Emotion Review

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Comment: Empathy and ParticipationA Response to Fritz Breithaupt's Three-Person Model of

Empathy
Jan Georg Sffner
Emotion Review 2012 4: 94
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421391
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421391

EMRXXX10.1177/1754073911421391SffnerEmotion Review

Comment

Empathy and ParticipationA Response to Fritz

Breithaupts Three-Person Model of Empathy

Emotion Review
Vol. 4, No. 1 (January 2012) 9495
The Author(s) 2012
ISSN 1754-0739
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421391
er.sagepub.com

Jan Georg Sffner

Internationales Kolleg Morphomata, Universitt zu Kln, Germany

Abstract
Fritz Breithaupts Three-Person Model of Empathy (2012) offers a
brilliant approach to relate empathy to side-taking. By thereby grounding
empathy in subjective observation though, it becomes difficult to focus on
how empathy interferes with phenomena of shared and embedded activity.
This comment therefore raises the question of how Breithaupts theory of
empathy can be related to phenomena of participatory sense-making and
second-person interaction.

Keywords
empathy, participatory sense-making, second-person interaction,
sympathy

In its literal and etymological meaning, the word empathy is not

very clear about its object: Is empathy just about putting oneself
into the shoes of others, or is it also about establishing a feeling
relation with objects or the surrounding world? When Edward
B. Titchener (1909) retranslated the German term Einfhlung
as empathy (the Ancient Greek empatheia means affection
or passion), it still held much of the Romantic implication of
building up a felt relation with an aesthetic phenomenon (such
as a work of art). Only in recent usage has the term been limited
to questions of understanding other persons.
The advantage of this limited usage of the term is clear: It
allows for precise questions about how we emotionally understand others approached either in terms of theory theory (TT)
(understanding others by building mental models of them) or
simulation theory (ST) (understanding others by subliminally
simulating them), not in terms of interaction theory (IT) (cf.
Gallagher & Zahavi, 2007). This limitation makes for a highly
convincing and neat definition of empathy. But three kinds of
liminal phenomena also raise the question of how feeling
oneself into other persons relates to other forms of feeling
oneself into the surrounding world, and how important
phenomena on the verge of empathy yet do not exactly converge
with concepts of taking another persons perspective. These
three liminal phenomena are: (a) transitional objects (e.g., a

child feeling empathy for and interacting with a teddy bearcf.

Winnicott, 1971, pp. 125); (b) swarm phenomena (e.g., mass
panic uniting a group of individuals in a shared emotion and
action); and (c) cooperation with assigned roles (e.g., three
people washing dishes together). If we consider the fact that
emotions can be considered intrinsic evaluations or better
orientations of human activity, these liminal phenomena become
extremely important. Accordingly, in the first case it is obvious
that empathy with persons and empathy with objects can take
place on very similar scalesempathy here seems to be a way
of constructing the object as another person, rather than being
an effect of such a construction. The second case shows that
empathy can be felt within a shared situation, and not only with
a singular person. The third case indicates that feeling empathy
in an interaction might have a shared focus instead of separating
into personal perspectives: enactivist thinkers (cf. De Jaegher &
Di Paolo, 2007) would argue that, to grasp the plate in the right
moment to dry it, one feels within the intrinsic logic of the interaction rather than putting oneself into the shoes of the other.
Accordingly, the mentioned phenomena imply that emotions
are not necessarily bound to a subjective perspective: Their
focus is shared, participatory, and interactive rather than being
bound to the divergent stances of self and other. And thereby
they raise the question opposed to the question of how we feel
ourselves into other persons: How do we feel ourselves out of a
shared interactive emotionality and gain or take perspectives?
Fritz Breithaupt (2012) raises the related question of how
empathy in the person-based meaning of the word arisesand
offers a highly interesting and persuasive answer. He starts with
the empathetic person as an observer rather than a participant. If
one understands empathy as putting oneself into the shoes of
somebody else, a clear delineation between two persons is
required; the other person must be opaque to the feeler of empathy. This requires distinct perception of a self and other; it therefore requires observation instead of enactive embeddedness.
Empathy accordingly requires a state wherein the problem of
other minds occurs. This leads either to hot empathy, due to
simulation of the other (ST), or cold empathy, due to theory

Corresponding author: Jan Georg Sffner, Internationales Kolleg Morphomata, Universitt zu Kln, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Kln, Germany.
Email: reliquienbueste@yahoo.com

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Sffner Empathy and Participation 95

building about the other (TT). Accordingly, empathy is grounded

in the relation between first-person feelings and third-person
observation, avoiding second-person interaction or IT. In
making his point, Breithaupt brilliantly grounds empathy in a
triangular constellation. Instead of describing empathy as taking
place in an immediate two-person interaction, he explains it as
an effect or aspect of side-taking rather than partaking; empathy
requires a judgment made from outside rather than one intrinsic
in shared interaction (as would be intrinsic in taking a plate,
referring to the earlier example).
To accordingly make conflict rather than cooperation the
core aspect of empathy might, at first glance, seem a weakness
of Breithaupts (2012) theory, as evolutionary anthropology
increasingly agrees that the human species is highly cooperative, and that this cooperativeness is the prime ground for and
effect of language and culture. Nevertheless, this complementary premise allows for understanding the divergent aspects
of empathy as sympathetic compassion on the one hand and
schadenfreude on the other.
This is highly convincing for the narrow term of empathy.
But, to return to the broader and etymological meaning of the
word, the argument does not thoroughly account for phenomena of participatory sense-making, shared interaction, swarm
phenomena, or interaction with transitional objects. Making a
teddy bear live works through the interaction with it and it
requires much more than side-taking. And to give another
example: Breithaupts account is extraordinarily fruitful for
explaining how the emotional perception of a soccer match

changes from the moment the spectator takes sides and feels
positively for one team and negatively against the other. On
the other hand,a different,participatorydimension of feeling
with others that can only be described in terms of IT seems
very important as well. It seems to be extremely important, for
example, for describingthe shared and swarm-like behavior of
soccer fans (and the common emotion organizing this swarm),
or the cooperative feelings addressed in team building and
required for the coordinated interaction of a team.
Future exploration might focus on how Breithaupts (2012)
three-person model of empathy and the model of emotional
cooperation and participation intersect, interfere with, or imply
each other. Evidently, the latter concept needs a new term; etymologically speaking, this term would be sympathy, feeling
with instead of feeling (oneself) into. However, the shift in
the meaning of sympathy itself undermines its application in
this context.

References
Breithaupt, F. (2012). A three-person model of empathy. Emotion Review,
4, 8491.
De Jaegher, H., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2007). Participatory sense-making:
An enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences, 6, 485507.
Gallagher, S., & Zahavi, D. (2007). The phenomenal mindAn introduction
to phenomenology and philosophy of mind. New York, NY: Routledge.
Titchener, E. B. (1909). Lectures on the experimental psychology of thought
processes. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. New York, NY: Routledge.

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