From the SelectedWorks of Mark Kevin Cabural
2013
CABURAL - CONFUCIUS AND STEIN.pdf
Mark Kevin Cabural
Available at: https://works.bepress.com/markkevin-cabural/3/
Confucius and Edith Stein: On the Recognition of the Other
Cabural, Mark Kevin S.
National University- Manila, Philippines
A paper presented at the Asian Association of Christian Philosophers Conference 2013
With the theme The Rise of Asian Century
Introduction
Confucius lived as a traveler-teacher during the ancient time in China particularly, Spring
and Autumn Period and Period of Warring States.1 It was the time when China is facing sociopolitico-moral confusion. And the noble intention of Confucius was to help in solving the
problems of the ancient Chinese society under a school named Ru Jia or the school of Literati.2
On the other hand, Edith Stein is trained from one of the masters that she considered- Edmund
Husserl.3 She lived during the time when philosophers and other thinkers from different
disciplines are so much interested on the method of phenomenology. Great thinkers also
emerged as existentialists who are reacting towards the tragic events during the time. It is also
the time when different accounts on empathy emerged.4 But more than these facts, Stein lived
during the world wars which inspired her to deal on understanding the human-other and God in
her philosophical and religious writings, promoting and suggesting a consciousness that shows
care and concern towards others.
But why do we need to discuss an ancient secular thinker from the Middle Kingdom of the
East alongside with a modern Christian-convert thinker trained in the method of phenomenology
from Germany of the West? The initial reason may be personal. But I found a common theme
from both of them which is basically the recognition of the other. This common theme is my point
of departure in this paper for I cannot proceed in my comparison without a common theme.5
This paper is an account on how both philosophers delved into the issue of the
relationship of the self and the other. Confucius, on one hand, has affirmed human being’s
existential awareness of the other and extends it towards the possibility of having a moral life.
On the other hand, Stein’s notion of empathy is an analysis of a consciousness that ultimately
aims to know the other. This paper is divided into four parts: First part, Time and Space: Confucius
1
Alfredo Co, The Blooming of a Hundred Flowers: Philosophy of Ancient China, (Espana, Manila: UST
Publishing House, 2005), 8.
2
The most notable schools of thought that emerged during the time are: Ru Jia, Dao Jia, Fa Jia, Yin Yang
Jia, Ming Jia, Mo Jia and Bing Jia.
3
Edith Stein is also the secretary of Edmund Husserl.
4
These thinkers are Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, Theodore Lipps, and others.
5
At this point, Benesch is trying to remind us that “the ideas of sameness and similarity, difference and
dissimilarity are the sources of both causal and categorical sequences”. Walter Benesch, An Introduction to
Comparative Philosophy: A Travel Guide to Philosophical Space, (Great Britain: Palgrave, 1997), 19.
and Edith Stein which is the first point of comparison; second part, Confucius: The Human Being
as the Measure of Morality; third part, Edith Stein on Empathy: the Self and the Other; and fourth
part, Analysis.
Time and Space: Confucius and Edith Stein
There is nothing that man can know outside space-time; one can only succeed at knowing, then
appreciating, ideas when set against the backdrop of history.6
For more than 2,500 years, Confucius has not been forgotten!7 For the one who actually
studies his words feels that he is still sitting at the foot of the master (together with Master Tseng
Yen, Yen Hui, Tzu-lu, Tzu-kung and other bright students of his own time) and one is deeply
humbled that a transmitter of wisdom has something to say even up to now. Shaped by his time
and space, his thoughts are still relevant and can be appropriated; it is never outdated nor put
into oblivion.8
Living in a time when China is facing socio-political-moral confusion, historically referred
to as The Warring States Period9, Confucius looked back and relied to the ancients who
6
Alfredo Co, The Blooming of a Hundred Flowers: Philosophy of Ancient China, (Espana, Manila: UST
Publishing House, 2005), 6.
7
Confucius has not been forgotten for his words are not selective of readers as it can be understood and
applied by people all around the globe. It is beyond The Warring States Period and Ancient China for it can be
appropriated in different times and spaces; this made it a classic. Yu Dan made a beautiful remark Why Confucius,
“Perhaps the value of his classical text is not in rituals awe and fear, but in its inclusiveness and fluidity, the wisdom
in which so people have immersed themselves down the ages, so that every life and every individual, though
perceiving it differently and following different paths, can arrive at last at the same final goal. In China we say ‘The
truth has never been far away from ordinary people’ and here that is certainly the case.” Yu Dan, Confucius from the
Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World trans. By Esther Tyldesley, (London: Macmillan, 2009), 3.
