The Collected Works of EDITH STEIN ON THE PROBLEM OF EMPATHY

Edith Stein
by empathic presentation or con-primordiality, I can
ing these fields of sensation to givenness by making them
for me, not in the character of perception, but only
ntationally. This was delineated in the description of emacts.
Fields of sensation owe the character of being "there
lves" to the animatedly given physical body with which
e given. This becomes still clearer in the consideration of
sensations themselves instead of fields of sensation. The
ing on the table does not lie there like the book beside it.
s" against the table more or less strongly; it lies there
or stretched; and I "see" these sensations of pressure and
in a con-primordial way. If I follow out the tendencies to
nt in this "co-comprehension," my hand is moved (not in
but "as if ') to the place of the foreign one. It is moved into
pies its position and attitude, now feeling its sensations,
not primordially and not as being its own. Rather, my
feels the foreign hand's sensation "with," precisely
the empathy whose nature we earlier differentiated
r own experience and every other kind of representation.
this projection, the foreign hand is continually perceived
ing to the foreign physical body so that the empathized
are continually brought into relief as foreign in conith
our orvn sensations. This is so even when I am not
toward this contrast in the manner of au'areness.
) The Conditions of the Possibility of Sensual Empathy
possibility of sensual empathy ("a sensing-in," we should
be exact) is warranted by the interpretation of'our own
rdy as a physical body and our own physical body as a
rdy because of the fusion o{' outer and bodily percep-
It is also u'arranted by the possibility of spatially altering
ysical body, and finally by the possibility of modifying its
ties in {hntasy while retaining its type. Were the size of
Ird, such as its length, width, span, etc. gtven to me as
ably fixed, the attempt at empathy with any hand having
llt Properties would have to fhil because of the contrast
n them. But actually empathy is also quite successful with
and children's hands which are very different fiom mine,
Constitution of the Psycho-Phlsical Indiuidual 59
lor my physical body and its members are not given as a fixed type
but as an accidental realization of a type that is variable u'ithin
definite limits. On the other hand, I musr retain this type. I can
only empathize with physical bodies of this type; only them can I
interpret as living bodies.
'l'his 'I-here is not yet an unequivocal limitation. are types of
various levels of generality to which correspond various possible
lcvels of empathy. The type "human physical body" does not
clefine the limits of the range of my empathic ob.jects, more exactly,
of lvhat can be given t() me as a livir"rg body. However, it
r:ertainly marks off a range withrn which a very definite degree o{
cmpathic fulfillment is possible. In the case of empathy u'ith the
firreign hand, fulfillment, though perhaps nor "adequate," is yet
ltossible and very extensive. What I sense non-primordially can
coincide exactly u'ith the other's primordial sensati()n. Shr uld I
perhaps consider a dog's paw in comparison with my hand, I d