Empathy And Agency

Hans Herbert Kogler is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Florida. He is the author of Michel Foucault: Ein anti-humanistischer Aufklarer (1994) and The Power of Dialogue: Critical Hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucalt (1996), as well as numerous articles in interpretive and social philosophy. Karsten R. Stueber is associate professor of philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross. He is the author of Donald Davidson's Theory of Linguistic Understanding (1993) and co-editor of Philosophie der Skepsis (1996). He has also published articles on Wittgenstein, the philosophy of language, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.

This book provides a solid foundation of the fundamental issues in social and cognitive science. It offers new insights into two competing approaches to the understanding of human conduct-the 'theory' theory and the 'simulation' theory.

Introduction: Empathy, Simulation, and Interpretation in the Philosophy of Social Science -- 1 Simulation and the Explanation of Action -- 2 The Theory of Holistic Simulation: Beyond Interpretivism and Postempiricism -- 3 Imitation or the Internalization of Norms: Is Twentieth-Century Social Theory Based on the Wrong Choice? -- 4 Simulation and Epistemic Competence -- 5 Understanding Other Minds and the Problem of Rationality -- 6 Simulation Theory and the Verstehen School: A Wittgensteinian Approach -- 7 From Simulation to Structural Transposition: A Diltheyan Critique of Empathy and Defense of Verstehen -- 8 Empathy, Dialogical Self, and Reflexive Interpretation: The Symbolic Source of Simulation -- 9 The Importance of the Second Person: Interpretation, Practical Knowledge, and Normative Attitudes -- 10 The Object of Understanding -- 11 Reenactment as Critique of Logical Analysis: Wittgensteinian Themes in Collingwood