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Single Idea 24005

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds ]

Full Idea

We know others' emotions by 1) understanding and explaining them, 2) emotional contagion, 3) empathy, 4) in-his-shoes imagining, and 5) sympathy.

Gist of Idea

We know other's emotions by explanation, contagion, empathy, imagination, or sympathy

Source

Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 7 Intro)

Book Ref

Goldie,Peter: 'The Emotions' [OUP 2002], p.177


A Reaction

He says these must be clearly distinguished, because they are often confused. In-his-shoes is 'me in their position', where empathy is how the position is just for them. The Simulationist approach likes these two. Sympathy need not share the feelings.

Related Idea

Idea 24006 Empathy and imagining don't ensure sympathy, and sympathy doesn't need them [Goldie]


The 22 ideas with the same theme [how we might know of other minds]:

We discovers others as well as ourselves in the Cogito [Sartre on Descartes]
We are satisfied that other men have minds, from their words and actions [Locke]
Experience tells me that other minds exist independently from my own [Berkeley]
I know other minds by ideas which are referred by me to other agents, as their effects [Berkeley]
Husserl's monads (egos) communicate, through acts of empathy. [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible [Husserl, by Bernet]
Other minds seem to exist, because their testimony supports realism about the world [Russell, by Grayling]
It is hard not to believe that speaking humans are expressing thoughts, just as we do ourselves [Russell]
Dasein finds itself already amongst others [Heidegger, by Caputo]
If we work and play with other people, they are bound to be 'Dasein', intelligent agents [Heidegger, by Cooper,DE]
I don't have the opinion that people have minds; I just treat them as such [Wittgenstein]
Originally I combined a mentalistic view of introspection with a behaviouristic view of other minds [Ayer]
Physicalism undercuts the other mind problem, by equating experience with 'public' brain events [Ayer]
The theory of other minds has no rival [Ayer]
The argument from analogy fails, so the best account of other minds is behaviouristic [Ayer]
A conscious object is by definition one that behaves in a certain way, so behaviour proves consciousness [Ayer]
Knowing other minds rests on knowing both one's own mind and the external world [Davidson, by Dummett]
We don't have a "theory" that other people have minds [Searle]
Young children can see that other individuals sometimes have false beliefs [Papineau]
Do we understand other minds by simulation-theory, or by theory-theory? [Papineau]
We know other's emotions by explanation, contagion, empathy, imagination, or sympathy [Goldie]
Empathy and imagining don't ensure sympathy, and sympathy doesn't need them [Goldie]