I hope you haven't forgotten I am talking about empathy as a tool for understanding people. Half the people in this thread either forgot or never bothered to read OP.

I think empathy as a guide for behaviour is an interesting topic that would take a while to really unpack.

One on hand, a teenager who can't understand why their parent wants them to keep their room clean (because they themselves don't care about having a clean room) seems irrelevant to the overall issue that they should care about what their parents want because well, their parents are doing so much for them and it's not a big deal to clean your room. So empathy just becomes guessing if you can't relate and it's a bit silly.

However, on the other hand, it's a fairly good indication that you shouldn't do something to somebody if you imagine they won't like it - they probably won't, it's just a good assumption to make.

I usually deal with sentiments, follow social conventions and reading body language and etc. In scenarios where I really know nothing, I use something similar to empathy, whereby I make assumptions based on common interpretations. Like if your husband calls you useless, the marriage probably isn't going well. That's just putting 1+1 together really.

Empathy has a big impact on me for many moral considerations though. When I think about how it must feel to be beaten by your husband, molested by a father/uncle, fired by a company you've been loyal to. That really can bother me at times and without empathy, I don't know if I'd care as much.

However, on the other hand, it's a fairly good indication that you shouldn't do something to somebody if you imagine they won't like it - they probably won't, it's just a good assumption to make. — Judaka

Ok.

My access to the net is limited, so I can't follow this discussion effectively. But it seems to me it overlooks the obvious fact that empathy is the foundation of the most urgent issue in philosophy. We need to want to be understood to talk at all, and there needs to be something like talk to reason at all, even if we become otherwise convinced that a machine mind is closer to what reason is. We live in dread of being real, and so we elide and attenuate all terms, stretching out a defining epoch so as to obviate the completer moment. Truth is, we spend almost all our time in that elision and attenuation of meaning. Such is "science". And that attenuation justifies to us all the cruelty of presuming empathy unreal. But that doesn't get around the founding reality that meaning is sharing moment.

Josh, I'm surprised you didn't peg me with Habermas rather than Gadamer. I respect both, but the only influence I acknowledge is Plato.

I am not presenting criticism in this thread towards empathy as a motivator. If you say the world would be a worse place without empathy, I would not disagree with you.

I think that if you believe you can understand someone through empathy then you are virtually denying them their existence.

In Plato's Lysis, a young man asks Socrates for ideas about how to get Lysis, a popular fellow student in the gymnasium with him, to befriend him. They discuss strategies of ensnaring a lover for some time, but in the end have no satisfactory result. Socrates encapsulates the discussion, and remarks, ironically, "we still don't know what love (or friendship) is!" But the passage could just as well be translated, and have originally meant, "we still do not know which one is the friendship!" Empathy is, likewise, one of those things most real by proving, after careful analysis, to be impossible to identify which one is which. We need a different kind of logic to understand things so real they elude analysis. That logic is that the terms of analysis become a community in contrariety. As contrary to each other as to the presumtions of the analysis. But you cannot make of such a logic a praxis. Practical application assumes differentiation that analysis can validly manipulate. This does not prove that empathy does exist, but it does argue that if making it a science or practical exercise loses its coherence, this does not mean it is not real. In a community in contrariety that rigorously defeats the presumptions of analysis it is ultimately most analytically certain that between the two contrary terms it is impossible to determine which one is the community, and therefore the defeat of that analysis.

Every philosopher in the world acknowledges Plato. You may as well acknowledge water, for all it helps this discussion.

Let me share one of my theories with you too, when you go into the ring swinging wildly and with eyes closed, your punches are going to miss. The whole first half of your post is prefaced upon this idea that I've said empathy is flawed therefore we can't use it. I challenge you to quote where I've written anything like this.

When you can do that perhaps we can discuss more on what you've written. I don't think your post deserves much attention because of how - dare I say it - fallacious, the whole thing is. You call opinions facts, you strawman, you are blabbering on about "imperfection" and such that is completely missing from anything I've talked about. The concept of using imagination to gain complicated knowledge and understanding is stupid and I've talked extensively about why that is, what alternatives exist and why empathy is a terrible tool for understanding people.