8
Confucius tells his students about his love about deep love of the ancients not forgetting their importance.
In Book VII, Parts 1, 2, 3, “The Master said, I have ‘transmitted what was taught to me without making up anything
of my own’. I have been faithful to and loved the Ancients. In these respects, I make bold to think, not even our P’eng
can have excelled me. The Master said, I have listened in silence and noted what was said, I have never grown tired
learning nor wearied of teaching others what I have learnt. These at least are merits which I can confidently claim.
The master said, The thought that ‘I have left my moral power (te) untended, my learning unperfected, that I have
heard my righteous men, but been unable to go to them; have heard of evil men, but been unable to reform themit is thoughts that disquiet me”. The translation that was used in the paper is by Arthur Waley, The Analects of
Confucius, (Great Britain: John Dickens and Co Ltd, Northampton, 1964). Hereafter, the passages from The Analects
will be cited as Book (corresponding the book number), Part (corresponding to its sequence in the book mentioned).
Even if he proclaimed that he is a transmitter of wisdom, the master still infused his own thoughts for the
simple reason that he transmits knowledge with his own understanding. Alfredo Co writes: “Still it cannot be refuted
that in the process of transmitting the wisdom of the ancients, he infused it his own wisdom”. See Alfredo Co, The
Blooming of a Hundred Flowers: Philosophy of Ancient China, (Espana, Manila: UST Publishing House, 2005), 105.
9
“The years between 476 B.C. and 221 B.C. are kwon as the Warring States Period. Many states had
disappeared after the wars of the Chinqui Period, or the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.), bringing great
social changes during the Warring States Period. Quite a number of schools of thought contended for dominance in
the realm of intellect. The statement at that time were quick to pick up on these changes and pressed ahead with
political reforms, which led to historical tend of unification.” See Liu Xianlian, “The Warring States Period,” in Beijing
Review, Vloume 51 Issue 48, (November 27,2008), 39.
exemplified and succeeded in their own affairs.10 This attitude of reliance on the past is explained
in the words of Mencius: Follow the rules of the former Kings, and it is impossible that you should
go wrong.11 Examples have the virtue to teach in the current situation and also through it, there
is a mirroring of the past to the present and even to the future because the past can always
happen and it can teach the people how to react on such situations. This has been truly embodied
by the Master when he said, “he who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the new is
fit to be a teacher”12 “…for when I allude to sayings of the past, you see what bearing they have
on what was to come after”13. Like his reliance to the past, Confucius’ words have been referred
to also by different rulers of China. The Han Dynasty emperor Wu made China a Confucian State
and the first prime minister of the song Dynasty, Zhao Pu, faithfully proclaimed that he can rule
the known world with just half a book of The Analects.14 With all his contributions, this man will
forever be known as The Master, The Teacher, The Moralist, and The Sage.
Shaped also by her time and space15, Edith Stein is a thinker and believer from Germany.
She grew up in a large, warm Jewish family and established a close bond with men and women
of the Phenomenological Society at Gottingen, with friends at Freiburg, and friends in many walks
of life; and these have influenced her to write about personhood, psychology, relationship and
the importance of community.16 These can be seen in her life as she had been so dedicated to
help undyingly and served as a volunteer medical helper when many people were seriously
wounded during the wars (World Wars I and II).17 Perhaps, she was already helping because she
was already empathizing.
But what is notable in her thoughts is her notion of empathy which is an avenue for her
to unlock the secrets of personhood18; for knowing others may help in understanding what it
means to be human and to be an individual because “through empathy, self-knowledge is
10
Confucius considered the rulers of the Chou, “The Master said, Chou could survey the two preceding
dynasties. How Great a wealth of the culture! And we follow upon Chou.’ Book III, Part 14.
11
”Introduction, “in the Analects of Confucius, 17.
12
Book II, Part 11.
13
Book I, Part 15.
14
Yu Dan, 1.
