The Collected Works of EDITH STEIN ON THE PROBLEM OF EMPATHY

108 Edith Stein
Yet this range of values is not merely accessible to the reflecting
glance. Not only the knou'ledge we have but, perhaps to a still
greater extent, the knowled6ie not yet realized is felt as a value.
'fhis f'eeling of value is the source of all cognitive striving and
"what is at the bottom" of all cognitive willing. An object proffers
itself to me as dark, veiled, and unclear. It stands there as something
which demands exposure and clarification. The clarifying
and unveiling with their result in clear and plain knowledge stand
before me as a penetratingly felt value and drag me irresistibly
into them. A range of my own values is made accessible here, and
a level of my own personality corresponds to it. This is a very deep
level repeatedly passing for the kernel level as such. It really is the
essential kernel of a certain personal type of a definitely "scientific
nature."
But we can take still more from the analysis of knowledge. We
spoke of cognitive striving and cognitive willing. The cognitive
process itself is an activity, a deed. I not only feel the value of the
cognition to be realized and joy in the realized one, but in the
realizing itself I also feel that strength and power we found in
other willing and action.
Thus u'e have sketched the constitution of personality in outline.
We have found it to be a unity entirely based in experience
and further distinguished by its subordination to rational laws.
Person and world (more exactly, value world) were found to be
completely correlated. An indication of this correlation is sufficient
for our purposes. Hence, it follou's that it is impossible to
formulate a doctrine of the person (for n'hich we naturally take
no responsibility here) u'ithout a value doctrine, and that the
person can be obtained from such a value doctrine. The ideal
person u'ith all his values in a suitable hierarchy and having adequate
f'eelings would correspond to the entire realm of value
levels. Other personal types would result from the abolition of
certain value ranges or from the modification of the value hierarchy
and, further, from differences in the intensity of value experiences
or from pre{'erring one of the several forms of expression,
such as bodily expression, willing, action, etc. Perhaps the formulation
of a doctrine of types would provide the ontological
fbundation of the cultural sciences intended by Dilthey's efforts.
Empathy as the Understanding of Spiritual Persons
4. The Givenness of the Foreign Person
109
Now u'e still must determine how the foreign person's constitution
is in contrast with our own and, furthermore, how the person
is distinguished from the psycho-physical individual with whose
constitution we were occupied earlier. After all the previous investigations,
the first task no longer seems to offer any great
difficulties. As my own person is consrirured in primordial spiritual
acts, so the foreign person is consriruted in empathically
experienced acts. I experience his every action as proceeding
from a will and this, in turn, fiom a feeling. Simultaneously with
this, I am given a level of his person and a range of values in
principle experienceable by him. 'I'his, in rurn, meaningfully motivates
the expectation of future possible volitions and actions.
Accordingly, a single action and also a single bodily expression,
such as a look or a laugh, can give me a glimpse into the kernel of
the person. Further questiolts arising here can be answered when
u'e have discussed the relationship between "soul" and "person."
5. Soul and Person
We saw persistent attributes in both the soul and the person.
But qualities of the soul are constituted for inner perception and
tor empathy when they make experiences into objects. By contrast,
persons are revealed in original experiencing or in empathic
projection. -I-his is so even if we still need a special turning
of'the glance in order to make the "awareness" into a comprehension,
as in these experiences themselves. There are characteristics
(or "dispositions") only in principle perceivable and not
experienceable. 'l'his is true of the memory announced for the
comprehending glance in my recollecrions. 'I'hese are rhus psy-