The project has contributed to a theory of interpersonal understanding by providing philosophical accounts of three dimensions of the phenomenon: (1) grasping what it is like or how it feels for another to be in some situation (led by Dr Christiana Werner); (2) endorsing or accepting another’s feelings (led by Dr Katharina Sodoma); and (3) achieving these as a result of emotionally or affectively empathising with the other (led by Dr Lizzy Ventham).
One of the numerous tangible results of the project is the Special Issue “Empathy and the Boundaries of Interpersonal Understanding”, published with the journal Philosophical Explorations.
The project has developed a unique combination of insights from epistemology (on the nature of understanding and its relationship to knowledge), from philosophy of mind (on how people identify and grasp subjective experiences), from metaethics (on endorsement or appreciation of another’s psychological state) and from philosophical psychology (on the types and mechanisms of successful and failed empathy).
The grant application was selected within the research collaboration programme between UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - DFG). Professor Thomas Schramme was awarded £350,000. His colleague Professor Neil Roughley (Essen University) was awarded €572.000.
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