15
Edith Stein’s life has truly influenced her thoughts. Her experience had driven her to the development of
her own understandings as it can be seen in her works regarding human person- empathy, political writings and even
in her spiritual texts. In her spiritual writings, empathy played significant role. This can be seen in her account Stein,
The Hidden Life: Essays, Meditations, Spiritual Texts, Trans. Waltraut Stein, (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1992),
21 “Edith Stein’s life is a study in chiaroscuro. The contrasts of the light and shadow are due largely to the changes
that were taking place in Europe during her lifetime, but there were others also, those that occurred in her own
personal life. In all of these she radiated a singular quality of light that was characteristic of her person. One constant
that endured through all the changes was the intense intellectual energy and joy in Learning that seem to have been
rooted in the philosophical nature of her personality.” See Mary Catherine Baseheart, Person in the world:
Introduction to the philosophy of Edith Stein, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1997), 1.
16
Baseheart, 30.
17
Marianne Sawicki, Body, text and science: The Literacy of investigative practices and the phenomenology
of Edith Stein, (Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1997), 90.
18
Ibid., 30.
enhanced”.19 This proves that the self is limited and a human individual cannot learn everything
by himself.
Empathy was the emerging topic during her time. Even Husserl, her master, delved on the
topic of empathy. At the beginning of her magnum opus, Stein would identify the problem of
empathy “as the perceiving [Erfahrung] of foreign subjects and their experience [Erleben]”20.
Further, Stein humbly exclaims that her “positive results represent only a very small contribution
to what is to be realized”21.
Stein’s analysis of empathy is a personal contribution, a suggestion to the emerging
conflicts during her time. These are conflicts rooted from the selfish desire of one over the other
and worst, a particular culture even wanted to eradicate, if not dominate another culture. An
intellectual victim of history, Stein proposed a consciousness that will help in understanding the
other. Stein was one of the victims who had been deported from Holland on August 7, 1942 and
was confirmed dead on August 9 of the same year. After her death, “she appeared as a singularly
human saint, one who has the power to speak to our time as a woman, scholar, educator, and
bridge-builder between Jew and Christian, a sign of love and reconciliation in the midst of hatred
and of the light in darkness’’22.
Confucius: The Human Being as the Measure of Morality
Confucius talks a lot about the human being and definitely all his words are also for the
benefits of the human beings. But why is it that the human being (or human beings strictly) is
central to the idea of the master? The Human Being is the project of Confucius for he ”is not an
implement”23, because he has dignity beyond other things used for a special purpose. Seeing the
worth of human beings he expresses his concern towards them, “When the stables were burnt
down, on returning from court, he said, Was anyone hurt? He did not ask about the horses” 24.
The concept of Ren (Jen) in ancient China suggests freemen as opposed to Min which
refers to the subjects or common people and with slight modification, it (Ren) means ‘good’ as
‘possessing the qualities of the tribe’; in here, members of the tribe show a forbearance towards
one another that they do not show to aliens and Ren also means ‘kind’, ‘gentle’, ‘humane’.
19
Jose Conrado Estafia,”Edith Stein on the human Quest: An Analysis of her method” in Philippiniana Sacra
Vol. XLIII, no. 128 (May-August, 2008), 76. Estafia writes, “Subjective experience is required if one to grasp a foreign,
consciousness. That is why Stein starts her investigation with the awareness of one’s own being, the awareness of
one’s individuality. The starting point is always the self. How will one know the other if one does not even know
one’s own self? Then, through empathy, Self-knowledge is enhanced. It brings one to an inter-intrapersonal or, as
this paper prefers to call, an inter-intra subjective relationship, that is, a relationship with oneself and with the
others.”
20
Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy trans. Waltraut Stein, (Washington D.C.: ICS Publication, 1986),
1.
21
Ibid.
22
Baseheart, 20.
23
Book II, part 1.
24
Book X, Part 12.
