Post-Kantian European Philosophy Seminar (Tuesday - Week 6, MT22)

In this paper I analyze Alessandro Salice and Joona Taipale’s phenomenological account of ‘group-directed empathy.’ I am sympathetic to Salice and Taipale’s account and intend this paper to be an endorsement of their project. However, I will argue that a more fine-grained account of group-directed empathy can be offered, and I seek to contribute to this discussion by outlining at least one way in which different types of group-directed empathy may be identified. I argue that while Salice and Taipale are right to claim that an account of group-directed empathy requires a corresponding account of ‘collective bodiliness,’ there is an important form of collective bodiliness that their account does not fully incorporate, namely embodied interaction between multiple others. I argue that a closer look at the perceivability of interactions between others offers a richer and more complete account of how we can empathetically perceive shared emotions between groups of people.