How Does it Feel? - Interpersonal Understanding and affective Empathy

根据YouGov最近的一项研究，大多数英国人担心他们和他们的同胞越来越无法相互理解，而且在情感上“设身处地地为他人着想”。这些无能似乎与困扰西方民主国家的政治文化中令人不安的宗派主义密切相关。但是理解另一个人到底是什么，又是什么阻碍了理解他人的能力呢？“How Doesit Feel?”《人际理解和情感共情》旨在通过对迄今为止很少讨论的人际理解现象的维度进行哲学解释，为人际理解理论做出重要贡献：(1)掌握他人在某些情况下的感受或感觉：现象性理解；（二）赞同或者接受他人的感情、动机或者行为的；(3)通过与他人产生情感或情感共鸣来实现这些目标，其中情感共鸣被认为是履行认知角色，从而有助于现象性理解，或者为认可的评价或准评价现象提供支持。三个子项目将分别处理这三个方面。为了做到这一点，他们将汇集并发展迄今为止独特的见解组合，这些见解来自认识论（关于理解的本质及其与知识的关系），来自心灵哲学（关于人们如何识别和掌握主观经验），来自元伦理学（关于认可或欣赏他人的心理状态）和哲学心理学（关于成功和失败的移情的类型和机制）。总而言之，该项目有望发展人际理解理论的关键组成部分，在我们这个派系林立的政治时代，这种现象的资源和价值似乎被严重低估了。

Interpersonal Understanding and Affective Empathy SummaryAccording to a recent study by YouGov, a majority of Britons areworried that they and their compatriots are increasingly incapable ofunderstanding each other and of emotionally “putting themselves inothers’ shoes.” These inabilities seem intimately tied up with thedisturbing sectar-ianism of political culture afflicting Westerndemocracies. But what precisely is it to understand another personand what is it that blocks the ability to do so? The project "How Doesit Feel? Interpersonal Understanding and Affective Empathy" aims tomake a crucial contribution to a theory of interpersonal understandingby providing philosophical accounts of hitherto barely discusseddimensions of the phenomenon: (1) grasping what it is like or how itfeels for another to be in some situation: phenomenal understanding;(2) endorsing or accepting another’s feelings, motivation or action;and (3) achieving these as a result of emo-tionally or affectivelyempathising with the other, where affective empathy is conceived aseither fulfilling a cognitive role, thus contributing to phenomenalunderstanding, or feeding into the eval-uative or quasi-evaluativephenomenon of endorsement. Three subprojects will tackle each ofthese three dimensions. In order to do so, they will bring together anddevelop a thus far unique combination of insights from epistemology(on the nature of understanding and its relationship to knowledge),from philosophy of mind (on how people identify and grasp subjectiveexperiences), from metaethics (on endorsement or appreciation ofanother’s psychological state) and from philosophical psychology (onthe types and mechanisms of successful and failed empathy). All inall, the project promises to develop key components of a theory ofinterpersonal under-standing, a phenomenon whose resources andvalue appear dangerously underappreciated in our factious politicaltimes.