Ironically, you criticise me for bringing up that people can't empathise with groups like it's another fallacy of mine. Many people in this thread are still to this very day, in disagreement with me that you can't empathise with groups. Evidence that people try to empathise with groups is everywhere, this is a thread criticising that idea among other things.

I am currently talking with Joshs about the idea of empathy being used as a contributor among other things to gain understanding. You can read my replies to him about this, empathy is not as good of a starting position for understanding as alternatives and it doesn't help to further your understanding from the start position. Nobody in this thread has been able to contest these ideas in the slightest and most people just stop responding to me when I ask them to give me good counterarguments to these ideas.

You're a badass though right? Read my last response to Joshs or creativesoul and you give me an answer.

That really can bother me at times and without empathy, I don't know if I'd care as much. — Judaka

If you care at all, you're employing empathy.

I may have said that Empathy helps understanding, but I disagree, now.

empathy has nothing to do with understanding, but rather an abstraction of what's understood.

You can be beguiled by others actions, should you be empathetic is not always answered based on graphic, but is to be used tactically. Graphic definitely comes into consideration when the probability is that it's true graphic nature, but not empircally; graphic is second in the heirarchy - but first is ego or compulsion.

Am I emphathetic to you reader when considering your eyes? Yes, I am, but there is also a learning curve where I have performed a certain way; so empathy can also be a enhancing process.

Empathy could only lead to understanding if you were a spy, in that context. However, Empathy has a second process, that's enhancing. Therefore, Empathy is worthless for understanding others, but not for personal learning; it's good to be wisely empathetic.

I wouldn't go that far in all situations but for me personally, I probably wouldn't care at all about people being beaten and abused as long as it was far away from me, without empathy being a factor.

If the infant cries, does it feel? Do you know "how it feels"? Do you know how you feel if you don't know "how it feels"? Empathy with the crying infant does not in itself teach us what it needs, but it does rather keep our interest, unless you're so insensate to the crying that letting it cry feels like "other ways of understanding". A prerequisite is not a practical method. That it is not practical hardly robs it of its being the precondition of "other ways". The gesso is hidden under the painted image, but this hardly means it is not essential to the art.

Josh,
Plato has been done to death? Well empathy is "dialectic", isn't it?

Well, do we have any way to confirm or refute our empathic impressions? The denial or confirmation of the subject? If not, how is that judgement not itself an act of empathy?

Making of any fundamental condition of reason a practical tool for understanding particular circumstances is to run ahead of oneself, and to abandon philosophy.

Bathos, for instance, is an effort to jump to worthless conclusions, from a, maybe, worthy intuition. That distinction, I think, will bring a bit of clarity to this discussion. It is analogous, I suppose to imagining your thesis proved by the fact that it has yet to face a suitable trial-and-error test. Scientific intuition is the driver of material understanding. To deem it worthless would be to condemn a lot of potential knowledge to oblivion.

Depending on information necessary to confirm or refute we could be capable or incapable but there are contexts which are fairly uncontentious.

For instance, incorrect characterisations in so far as incorrect but plausible interpretations of cause for expressing emotion. The baby as an example, believing it is crying because it is has an itchy rash because you perceive/imagine through empathy the qualities of causing "crying" in the rash but the baby only stops crying when given milk bottle, supporting idea the baby was crying because it was hungry. Could probably think of more concrete examples if needed.

As we go into adults, they can specifically recount their reason for display of emotion and offer corrections to imagined reasons obtained through empathy. This occurs too with actions such as with the soldier not wishing to talk about his experience in war; presumed to be because of traumatic experiences but the individual soldier could recount "bored of talking to people about his experiences" or "feeling tired and don't want to talk at all".

