Ravenscroft on Empathy

2023-2 Metaphysics of the Self Segment 2 (I.Ravenscroft, "Empathy and Knowing What It's Like")

 

Q) Do you believe that empathy can give us the knowledge of what it's like for someone to have a certain experience E? Explain your thinking.

If we take the notion of qualia and the private self simultaneously, empathy cannot give us the knowledge of what it's like for someone to have a certain experience. In my view, empathy is produced through simplification and generalization. Plus, a particular experience possessed by others is complex and inaccessible. This is like the qualia of sensory experiences cannot be fully captured by the description. And it is a metaphysically redundant presupposition that my experience can be identical to others.