However, when the distinction between Ren and Min disappears, ren becomes a general word
for ‘human being’ as opposed to brutes or animals.25 Arthur Waley maintained the ancient
translation of Ren as Goodness for it is more fitting as it was used in The Analects.26 Alfredo Co
understood and translated it in a hyphenated form as “the consciousness-of-human-others”. But
then, there are still many translations and understanding about the concept and there are also
reservations about it.27 Perhaps because the concept of Ren was not given a definite meaning by
Confucius, but only suggestions on how it is done, practiced, or applied. When asked about it by
his students, he would answer “…I do not know” or “…I am not sure”.28 This “not knowing” and
skeptical-formatted-answers supplemented by suggestions on how good can be executed or
practiced is a kind of practical wisdom.29
Confucius thinks that human beings can be good apart from their tendency towards evil
and are “endowed with the capacity to strive for a better quality of life”30. For this project to be
taken into full consideration, Confucius did not bother himself to discuss about what is outside
of human affairs. In the conversation with Tzu-Lu, Confucius explained:
…Till you have learnt to serve men, how can you serve ghosts? Tzulu then ventured upon a question about the dead. The Master said,
Till you know about the living, how are you to know about the
dead?31
25
It is on this part that the distinction between Ren and ren. The first one, the big R, suggests the virtue;
while the second one, the small r, simply suggests man.
26
See “Terms,“ in The Analects of Confucius, 27-29. To better understand, Waley writes: “Of this last sense
(human, not brutal) there is no a trace in Analects. Of the Sense ‘kind”, ‘tender-hearted’ there are only two examples,
out of some sixty instances in which the world occurs. Confucius’s use of the term, a use peculiar to this one book,
stands in close relation to the primitive meaning. Jen (which is pronounced as Ren), in the Analects, means ‘good’ in
an extremely wide and general sense. ‘In its direction’ lie unselfishness and an ability to measure other people’s
feelings by one’s own.”
27
Alfredo P. Co, The Blooming of a Hundred flowers: Philosophy of Ancient China,(Manila, Philippines: UST
Publishing house,1992), 107. Co explained, “In fact Ren is a Term of plurisignifications which embraces all of the
above (benevolence, Goodness, Human-Heartedness, Compassion, Pity, Love, Virtue, Virtue of Virtues, Supreme
Goodness) and yet signifies something more”.
28
See book V, Part 7 and Book V, Part 18.
29
Confucius’s concept of what it takes to be moral, ethical, good can be traced on this very concept of Ren
(Jen) and we can even find here what it means to be human- a human other for the neighbor- because for Confucius,
There is an interplay and unity among these concepts. Undeniably, we cannot speak for morality, ethics and
goodness outside the realm of human action and human others. If an individual human being is solely for itself, then
morality, ethics and goodness become useless and human action become nonsense.
30
Puay-Liu Ong, “Cultivating the Gentleman Within: Confucian Ethics for the Millennium Being,” In Asian
Profile, Vol. 29, No. 1(February 2001), 84. Ong utters, “During his (Confucius) lifetime, he saw how powerful people
made their subordinates into slaves, how rules violated their positions of power, How states forfeited their
sovereignty, how nation lost their citizen and wealth and how families were destroyed by betrayal and greed and
How common human beings lost their self-esteem, dignity, honor and life. Most of all, Confucius observed how
human being could be ruthless and merciless for the sake of power, wealth and fame.
31
Book XI, Part 11.
This concept of Ren, moreover, awakens human beings to be aware that they are not
alone. Since human beings are significantly related to one another, the concept of having a good
life can be achieved by having good relationship towards others. “What Confucius is advocating
here is respect for human dignity… an approach with a high moral character.”32 It is the respect
that every human being gives to other human beings that he also deserves to receive.
But succinctly, how can a human being be good? Goodness is not innate in human beings
and it can be cultivated by learning from the past, from others and with what transpires in the
present experiences.
The Master said, I for my part am no not one of those who have
innate knowledge. I am simply one who loves the past and who is
diligent in investigating it.33
The Master said, even when walking in a party of no more than
three I can always be certain of learning from those I am with.
There will be good qualities that I can select for imitation and bad
ones that will teach me what requires correction in myself.34
Confucius, in this concept of Ren, has an instructive reminder for the individual human
being, as an actor and victim of another human being’s action, and this is expressed in what is
called as the Golden Rule. Confucius expressed it as in a prescriptive tone without sounding
dogmatic. Besides the Golden Rule, The Analects contains and also offers rules in order for human
beings to conduct themselves and be a decent person and “these rules may first appear fixed,
even rigid, but in fact they contain a surprisingly flexibility”35.