Things only become harder to confirm/refute incorrectness when we are talking about the "experience" of things but in most cases, we can verbalise feelings with some accuracy and observe disparities which lean towards different experiences. My anger may occur due to different reasons, it may manifest itself differently and it may result in different motivations - most of this can be identified.

I can only imagine higher requirements for confirmation/refutation than communication to result in an inability to confirm/refute correct or incorrectness of claims made through empathy but even that only covers just some claims. There's possibiy examples where we legitimately can't confirm/refute and in that case, you may have a point.

In conclusion. there is not much need for "imagining" empathy to be wrong when we have methods of knowing when it was or wasn't.

I think intuition also gets a bad reputation for being the opposite of intellect. Intuition is useful because you're reacting to cues that your conscious mind isn't picking up on. — NKBJ

In this capacity, some are more accurate than others. It is disturbing when one encounters a person who sees even when one has a good mask to hide behind.

Challenge accepted:

...I think the process of using empathy to understand people or more generally imagination/theories to understand things to be an abundant source of stupidity and falsity.
-Judaka

Along with the title "Empathy is worthless for understanding people" should be a self-evident assertion of your stand in and of itself, no?

What I love about this forum is the seeming ability to edit previous posts without an indicator that such editing has occurred. At least per my limited experience. ;-)

Another aspect of this forum seems to be no notification of a response to posts. At least per my experience. Here I thought you had forgotten about me. :(

And yes, I am badass. Strategy is ever my forte, so my posts to anyone is a feeling out of sorts. The initial post is always one of seemingly closed-minded argument with some truths asserted. How you took it and attempted to conceal was quite revealing in itself. (I am revealing this to you because my time here is done.)

The editing of posts for more sound construction and argument is noted and appreciated- this means you are developing; seeking more solid foundations which is a proponent of wisdom aiming but at the same time the action of editing without an acknowledgment of prior falsities is slight-handed/misleading. If you claim your post to be of the same intent, then the proof of this intent will be evident somewhere in this thread- eventually.

With this said, the structure of this forum is lacking for my personal tastes, so I will excuse myself. Carry on.

I asked you to find a quote of me saying that the problem with using empathy as a tool for understanding is because it is imperfect... what the hell is this quote? Also, what do you think I edited? My OP hasn't been edited since you responded to me lol. You just made some stuff up which doesn't jive with any of my posts in this thread and there are many. I'm not going to go through them all and edit them for any reason.

think that if you believe you can understand someone through empathy then you are virtually denying them their existence. — Brett

I’m not sure if it’s done to quote yourself, however, what I meant was that to believe you can understand someone through empathy is just projecting. Empathy is not a lot different from making soothing noises to a crying baby. Empathy makes the world a better place to live in but it doesn’t help you understand an individual. I’m not sure if a psychologist is really achieving much by empathising. Could he do the same thing without empathising? Maybe.

If a person explicitly reports what you intuit is not what or why they show signs of feeling or thinking, what then of confirmation/dis-confirmation? Is this a synthetic or analytic judgment? Can you interrogate your premise even as you are drawing conclusions from it? What if the act of inference denatures the premise? What if the signposts move as you turn your attention elsewhere?

Well, I was explicit in allowing you the opportunity to reject the evidence of the individual's testimony, though stronger evidence is available in some cases. I am not entirely sure what you are talking about with regards to your premise, not sure how the act of inference denatures a premise or what signposts are moving.

You can question your premise whenever you want, sometimes you will be forced to question your premise and that's far better than taking your premise for granted. Empathy isn't nearly as problematic in the hands of people like Joshs who intend to question what they learn from it. It's more of a problem when people take a premise from empathy and start building conclusions and using that conclusion as a premise in more conclusions and it all started from some really weak premises which got taken for granted as true.


We are of the same mind on this Brett, I can see where you're coming from, to simplify someone else's existence to the level required for empathy does mean that you're characterising them based on just a small bit of information. As though a homeless man is JUST a homeless man and not "Bill" who's really so much more than that.

