The Collected Works of EDITH STEIN ON THE PROBLEM OF EMPATHY

Chapter III
The Constitution of the
P sy cho-Phy sical Indiaidual
e have now achieved an essential description of the empathic
act and a critique of historical theories of foreign
consciousness from the point of vielv of our description. We still
have a far greater undertaking before us. We must treat empathy
as a problem of constitution and answer the question of how the
objects in the usual theories, such as the psycho-physical individual,
personality, etc., arise within consciousness.
Within the framework of a short investigation we cannot hope
even to approach the ansn'er to this question. We shall have
fulfilled our purpose if u'e succeed in showing the paths to this
goal and that the investigations of empathy so far could not be
satisfactory because, except for a very few attempts, these thinkers
have overlooked these basic questions. This is very clear in
Lipps, who has certainly achieved the most progress toward our
goal. He seems to be bound by the phenomenon of the expression
of experiences and repeatedly comes back to that from which he
also wants to begin. With a few words he lays aside the profusion
of questions present in the treatment of this problem. For instance,
he says about the bearer of these phenomena of expression,
"lVe believe a conscious life to be bound to certain bodies by
virtue of an 'inexplicable adjustment of our spirit' or a 'natural
instinct."'
'f his is nothing more than the proclamation of wonder, declar-
it