The Golden Rule has been also known as the Rule of Reciprocity, The Rule of Consideration
or The Principle of Reversibility. This rule or principle has been presented in many forms and
found in various cultural, religious and philosophical traditions and it “is essentially not an
abstract, conventionally formulated rule but a presentation of a kind of collective moral
wisdom”36. In The Analects, “Tzu kung asked saying, Is there any single saying that one can act
upon all day and every day? The Master said, Perhaps the saying about consideration: ‘Never do
to others what you would not like them to do to you”37.
When asked about his way, “The Master said, Shen! My Way has one (thread) that runs
right through it. Master Tseng said, yes. When the master gone out, the disciples asked, saying
32
Yu Dan, 66.
Book VII, Part 19.
34
Book VII, Part 21.
35
Yu Dan, 65.
36
Bo Mou, 218.
37
Book 15, Part XXIII.
33
what did he mean? Master Tseng said, Our Master’s ways simply this: Loyalty, consideration” 38.
To simply put, it is the ability to think of oneself as the actor and to think of other human beings
as the victims of one’s action. Also, the individual human beings’ actions. In this case, the
individual human being is the measuring square of what is good and what is not (in the absence
of a superior being). These two ways of the master corresponds to the two faces of the Golden
Rule found in The Analects- positive and negative.
The positive rendition,
…As for goodness- you yourself desire rank and standing; then help
others get rank and standing. You want to turn your own merits to
account; then help others to turn theirs to account- in fact, the
ability to take one’s own feelings as a guide- that is the sort of thing
that lies in the direction of Goodness.39 (Now the man of perfect
virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish
others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge
others )
The negative rendition,
Tzu-kung asked saying, Is there any single saying that one can act
upon all day and every day? The master said, Perhaps the saying
about consideration: ‘Never do to others what you would not like
them to do to you.40
There are two renditions of the rule in order to emphasize that human beings need to be
encouraged to do what is necessarily good and be refrained to do what is not good at all times.
The positive rendition speaks of encouragement while the negative rendition speaks of an advice
that refrains. Human beings need to be encouraged to do what is good for not all times good has
been done to them and there is the tendency to react the other way. There is a need “to face all
this calmly, with fair mindedness, justice, openness and uprightness, that is to say, to approach
it with a high moral character”.41 Lest we forget,”...The Good Man rests content with
Goodness”42.
In the Golden Rule, the individual human being as the measuring square of morality
possesses “unselfishness and an ability to measure other people’s feelings by one’s own”.43 There
are reversals and extensions in the moral situations for one can be an actor and victim of actions.
38
Book IV, Part 15. Yu Dan translated these ways of the master as Faithfulness and Forbearance. See Yu
Dan, 26.
39
Book VI, Part 28.
Book 15, Part XXIII.
41
Yu Dan, 66.
42
Book IV, Part 2.
43
”Terms,” in The Analects of Confucius, 28.
40
It is the case that the “moral agent in the imagined moral situation the moral recipient in the
current situation i.e., the situation of putting oneself is another’s shoes”. 44 This act of putting
oneself in another’s shoes is commonly called as the act of empathy. In the emphatic act, one is
not just able to measure others people’s feelings by one’s own but rather the other is taken into
full consideration by not just recognizing him as human being. Edith Stein by this notion of
empathy explored what it means to be a self and an other that enhances the relationship of the
self towards others.
Edith Stein on Empathy: the Self and the Other
“Look! See what is inside”45: the cry of the followers of Stein. This has invited many
scholars to study her philosophy and I cannot deny that this has also influenced me. This curiosity
opens possibilities to understand oneself and the other that will eventually lead to a wider
horizon of understanding about the world, experiences, being a self and being an other. It is not
enough to only recognize the other because “the truth of otherness requires more than simply
noticing the other, in the mode of a possessing and knowing an object”.46 With enough
understanding of the self and the other- since it is not enough to see what is inside- this can
widen one’s perspective and outlook about the world.
Empathy helps in understanding others as it also helps in understanding the self
more because:
Empathy proves to have yet other another side as an aid to
comprehending ourselves… Empathy now offers itself to us as a
corrective for such deceptions along with further corroboratory or
contradictory perceptual acts. It is possible for another to ‘judge
me more accurately’ than I judge myself and give me a clarity about
myself. For example, he notices that I look around me for approval
as show kindness, while I myself think I am acting out of pure
generosity. This is how empathy and inner perception work hand
in hand to give me myself to myself.47
Stein’s notion of empathy asserts the importance of relationships because an individual’s
experience is limited as one cannot just experience anything and everything; empathy then
suggests that we can experience the experience of others. For the human being, through the
empathic act, one “steps out of himself, discovers a being other than himself and this would allow
him to check his own being, to correct the ‘idols’ of his life”.48 Stein proposes the individual
44
Bo Mou, 223.
