Abstract
The psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut defines ‘empathy’ as ‘vicarious introspection’. An inquiry is undertaken into what ‘vicarious introspection’ really means. The implications of this statement for the constitution of a psychoanalytic fact are explored. Without empathy the mental life of man is unthinkable, according to Kohut. This points in the direction of a transcendental argument that empathy is the foundation of community implicated by Kohut’s position. This transcendental argument is explored and its limitations noted. An example of a specific, particular vicarious experience and its introspective processing is engaged. Implications for empathy, the self and, as the founder of self psychology Kohut’s idea of the selfobject are engaged.
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Notes
Michael Forster argues this is a risk and failing of transcendental arguments in general. The technical vocabulary of mathematical and metaphysical synthetic a priori principles invoked by Forster in his engaging study does not fit in this work on Kohut. If Kant has a backstop that halts the infinite regress, then it is Kant’s ‘Highest Principle of All Synthetic Judgment’ (A158/B197), which delves into the transcendental understanding of the synthetic unity of the manifold of intuition as the ‘to which’ all further questioning is referred. Even if this is a complete answer for Kant, it is not necessarily so for Kohut (or me). See Michael N. Forster, Kant and Skepticism (2008: 64–65).
See Arnold Goldberg (2004), Misunderstanding Freud. New York: The Other Press. Goldberg conceptualizes the dialogue between the analyst and analysand as unfolding within the context of the hermeneutic circle. I was not fortunate enough to obtain Goldberg’s insightful and rewarding study (which needs to be back in print) until I had already written this book, though I have benefited from conversations with him over the years. I make a parallel point in my 1977 dissertation (Agosta 1977), though not informed by his wealth of clinical practice. Goldberg also offers tantalizing ideas in an Appendix to his Freud book about the relationship between Heidegger and Heinz Kohut, the analyst who invented self psychology. From the Anglo-American tradition a matter for future research is how the ‘I’ expresses the self via the spontaneous power of the speech act to bind the self as in a commitment, promise, imperative (command), assertion of truth and so on. So far as I know, the constitutive intersection of speech acts with the self is unexplored territory. This is so notwithstanding the engaging contributions of Marya Schechtman that first came across my desk as this book goes to press (Schechtman 1996, 2001).
Or vice versa. Ted Cohen concisely argues that the talent for metaphor, a capacity that is not further analysable according to Aristotle, lies at the basis of our understanding of other persons, narratives (and related artistic forms such as role playing) and even empathy. This eloquent and entertaining gem of a book carefully issues a disclaimer that empathy is not necessarily always involved in the enlarged sense of metaphor implicated (by Cohen) in partial identification. ‘… I have absolutely no wish to claim that such efforts of empathy are always involved.’ See T. Cohen, Thinking of Others: On the Talent for Metaphor (2008: 16). Avoiding the word ‘always’ is prudent, yet I believe such ‘empathy’ is commonly and pervasively functioning without effort to keep us in touch with one another as humans.
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© 2010 Lou Agosta
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Agosta, L. (2010). Empathy as Vicarious Introspection in Psychoanalysis. In: Empathy in the Context of Philosophy. Renewing Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230275249_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230275249_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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