On the Problem of Empathy: The Collected Works of Edith Stein

by Edith Stein

Edith Stein's doctoral dissertation under Husserl, with index.

Early in Edith Stein's philosophical output stands her doctoral dissertation defended in 1916 at Freiburg-im-Breisgau. On the Problem of Empathy is the fruit of several years' work with the founder of phenomenology and the director of the dissertation itself, Edmund Husserl.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Nonfiction, Catholic, Theology, Religion, Germany

135 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

Edith Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, OCD, (German: Teresia Benedicta vom Kreuz, Latin: Teresia Benedicta a Cruce) (12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942), was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to the Roman Catholic Church and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church.

She was born into an observant Jewish family, but was an atheist by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of World War I, in 1915 she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in a hospital for the prevention of disease outbreaks. After completing her doctoral thesis in 1916 from the University of Göttingen, she obtained an assistantship at the University of Freiburg.

From reading the works of the reformer of the Carmelite Order, St. Teresa of Jesus, OCD, she was drawn to the Catholic Faith. She was baptized on 1 January 1922 into the Roman Catholic Church. At that point she wanted to become a Discalced Carmelite nun, but was dissuaded by her spiritual mentors. She then taught at a Catholic school of education in Speyer. As a result of the requirement of an "Aryan certificate" for civil servants promulgated by the Nazi government in April 1933 as part of its Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, she had to quit her teaching position. She was admitted to the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne the following October. She received the religious habit of the Order as a novice in April 1934, taking the religious name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross ("Teresa blessed by the Cross"). In 1938 she and her sister Rosa, by then also a convert and an extern Sister of the monastery, were sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands for their safety. Despite the Nazi invasion of that state in 1940, they remained undisturbed until they were arrested by the Nazis on 2 August 1942 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gas chamber on 9 August 1942.

Reviews

[Brandon Harwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why no one teaches her in philosophy, I don't know. But, her mysticism and historical importance is often discussed in other circles.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Stein's doctoral dissertation. Stein, Husserl's protege, takes an interesting twist of Husserl's phenomenology, offering a way out of the Cartesian solipsism that has plagued modern philosophy.

[Bodo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow if i had actually read this when I was supposed to I would have done better on that exam. Funny

[mraziyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had chills reading this book. How is she not more famous?

I am still trying to wrap my head around phenomenology. Stein says that "the goal of phenomenology is to clarify and thereby to find the ultimate basis of all knowledge". She posits finding knowledge through the experience of the Self, of the "I" in the world. I think that we feel a lot of disconnect and alienation from ourselves and from the world because we are constantly trying to examine the world outside of our own experiences, trying to find this objective reality that the person cannot even see. We are constantly trying to rid ourselves of the living body, which Stein argues is impossible.

The concept of reducing everything to "social constructs" is equally as poisonous, treating Reality as somehow unreal. Stein writes, "As we consider expressions to be proceeding from experiences, we have the mind here simultaneously reaching into the physical world, the mind “Becoming visible” in the living body." And later she writes, "Our whole “cultural world”, all that “the hand of man” has formed, all utilitarian objects, all works of handicraft, applied science, and art, are reality". Essentially she is arguing that these so-called social constructs are real, but it is the mind trying to understand what they are, that is why we label them. So instead of doing away with Reality, we should seek to understand it better.

I recommend this book to all the materialists. I definitely want to learn more about phenomenology and read more of Stein's writings.

[Olga Jaworska]

This is the first work in phenomenology that I had to read entirely and I almost died.

[Sara G]

You can really tell that she became a nun in her later life. This is, still, incredibly interesting to read. I don't know if I liked it but I did find it incredibly engaging.

[Bohemian Bluestocking · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need a second read or at least a re-reading and talk-through of my annotations to get more of this, but I thought it was interesting how her perspective of empathy was as important to apply to the self as to an other person. I felt it was helpful advice and encouragement for how and why we should discover others, i.e. empathy requires distance and can help ourselves disclose what was hidden about ourselves ("empathy give myself to myself"). She discusses her stance in comparison with knowing others by association and analogy, but says we do have an advantage when we are more an insider to the subject we encounter than outsider. I would say modern phemonenological methods in a qualitative study would insist on disadvantages as well, which I think she alludes to in how we can be led astray in trying to understand others. I thought the rhetoric of primordial experience vs. non-primordial experience was really helpful as well and enjoyed that she put a bit of theology in there as well. I see such a large intellectual and aesthetic gap between her philosophical works and theological works, but I suppose it was intentional.

