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Comment: Basic Empathy and Complex Empathy

Dan Zahavi
Emotion Review 2012 4: 81
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421387
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EMRXXX10.1177/1754073911421387ZahaviEmotion Review

Comment

Basic Empathy and Complex Empathy

Emotion Review
Vol. 4, No. 1 (January 2012) 8182
The Author(s) 2012
ISSN 1754-0739
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421387
er.sagepub.com

Dan Zahavi
Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract
In my short commentary, I dwell on the distinction between basic and
complex empathy, and suggest that a basic perception-based form of
empathy might point to the existence of a type of social understanding
that is more direct and more fundamental than the types of social cognition
normally addressed by simulation theory and theory theory.

Keywords
context, empathy, interpersonal understanding, phenomenology

Despite the recent upsurge of interest in and work on empathy,

there is still no clear consensus about how to demarcate empathy from related phenomena such as emotional contagion and
sympathy, in part, of course, because there is still no agreement on what precisely empathy is. Not only are conflicting
definitions currently being proposed with diverging implications for the contribution that empathy can supposedly make
to interpersonal understandingsome claim that empathy is
the glue that makes social life possible (Hoffman, 2000,
p. 3; cf. Gallese, 2001, p. 43), others that it is a less direct and
more mediated form of interpersonal understanding than the
kind provided by cognitive perspective-taking (de Vignemont
& Singer, 2006, p. 439)but there is also no agreement on
whether empathy is a single unified phenomenon or rather a
multidimensional construct.
Given this lack of consensus, I was pleasantly surprised to
find myself in agreement with many of the points made by
Hollan in his article Emerging Issues in the Cross-Cultural
Study of Empathy (2012).
To start with, I think Hollan (2012) is right in distinguishing
the that question from the why question, and also in suggesting that different forms of empathy might be involved. To
see that another person is angry or performing a specific action
is already a form of interpersonal understanding that arguably
depends on a basic form of empathy. But even if one ascribes a
certain primacy to this rather primitive, automatic and affective form of social understanding, one also has to realize its
clear limitations. It doesnt as such provide us with an under-

standing of why somebody is angry or performing the action in

question. And if the latter kind of understanding also requires a
form of empathy, we are dealing with a cognitively more complex type. As Hollan writes, The second type of empathy may
grow out of and be dependent upon the visceral and perceptual
mechanisms enabling the first, but its full realization also
requires knowledge that is more sensitive to situation and
context, and also more prone to misinterpretation and error
(Hollan, 2012, p. 71).
Hollans (2012) claim that a comprehensive account
of empathy needs to consider the role of context and the
importance of background knowledge, should be familiar to
readers of Schutz (1967), who in his classical contribution
Phenomenology and the Social World argued that we have to go
beyond a narrow focus on face-to-face interaction and embodied engagement, if we want to understand the full psychological
life of others. Although it might be permissible to say that
certain aspects of the others consciousness, such as his joy,
sorrow, pain, shame, pleading, love, rage, and threats, are given
to us directly and noninferentially, it does not follow from this
that we also have a direct access to the why of such feelings.
And in order to uncover these aspects, it is not sufficient simply
to observe facial expressions and actions; we also have to rely
on interpretation, and have to draw on a highly structured context
of meaning. In short, if we wish to reach a deeper level of interpersonal understanding, we have to go beyond what is directly
available (Schutz, 1967, pp. 2324, 168; cf. Zahavi, 2010).
One question to ask though is whether the role of empathy
is restricted to face-to-face based forms of interpersonal understanding, or whether there are forms of empathy that reach
further. One problem with making the latter claimthat is, the
claim that people in Copenhagen can, say, feel empathy with
those affected by the March 11 tsunami and that they employ
empathy in order to understand the stressful situation of the
workers at the Fukushima Daiichi power plantis that it blurs
the distinction not only between empathy and sympathy, but
also between empathy and simulation-based or theory-based
forms of standard mindreading. In my view, this should be
avoided, since the existence of a basic perception-based form of

Corresponding author: Dan Zahavi, Center for Subjectivity Research, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 140142,
Copenhagen 2300, Denmark. Email: dza@hum.ku.dk

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82 Emotion Review Vol. 4 No. 1

empathy might precisely point to the existence of a type of

social understanding that is more direct and more fundamental
than the types of social cognition normally addressed by simulation theory and theory theory (cf. Zahavi, 2008, 2011).
Recognizing that there might be different types of empathy,
and that some might be more basic than others, doesnt yet
answer the question of whether and to what extent the more
automatic forms can be affected by topdown modulation.
I consequently welcome and endorse Hollans call for more
studies that compare and explore the relation between the
various forms of empathy.
Another important issue that Hollan (2012) touches upon
concerns the alleged moral neutrality of empathy. It is important
not to conflate empathy and sympathy. Whereas the latter necessarily involves a component of care and concern, this is not the
case with the former. Just think of the skilled interrogator or
the sadist. A high degree of empathic sensitivity might precisely
be of use if one wants to humiliate somebody. Hollan, however,
questions the epistemic purity of empathy. As he points out,
empathy is very rarely simply a matter of passively understanding the thoughts and feelings of others; rather, it is something
that impels one to action. But even if Hollan might be right in
arguing that complex empathy is never neutral, but rather is

always found embedded in a moral context which affects both

its likelihood and means of expression, and its social, emotional,
and even its political and economic, consequences (Hollan,
2012), the question that needs to be asked is whether this also
holds true for the most basic form of empathy.

References
de Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: How, when and
why? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 435441.
Gallese, V. (2001). The shared manifold hypothesis: From mirror neurons
to empathy. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8, 3350.
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Hollan, D. (2012). Emerging issues in the cross-cultural study of empathy. Emotion Review, 4, 7078.
Schutz, A. (1967). Phenomenology of the social world. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Zahavi, D. (2008). Simulation, projection and empathy. Consciousness
and Cognition, 17, 514522.
Zahavi, D. (2010). Empathy, embodiment and interpersonal understanding:
From Lipps to Schutz. Inquiry, 53, 285306.
Zahavi, D. (2011). Empathy and direct social perception: A phenomenological proposal. Review of Philosophy and Psychology doi: 10.1007/
s13164-011-0070-3.

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