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Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation

Derek, I have been wanting to ask you about your thoughts about how aspects of human behavior that can only be comprehended through empathy are therefore inaccessible to science. Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that you are right, that empathy is a necessary component of accurate observation and understanding, why does employing empathy exclude doing science? Marx said (something like) "nothing human is alien to me." That attitude isn't "empathy," strictly speaking, but it is certainly on the way. Not that it is an easy or automatic thing to do, but why do you seem to feel that we **can't** learn how to use our powers of empathy in social science? 

- Steve


On Jan 15, 2009, at 4:20 PM, Martin Packer wrote:


Derek,
It depends of course on what one means by empathy. I've been arguing for years that all the social sciences draw implicitly on our human capacity for 
*understanding* the actions of others (Einfühlung?), and that our
investigations can and should be interpretive, hermeneutic. Of course many 
others have made similar points. To say that genuine science is not
interpretive would be in my mind simply a false claim.

Martin


On 1/14/09 4:20 PM, "Derek Melser" <derek.melser@gmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, if mind/consciousness/ thinking is an action, then, because our perception of others' actions always requires empathy, and because empathy is not an acceptable observation method in the 
sciences, there will never be a genuine science of
mind/consciousness/thinking. But at least we'll no longer be bamboozled by 
the mind/body problem...



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