Ground empathy

Abstract This paper introduces an under-theorised dimension of empathy which we propose to call ground empathy . Ground empathy consists in empathically relating to the other by attending to the foundational facts of our human existential condition which are always shared with the other: embodied vulnerability, non-permanence and finitude. Ground empathy, we argue, is always in principle available to us regardless of the particulars of the other person’s situation. Ground empathy can be lost, however. This we suggest is a common feature of alienating interpersonal interactions in times of profound suffering. In terms of the contemporary debate about empathy, we position ground empathy as an under-theorised existential layer of empathy. In particular, we take ground empathy to challenge recent critiques of phenomenological accounts of empathy which claim that attempts to empathise with experiences of severe psychiatric illness are epistemically and ethically untenable. While we agree that more complex forms of empathy developed in the phenomenological tradition can elude us in some circumstances, we resist the conclusion that this is sufficient to undermine the role and value of empathy altogether provided that we maintain some conceptual clarity about different forms of empathy and their components. This paper contributes to that conceptual clarity, and provides a useful concept to our toolkit when it comes to empathically relating to experiences of profound suffering such as illness, grief and trauma.