Latest / A Rumor of Empathy with Lou Agosta
The Case of Dr Know-it-all: Empathy Gives Us Our Humanity
You do not need a philosopher to tell you what empathy is. What then do you need? How about a folktale, a narrative, a fairy tale?
Rather than start with a definition of empathy, my proposal is to start by telling a couple of stories, in which empathy (and its breakdown) plays a crucial role.
Both stories are anonymous folktales from the collection edited by the Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The first story (Dr Know-it-all) features top down, cognitive empathy; the second story (The Youth Who Went For to Learn Fear) features bottom up, affective empathy.
Along the way, the listener…
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