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Beyond Empathy for Pain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Frédérique de Vignemont  and
Pierre Jacob
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Abstract

Here we address four objections raised by Julien Deonna, John Michael, and Francesca Fardo against a recent account of empathy for pain (by Frédérique de Vignemont and Tania Singer and Vignemont and Pierre Jacob). First, to what extent must the empathizer share her target’s affective state? Second, how can one interpret neuroscientific findings on vicarious pain in light of recent results challenging the notion of a pain matrix? Third, can one offer a simpler account of how empathy makes one aware of another’s emotion? Finally, to what extent can this account of empathy for pain be generalized to empathy for emotions?

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 434 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This work has received support under the program Investissements d’Avenir launched by the French government and implemented by ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC and ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL. We gratefully acknowledge support of the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant 609819, SOMICS.

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