Empathy may even be viewed as an act of narcissism, in the way Susan Sontag, commenting on the anti-war movement (Vietnam), saw it as “an opportunity to cultivate their feelings ... self deluded and narcissistic, a moral vanity that depended on feeling good about one’s capacity for feeling bad”.

That of course doesn't prove anything but wouldn't a tool so ineffectual as you describe it have been discarded a long time ago. It works so it's still in use. — TheMadFool

Quite possibly it’s still around because it satisfies this narcissistic experience. Which is not to deny, as a consequence, that it has also contributed to society, but not to understanding people in the way Judaka is referring to.

Quite possibly it’s still around because it satisfies this narcissistic experience. Which is not to deny, as a consequence, that it has also contributed to society, but not to understanding people in the way Judaka is referring to. — Brett

If I create two AI with same features wouldn't one understand the other by understanding itself. Of course it's very difficult to imagine what it's like to be a bat but we're not bats.

So, are you saying we’re, all of us on this forum, or most of us, purposely misunderstanding each other?

I've heard of people who reject biological differences b/w people but not both nature and nurture differences as would be with AI (possibly).

@Judaka

So, are you saying we’re, all of us on this forum, or most of us, purposely misunderstanding each other? — Brett

Empathy isn't perfect. We can't read minds but we can make a rough estimate of the physical and mental state of other people. Can't we? We can't be 100% right but empathy has an accuracy of over 50% meaning its better than just random guessing.

What could the basis for empathy?

From an evolutionary viewpoint it must've been selected for in social creatures that need to co-operate for survival. The fact that a particular social species are similar in biology makes empathy much easier and effective. Dogs are social creatures and they seem to have empathy in that they can read eachother and even us humans who reciprocate in a similar manner.

Another thing is there are rules in a social structure. These rules are created through consensus on ethics, etc. Once any social rule gains currency we can use empathy to understand eachother. Nobody likes internet trolls and flamers for example.

You wouldn't try to use your imagination to learn about any other complicated topic like even basic chemistry or biology. Why would anyone try to use it for something as complicated as understanding other people? Only an idiot would try. — Judaka

Oh the irony...

One need not know the particulars of a person's life to understand their words. Wanting to understand another's plight is what having empathy is all about. Empathy allows one to listen. Listening and understanding an other's words facilitates better understanding of an other. Empathy can lead to - can be used as a means for - better understanding of an other.

Therefore, the OP statement is false.

We can't be 100% right but empathy has an accuracy of over 50% meaning its better than just random guessing. — TheMadFool

I can’t just accept those figures at random like that. Nor do I think anyone could come up with any percentages.

But, yes, we can make a rough estimate of the physical and mental state of other people. And that would contribute enough to enable people to co-operate, which is all that’s required for survival, besides the obvious. But I wouldn’t call it, necessarily, an understanding

A social rule doesn’t need any understanding, it only needs agreement or adherence. Nor, I imagine, are social rules always agreed to by concensus, or necessarily based on ethics. Sometimes they’re enforced through violence.

It’s interesting about dogs, because they may seem to have empathy, but does an animal of that intelligence really understand another dog? Is cowering in deference to a bigger dog an understanding or instinct?

I've never been a slave in the way that blacks in America and throughout the world were and still are.

I know how much I value self-direction, freedom, the ability to improve my life's circumstances. I know this because I recognize the undeniable benefits that these things add to my life. By virtue of my knowing this, I can imagine what I wouldn't be able to do without them.

I certainly can imagine how unfulfilling life may be in a slave's eyes. I can certainly imagine how fearful for one's own health, well-being, and safety one may be when they are under the thumb of one who cared little to nothing at all about them as a person.

I've never been a slave. I could not imagine any of this if I didn't care enough to hear the words from the people with whom I empathize. Empathy most certainly can lead to better understanding an other.

Imagining what an other's life may be like can consist of true thought/belief.

If person A has a set of true thoughts/beliefs about an other's life, feelings, attitude, hopes, disappointments, etc., then person A has some understanding of an other.