Baseheart, XI.
46
Gerl-Falkovitz, 572.
47
Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy trans. Waltraut Stein, (Washington D.C.: ICS Publication, 1986),
45
89.
48
Jose Conrado Estafia, “Edith Stein on the human quest: An analysis method”, Philippiniana Sacra, Vol.
XLIII no. 128 (2008), 382.
human being to open and be ready to accept other human beings with their unique imperfections
and goodness as there are also human beings who can do the same way.
Further, Stein49 described empathy as:
Empathy… is the experience of foreign consciousness in general,
irrespective of the kind of the experiencing subject or of the subject
whose consciousness is experienced.50
Empathy and Other Acts
A friend tells me that he has lost his brother and I become aware
of his pain. What kind of an awareness is this? I am not concerned
here with going into the basis on which I infer the pain. Perhaps his
face is pale and disturbed, his voice toneless and strained. Perhaps
he also expresses his pain in words. Naturally, these things can all
be investigated, but they are not my concern here. I would like to
know, not how I arrive at this awareness, but what it itself is.51
The essence of the act of the empathy is very different from the usual experience wherein
there is primordiality and materiality. It is not an activity ruled by the mind alone or senses alone
but it also requires feeling. Stein goes on with her analysis of empathy in distinguishing it with
other acts because: “we shall be able to see emphatic acts best in their individuality if we confront
them with other acts”.52
Outer perception is primordial as there is “primacy of perception” when the one who
experiences is present at the moment when things, truths, values are constituted. 53 On another
note, it is a first-hand experience54 because there is a direct contact of the subject and the object
49
Following Husserl who bracketed the world, location, time, space and even the existence of the knower
(and what is left is the “whole absolute being which, rightly understood, contains within itself, ‘constitutes’ within
itself, all worldly transcendencies”) (See Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a pure Phenomenology and to a
Phenomenological Philosophy I trans. F. Kersten, (The Hague/ Boston/ Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1983),
113), Stein has developed her own ideas regarding empathy. Stein has practically used the structure of Husserl when
she raised her question “what can be left if the whole world and even the subject experiencing it are cancelled?”
(See Stein, On The Problem of Empathy, 4.) Stein remarked again: “But what I cannot exclude, what is not subject to
doubt, is my experience of the thing (the perception, memory, or other kind of comprehension)together with its
correlate, the full “phenomenon of the thing” (the object given as the same in series of diverse perceptions or
memories)” (See Ibid.)
50
Ibid, 11.
51
Ibid., 6.
52
Ibid.
53
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays On Phenomenological Psychology,
The Philosophy of Arts, History and Politics ed. James M. Edie, (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 25.
54
Judy Miles, “Other Bodies and other Minds in Edith Stein: Or, how to talk about Empathy”, in Husserl and
Stein, (Washington, D.C.: Council for research in Values and Philosophy, 2003), 120.
of experience and even its possible causes.55 Empathy, in contrast with outer perception, is a
battle between primordiality and non-primordiality. There is a direct experience, however, the
object of it is the experience of another. Stein would say that empathy is “an act which is
primordial as present experience though non-primordial in content”.56
The term “empathy” is easily associated with the term “sympathy”. This cannot be denied
because even Max Scheler on his work The Nature of Sympathy has discussed empathy in
contrast with sympathy. But, “Empathy is not sympathy, which is from the Greek sym (with) and
pathe (suffer, feel) whereas empathy is from the Greek im (in) and pathe (suffer, feel). To feel
with and to feel in are not the same”.57 The reason perhaps why these two terms are linked is
they share the root word “feeling” and just differ in the prepositional prefixes. 58 However, in
empathy, Stein reveals that there is a moment of fusion of perception and sensation, “a double
mode of experiencing” which overcomes dichotomies of inside and outside, native and foreign.59
“With” signifies that there is someone who is accompanying and there is someone who is being
accompanied; further, “this event may have lost some of its value through circumstances
unknown to the others”.60 61 In sympathy, deception is possible for one can portray differently
and inconsistently just to seek for attention and mercy.