[Zhijing Jin · Rating 5 out of 5]

quick notes:
- Methodology: I like how Stein breaks a topic into several subquestions (!), and use commonsense reasoning over each topic, accompanied with case studies to fine-tune the reasoning (reflective equilibrium)

- Meaningful subquestions:
(1) Is empathy of one human to another theoretically achievable? (i.e., do we have a set of basic human nature elements that we can rescale to interpolate to another person's?). practically achievable? (I.e., how can we train ourselves to emphasize with another person quickly?
-- One tool: We observe ourselves or other data samples of "if I have emotion A, then I will show it in action B", then reverse-infer "If I see this person showing observable action B, then I infer their possibility of holding emotion A is X%"

(2) Very interesting projection question: I have (a) my real emotion A, (b) my self-interpreted emotion A', and (c) another person who observes my action B, and then infers my emotion A''. And then
(i) is "distance(A, A')" always smaller than "distance(A, A'')"?
(ii) does A'' change A in the next time stamp t+1?
(iii) do we actively optimize A''? Do we iterate our self-identity?

(3) Do dis-embodied empathy exist? -- very relevant to emotional AI

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic. Hoping to revisit with more time, but as always very insightful on the contributions of phenomonology to the understanding of the human person. To think she had to fight so much to publish this due to the professional limitations of women in her age, make it very impressive and inspiring, too.

[Federico · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm such an empath 😎💅🏻

[Ashlee Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work was consistent and insightful to imply that contributions of phenomonology can be used to better understand the human response to Empathy. I studied Empathy in a medical bioethics course and this was recommended reading. It’s the kind of philosophical work that inspires contemplation of ones inner self. Although I admit a lot of the text was over my head I was able to better understand it with the help of my professor and also during discussions in class. I often refer back to what I’ve learned from this book!

[booklady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Borrowed this from my sister and I have to return it to her this week. It's excellent as well.

[Tamakatsura]

📢 VENDO QUESTO LIBRO!

Ho letto e amato questo libro, ma non posso più tenerlo.
Per questo motivo ho deciso di venderlo: potete aggiudicarvelo alla modica somma di 18,00 €!

Se siete interessati, scrivetemi un messaggio privato.

📚 Condizioni del libro:
Il volume è stato letto e studiato, ma l'ho ricoperto e tenuto con grande cura. Non ci sono segni sulla spina, ma sono presenti sottolineature a matita e annotazioni a matita a bordo pagina.
Se avete bisogno de L'empatia per motivi di studio, le mie piccole note (corso con la prof.ssa Boella, autrice del saggio introduttivo) potrebbero persino esservi utili!
Posso inviare fotografie dettagliate del volume: chiedetemele tramite un messaggio privato.

📦 Metodo di spedizione: Piego di Libri
0 -2 Kg Ordinario 1,28 € / Raccomandato 3,63 €
2 -5 Kg Ordinario 3,95 € / Raccomandato 6,30 €

Pagamento: tramite ricarica Postepay.

[José María · Rating 2 out of 5]

La tesis doctoral de Edith Stein es exactamente lo que esperaba de ella: conceptos y reflexiones interesantes explicados de la manera más enrevesada posible.

Vamos con lo malo. MENUDO TOSTÓN!!!! Si no te interesa la autora o el tema, ni le des una oportunidad.

Lo bueno????? Que te pegas la rayada de tu vida. Haces la reducción trascendental husserliana, piensas en cuando piensas que piensas que estás pensando en estar pensando y te vuelves loca. Te estalla la cabeza, tu mente divaga en una idea que más bien parece un fractal o una matrioshka sempiterna.

Mención especial al concepto de ser psicofísico como pilar ontológico de Stein. Abre muchas vías de reflexión sobre los límites de la humanidad. Aun así cari... 2 estrellas, porque como libro, esto es infumable!!!

[Holden Rasmussen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final chapter is a puzzling turn, but in terms of rigour and consistency with the phenomenological method, this is the best philosophical work on empathy. Now, when people drop the word empathy as a political slogan, organizational psychology tool, or as a end for their art I can question them about their potentially lazy notion of empathy.

