Werner - Empathic Scaffolding. How Literary Ways of Writing about Experiences Improves Empathy
Christiana Werner (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)
"Empathic Scaffolding. How Literary Ways of Writing about Experiences Improves Empathy”
Christiana Werner has a position at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), but works at the moment in a project on mind and imagination at the University of Giessen (Germany). Her research focuses on philosophy of empathy, emotions and imagination and epistemology. She is also interested in aesthetics, in particular philosophy of fiction.
Empathic Scaffolding. How Literary ways of Writing about Experiences Improves Empathy
Abstract:
According to many recent accounts in debates on social cognition, empathy is seen as a mechanism of mental state recognition which includes processes of simulation or imagination. Roughly, an empathizer imagines being in the target’s situation or being the target in her situation in order to learn in what mental state the target actually is. Many philosophers also assume that readers regularly empathize with characters in works of literature. This however presents a puzzle: The text often provides quite explicitly and detailed insides in the character’s mental life. What is the epistemic benefit of empathy with fictional characters in these cases?
In order to answer this question, I will introduce my account of experientially imagining another person’s experience (“empathic scaffolding”) and argue that the epistemic benefit is knowledge of what it is like. This knowledge cannot be gained by merely propositionally imagining the work’s content. For this reason, empathic scaffolding is necessary to gain knowledge of what it is like to be in the character’s situation. Empathic scaffolding depends on information about the target and her mental state. I will argue that while naming mental states is often not sufficient, literary ways of describing experiences improves empathic scaffolding.
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Il Laboratorio interdipartimentale N&H dell’Università degli Studi di Parma ha lo scopo di promuovere e sviluppare la ricerca nell’ambito delle relazioni tra le discipline umanistiche e le neuroscienze cognitive. Questo obiettivo è perseguito attraverso la realizzazione di progetti di ricerca scientifica, workshop, seminari, conferenze e convegni, promozioni di reti di ricerca e di Fellowships, costruzione di relazioni nazionali e internazionali con altri Atenei e Centri di ricerca attivi in questo campo, sviluppando rapporti sia con enti e istituzioni di carattere pubblico che privato.
Questo canale YouTube di N&H offre una serie di risorse online per coloro che sono interessati ad approfondire queste tematiche.
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