Empathy and mirroring: Husserl and Gallese

Dan Zahavi

Københavns Universitet

pp. 217-254

in: Roland Breeur, Ullrich Melle (eds), Life, subjectivity and art, Berlin, Springer, 2012

Abstract

Back in 1994 I defended my doctoral dissertation on Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität with Bernet as my supervisor. One of the central claims in this early work of mine was that Husserl’s distinct contribution to a phenomenology of intersubjectivity – in particular when compared to later phenomenologists – was to be found in his analysis of the constitutive significance of intersubjectivity, and that Husserl’s mature phenomenology could consequently be seen as an explicit defence of what might be called an intersubjective transformation of transcendental philosophy. By focusing on constitutive intersubjectivity I more or less stayed clear of a question that had preoccupied much of the secondary literature on Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity up to then, namely the question of whether Husserl’s concept of empathy implied a direct or mediated access to others (cf. Zahavi 1996, 15).

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Gallese Vittorio