In empathy, moreover, there is still a distinction between the empathizing individual and
the empathized individual. It is far different from what T. Lipps62 have discovered that “as long
as empathy is complete (exactly what we no longer recognize as empathy) there is no distinction
between our own and the foreign I, that they are one”63. The empathizing I is not dissolved and
55
From the example above, the individual who experiences the pain of losing his brother [and not the pain
of another] has the primordial experience, a first-hand experience.
56
Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, 10.
57
Emerita S. Quito, Phenomenology: Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein, (Manila: De La Salle University Press
2001), 55.
58
Scott Spector, “Edith Stein’s Passing Gestures: Intimate Histories, Empathic portraits”, New German
Critique, Issue 75, (fall 1998), http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?hid=5&sid=6foa7f92-21ao-461b-a28aa8b9b352704a%40sessionmgr15&vid=1&bdata=jnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=s8h&AN=1682543
(Accesed:17 February 2011), 98.
59
Ibid., 99.
60
Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, 15.
61
The experience in sympathy is primordial. A sympathizing individual is experiencing an “other” who is
also experiencing. Both of them do not necessarily have the same degree of experience. It is the case that the other
one who is being sympathized has a greater feeling or experience than the one who is sympathizing. For example “I
have a friend who lost his mother. He shared his experience with me. He is in pain. He becomes so emotional. He
cried. I am not carried away. I can feel pain. But the pain I feel is something different from him. I feel pain because
my friend is in pain. I feel pain because my friend lost his mother. ”from the example or situation, the degrees of
pain are not the same. The one who lost his mother has a more intense pain that the friend who is ready to comfort
him. Empathy, in contrast with sympathy, is deeper. Stein tell us “…in the Ideal case (where there is no
deception)empathic joy expressly claims to be the same in every respect as comprehended joy, to have the same
content and only a different mode of being given” Sympathy, However, can be a way to achieve empathy.
62
T. Lipps is one of the thinkers who ventured on empathy. Consequently, Stein reacted to his claim and
understanding that empathy or perfect empathy is a feeling of oneness when there is no distinction between the
self and the other.
63
Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, 16.
Stein would say that there is no self-forgetfulness. In other words, the empathizing subject is
conscious and knows what he is doing and maintains a distance from the other.
Feeling of oneness is not empathy. But this feeling of oneness can be achieved through
empathy. “Although the two I’s may be joyful over the same event, they are not filled with the
same joy. Joyfulness may be more richly accessible to some I’s than to others; but it is possible
that each one’s joy ignites the other’s so that it is now the we that is the subject of the
empathizing, not the isolated I. Thus the feeling of oneness and enrichment of experience
become possible through empathy”64.
In empathy the other, an another self, is the same as the individual I. For an individual
who wishes to engage in an empathic act must recognize or confront the other like himself with
the idea that “I am an I as the other is another I”. This is a form of respect for the uniqueness of
every human being. It is the case that in empathy, the other “is unlike a material object, e.g., a
piece of furniture, before me. The foreign living body is another I whom I can relate to as one
who thinks, feels, senses as I do”.65
Analysis
Both thinkers offer their thoughts on how an individual human being can recognize the
other but they have different problems to consider in unveiling the social inclination and
dimension of human beings. While Confucius wanted to solve a socio-political-moral problem,
Edith Stein was trying to venture on empathy through the lens of phenomenology with the
problem “of empathy as the perceiving [Erfahrung] of foreign subjects and their experience
[Erleben]”66.
These thinkers, in their own quests, undoubtedly started from the idea of the self as an
individual. On one hand, individuality is the beginning of the empathic act because “empathy is
understood as knowledge of subjectivity not your own”.67 In other words, one, therefore, cannot
proceed with the knowledge of the subjectivity of the other without understanding one’s own
subjectivity. On the other hand, it is visible enough in Confucius that the individual human being
is the measuring square of morality. In the concept of Ren, one cannot act towards the other who
is the same as he is without having a knowledge of what is good and what is not in himself.
These thoughts may have originated on the individual human being but other human
beings are further taken into account. Confucius recognizes the human others (or theconsciousness-of-human-others) in the concept of Ren and leaves us an instructive reminder on
64
Cf Festschrift in Sawicki, 34.