[Nicholas Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few translation choices that make this edition a bit harder to work through than expected, but on the whole, this was a worthwhile entry point into Stein’s work and phenomenology more broadly.

[jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the most interesting philosophical discussion/question I have ever read. Of course, being my patron saint, I may be bias.

Empathy is the most tangible, structural aspect of the human experience.

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

La empatía es una presencia tranquila y sosegada que sabe que, para comprender la conciencia ajena, la mejor manera de conocer es desde un acompañamiento desposeído y sereno. No vale la pena perder el tiempo buscando una naturaleza objetiva de la empatía cuando la comprensión se abre a los pasos que decidimos transitar junto al diferente ; punto de inflexión que nos permite forjar la base de una comunidad y una convivencia sólida. Recordemos que la empatía no se calcula :la experimentamos en el mostrarse del otro ,y es aquí precisamente donde nos damos cuenta que comprendemos al diferente y que, incluso, descubrimos que el otro es el espejo, la brújula moral y la presencia que nos permite conocernos a nosotros mismos.

[Alberto Lagomarsini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente exposición de su tesis doctoral sobre la empatía desde la filosofía. Aunque denso, es una pieza maestra de la fenomenología. Y nutre muy bien la psicología.

[Mar de Hielo · Rating 3 out of 5]

La verdad se me hizo muy difícil...pero estoy orgullosa de Edith, una gran mujer erudita para la época.

[A. B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book on the phenomenology of empathy, but far too many detours and meanderings for my taste.

[Luke Umar-Khitab · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am currently working on an essay involving the relationship between reading fiction and empathy for a class of mine, heavily drawing on this book. This was the first time I've ever cried while reading a philosophy book; a nerd status that is hard to recover from. While theoretically dense, it was very moving and beautifully written (besides the technical jargon of phenomenology). I am not entirely convinced by the whole project, but this investigation clearly stemmed from her recognition of the importance of other people in constituting who we are. We can bracket almost everything, even the history of thought, but not our loved ones. Our love for them shows us different depths of ourselves, it reveals who we are and builds an entire world of values that the purely phenomenological account of the "I" overlooked. I am going to be reading this quite a bit this next month while I try to say something semi-coherent about her case. It prompted a lot of interesting thoughts and I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Hopefully the essay will be something worth reading too.

[Javier Barranquero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith explora el problema de la empatía mediante el aparato conceptual que le brinda la fenomenología. Fenomenología es la ciencia que investiga las estructuras de los fenómenos en su continuo brindarse, en su permanente darse (a la intencionalidad de la conciencia). Hoy en día, no se puede negar a la rama de la psicología que accede al método fenomenológico para (intentar) desvelar la esencia de los fenómenos mentales; un ejemplo, puede ser the Oxford handbook of phenomenological psichophatollogy. La empatía es la aprehensión de la vivencia ajena no originaria que manifiesta una originaria, así mismo, también es la condición de posibilidad para la comprensión propia. Edith Stein deja a un lado el enfoque trascendental de su maestro Husserl, que incurre en el problema de la intersubjetividad y la duplicidad del ego en la empatía, reduciendo el mundo a la propia conciencia (Ideas I, 1913). Rechaza la reducción trascendental, y usa como métodos la epojé, y la reducción fenomenológica y eidética que nos llevan a la esencia de los actos y a la conciencia pura (fuente de acción y punto de partida de la constitucion del sujeto experiencial). Influenciada también por Santa Teresa y Bergson, Edith aborda el problema de la empatía en personas espirituales, espíritu es el correlato vivificador de la conciencia en el mundo de objetos, el cual se expande hacia afuera siempre refiriendo a un mundo de los valores.
En tres apartados; constituye al individuo psicofísico; critica a las teorías anteriores; y da su propia concepción sobre como empatizamos con un "yo ajeno".
Desde luego se quedan cuestiones en el aire, no es un libro acabado, pero es un maravilloso intento de una joven Edith que quiere captar con discurso nuevo, algo tan esencial como es la empatía.

[Anna]

read for philosophy of self and other
Not a light philosophical read, but from what I understand! Important Perhaps! Can't wait to discuss it in class.