Minding the Children: Carework, Empathy, and the Phinneas Gage Effect

In this paper I argue for a specific and highly challenging form of empathy involved in caring for young children – empathy that is an active and normally temporally extended exploration of the target subject’s complex and dynamic emotional life, guided by an epistemic aim of psychological understan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhilosophy (London) Vol. 100; no. 1; pp. 26 - 49
Main Author Salje, Léa
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.01.2025
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN0031-8191
1469-817X
DOI10.1017/S0031819124000251

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Summary:In this paper I argue for a specific and highly challenging form of empathy involved in caring for young children – empathy that is an active and normally temporally extended exploration of the target subject’s complex and dynamic emotional life, guided by an epistemic aim of psychological understanding. I further argue that engagement in this empathetic work is liable to disable the caregiver’s normal emotional functioning in a way that can give rise to a sense of self-alienation. I end the paper by identifying three ways in which engagement in this special form of empathetic activity can also serve to enrich the caregiver’s life, or contribute to her flourishing.
ISSN:0031-8191
1469-817X
DOI:10.1017/S0031819124000251