How does one begin to approximate the inner experience of another?
Empathic exploration demands of the investigator the creative capacity to
suspend closure. The founders of phenomenology and psychoanalysis developed
methods to facilitate a process of not-concluding, ways of keeping the mind
open to new possibilities. Moreover, Husserl's phenomenological reduction
and Freud's basic rule of free association bear striking affinities to
Keats's formulation of the nature of artistic observation. Keats's quest
for the heart of experience illuminates a path through imagination and
toward empathy.Abstract Teaser