of this intriguing aspect of human life.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Section I. Empathy and Mind
- 1: Amy Coplan: Understanding Empathy: Its Features and Effects
- 2: Derek Matravers: Empathy as a Route to Knowledge
- 3: Alvin I. Goldman: Two Routes to Empathy: Insights from Cognitive Neuroscience
- 4: Marco Iacoboni: Within Each Other: Neural Mechanisms for Empathy in the Primate Brain
- 5: Jean Decety and Andrew N. Meltzoff: Empathy, Imitation, and the Social Brain
- 6: Gregory Currie: Empathy for Objects
- Section II. Empathy and Aesthetics
- 7: Murray Smith: Empathy, Expansionism, and the Extended Mind
- 8: Dominic McIver Lopes: An Empathic Eye
- 9: Stephen Davies: Infectious Music: Music Listener Emotional Contagion
- 10: Susan L. Feagin: Empathizing as Simulating
- 11: Nöel Carroll: On Some Affective Relatons between Audiences and Characters in Popular Fictions
- 12: Graham McFee: Empathy: Interpersonal vs. Artistic?
- Section III. Empathy and Morality
- 13: Jesse J. Prinz: Is Empathy Necessary for Morality?
- 14: Heather D. Battaly: Is Empathy a Virtue?
- 15: Martin L. Hoffman: Empathy, Justice, and the Law
- 16: E. Ann Kaplan: Empathy and Trauma Culture: Imaging Catastrophe
- 17: Peter Goldie: Anti-empathy
- 18: Adam Morton: Empathy for the Devil
About the author
Amy Coplan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fullerton. Her primary research interests are in philosophy of emotion, aesthetics (especially philosophy of film), feminist philosophy, and ancient Greek philosophy. She has published articles on the nature and importance of emotion and on various forms of emotional engagement with film, including empathy, sympathy, and emotional contagion. She is currently editing a collection on the film Blade Runner for the Routledge series Philosophers on Film.
Peter Goldie was the Samuel Hall Chair in Philosophy at the University of Manchester. His main philosophical interests included the philosophy of mind, ethics, and aesthetics, and particularly questions concerning value and how the mind engages with value. His books include The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration (OUP, 2000), and On Personality (Routledge, 2004), and the co-authored Who's Afraid of Conceptual Art? (Routledge, 2010). He edited Understanding Emotions: Mind and Morals (Ashgate, 2002), and The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion (OUP, 2010), and co-edited Philosophy and Conceptual Art (OUP, 2007).
Summary
This is a much-needed interdisciplinary investigation of empathy. Leading researchers from philosophy and psychology explore the role of empathy in our capacity to understand other people and predict what they think, feel, and do; the part it plays in our ethical responses to others; and its importance to our appreciation of art and fiction.
Additional text
I found the volume very stimulating and the breadth of discussion refreshing [...] I highly recommend it to people interested in empathy and empathy-related phenomena.
Report
I found the volume very stimulating and the breadth of discussion refreshing [...] I highly recommend it to people interested in empathy and empathy-related phenomena. Heidi Lene Maibom, Mind
