Abstract
In this paper I am concerned with the notion of empathy and its capacity for overcoming the problem of difference in social life. The concept of empathy has a long history in the Western philosophic tradition but has become discursively submerged in recent times. I am particularly interested in what philosophies of the body may contribute to our understanding of empathy. Psychoanalytic feminism provides some insights. However I identify Merleau-Ponty's conception of body-subject and the intersubjective encounter as offering a potentially more fruitful account of empathy.
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O'Loughlin, M. Overcoming the Problems of ‘Difference’ in Education: Empathy as ‘Intercorporeality’. Studies in Philosophy and Education 17, 283–293 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005143115036
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005143115036