Maybelle Marie O. Padua, Contemplating Woman in the Philosophy of Edith Stein, (Manila: Far Eastern
University Publications, 2007), 94.
66
Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy trans. Waltraut Stein, (Washington D.C.: ICS Publication, 1986),
1.
67
Stein, Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities trans. Mary Catherine Baseheart and Marianne
Sawicki, (Washingtong D.C.: ICS Publications, 2000), 148.
65
how to act towards others. Stein studied “the (thereness-for-me of) other(s) in a transcendental
theory so called-empathy”68. Since “people are mistaken about each other’s experiences”,
empathy can be a corrective tool so that human beings can live in harmony with others. If I may
describe, both philosophers achieved this consciousness-towards-others as a reflective
consciousness which is a consciousness towards the self. As the individual human becomes
conscious of other human beings, he becomes more conscious of himself.
In a nutshell, Confucius has an ethical agenda while Edith Stein has an epistemological
agenda.69 While Confucius dealt with a problem that is socio-political-moral, Edith Stein ventured
on the problem of knowing more than mere recognition of the other, i.e., knowing the other in
order to know more about one’s own self and to know more about the world.
In a broader sense, the accounts of both thinkers from different traditions offer great
insights on how to deal with the other. However, the question relies on the relevance between
the two since the world and its components are changing fast. Succinctly, is Confucius still
relevant? Is Stein’s consciousness or notion of empathy still relevant?
The consciousness that is being promoted by Edith Stein might not be relevant anymore
because empathy is ideal, even mystical. People in the contemporary times are more open and
revealing. There is even no need to examine other’s consciousness for they simply give it awayone example is, they can easily announce it in any social networking sites in the internet. And it’s
again another problem to venture if there is empathy without physical and direct contact, but
only virtual.
In an article entitled Cultivating the Gentleman Within: Confucian Ethics for the
Millennium Being, Puay-Liu Ong “attempted to bring life Confucius’ philosophy of moral conduct
based on his idea of jen, the chun-tzu”70. The author is alluding to the problem that “why is it that
our quest for scientific progress in the name of a better life requires us to abandon our old values
and ways of doing things”71. And it was also stated that “scientific advancement in the name of
technological sophistication is no progress at all if it meant the loss of self-worth and Man’s
respect for one another”72. Confucius, an ancient thinker trying to solve the problem of his own
time, indeed, has something to offer even up to now.
We encounter various rules around us. Even in the smallest unit of society, we encounter
rules. There is what we call as family code and we encounter it in numerous versions depending
on the agency or promulgator. Come out of the family, we again encounter rules- indeed, various
rules outside the family. The government implements laws, the church establishes
68
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology trans. Dorion Cairns, (The Hague/
Boston/ Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982), 92.
69
I am coming from the goal of phenomenology that it wanted to solve the emerging problem of
knowledge- subjectivity and objectivity.
70
Puay-Liu Ong, 89.
71
Ibid., 84.
72
Ibid., 83.
commandments or covenants, and the profession or workplace depending on its nature occupies
a very big portion in shaping one’s life. And we even have to mention here that even in the
gadgets and internet applications that we have and we enjoin ourselves, there are certain rules.
And beyond these written rules, we also have the unwritten as manifested in culture and
tradition. To describe this situation, let me borrow the poetic words of Jean Jacques Rousseau:
“everywhere we are in chains.” No doubt that these rules serve- aiming for something better, for
order and for stability.
But this kind of morality sounds too prescriptive that human beings are reduced into
being conformists or non-conformists. But we have Confucius who reminds us of the good which
is present in every human being. Even without these rules, human beings are still capable of doing
the good.
And to end this paper, let us be reminded by his (Confucius’) beautiful and humble words
mirrored from his life which will continue to inspire and touch human beings’ lives,
The Master said, “A transmitter and not a maker, believing in and
loving the ancients, I venture to compare myself with our old
P’ang”.73
The Master said, “The silent treasuring up of knowledge; learning
without satiety; and instructing others without being wearied:which one of these belongs to me?”74
The Master said, “The leaving virtue without proper cultivation; the
not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move
towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not
being able to change what is not good: - these are the things which
occasion me solicitude”.75
73
Book VII, Part 1.
Book VII, Part 2.
75
Book VII, Part 3.
74
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