Rhetorical empathy in the context of ontology

By Lou Agosta on December 17, 2024

The relationship between empathy and rhetoric has not been much appreciated or discussed – until now!

Empathy and rhetoric seem to be at cross purposes. With empathy one’s commitment is to listen to the other individual in a space of acceptance and tolerance to create a clearing for possibilities of overcoming and flourishing. With rhetoric, the approach is to bring forth a persuasive discourse in the interest of enabling the Other to see a possibility for the individual or the community. At the risk of over- simplification, empathy is supposed to be about listening, receiving the inbound message; whereas rhetoric is usually regarded as being about speaking, bringing forth, expressing, and communicating the outbound message. Once again, in the case of empathy, the initial direction of the communication is inbound, in the case of rhetoric, outbound. Yet the practices of empathy and rhetoric are not as far apart as may at first seem to be the case, and it would not be surprising if the apparent contrary directionality turned out to be a loop, in which the arts of empathy and rhetoric reciprocally enabled different aspects of authentic relatedness, community building, and empowering communications.

In rhetorical empathy, the speaker’s words address the listening of the audience in such a way as to leave the audience with the experience of having been heard. As noted, this must seem counter-intuitive since it is the audience that is doing the listening. The hidden variable is that the speaker knows the audience in the sense that she or he has walked a mile in their shoes (after having taken off her/his own), knows where the shoes pinch (so to speak), and can articulate the experience the audience is implicitly harboring in their hearts yet have been unable to express. The paradox is resolved as the distinction between the self and Other, the speaker and the listener, is bridged and a way of speaking that incorporates the Other’s listening into one’s speaking is brought forth and expressed. Rhetorical empathy is a way of speaking that incorporates the Other’s listening into one’s speaking in such a way that the Other is able to hear what is being said.

For the complete article (no fee) see: Available at: https://rdw.rowan.edu/joie/vol2/iss1/5

Abstract

This article aspires to elaborate the intersection of empathy and rhetoric with particular reference to empathic responsiveness. The argument regarding rhetorical empathy in the context of ontology proceeds through three phases. First, empathy is distinguished ontologically from a psychological mechanism. Second, the different aspects of empathy are exemplified. What brings forth empathy and makes it present? Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology is usefully appropriated for an ontological account of empathy. The elaboration of the intersection of empathy and rhetoric goes beyond Heidegger; and the argument is made that empathy is incomplete without an empathic response. This empathic response is the opening in which rhetorical empathy comes forth. “Empathic response” is synonymous with “rhetorical empathy.” A rigorous and critical empathy knows that it can be wrong. Finally, diverse examples of rhetorical empathy are provided.

If one defines empathy ontologically, empathy shows up as being fully present with the Other, available to the Other, without anything else such as judgment, prejudice, assessment, or evaluation added. Of course, one can’t completely or perfectly do it—be present with the Other without judgment—because the understanding of who the Other is as a possibility inevitably brings along judgments and prejudices. However, in so far as these judgments are pre-judgments (Gadamer 1998) about the Other that can be made explicit and compartmentalized, one is already not alone, and one is being potentially empathic in relation to and with the Other.

Empathy is an authentic way of being with the other individual after all the inauthentic ways of being have been overcome or at least set aside and quarantined. A reversal takes place, and the empathic way of being is the foundation for the psychological mechanisms. Projection, projective identification, and transient identification are valid and important, but not fundamental. What is fundamental is empathic relatedness, being present with the other person.

One appreciates this “being present with,” which is not about knowledge but about “being with,” most impactfully when one loses the Other through departure or death.

The loss of the Other is experienced by one as the loss of emotionally sustaining relatedness, the loss of one’s humanity. The one who loses (or does not receive) empathy is left lacking in vitality, strength, energy, aliveness—in short, is left depressed. One loses the possibility of relatedness, which possibility enables so many other possibilities. One loses the possibility of possibility (Ratcliffe 2015). It is the Other’s empathizing that gives one one’s humanness, from which, in turn, one takes a sense of vitality and aliveness to get into action and life.

Whenever one encounters the Other, empathizing is also present, even if the empathy occurs as a breakdown in empathy. Quiet and dramatic breakdowns of empathy point to missed opportunities for relatedness. Breakdowns in empathy include emotional contagion, conformity, projection, and communications lost in translations. These are the breakdowns in empathy that, if engaged with rigorous and critical care, point to breakthroughs in empathy. The aspects of empathic responsiveness, embodiment, acknowledgement, recognition, possibility, and validation of the Other’s experience form and inform the listener’s (and reader’s) response to the Other. Amidst the emotional contagion, projection, forcing of conformity with the crowd, and messages lost in translation, the empathy is conspicuous by its absence. What then will make empathy present?

For the detailed answer to that question see: https://rdw.rowan.edu/joie/vol2/iss1/5

Recommended Citation

Agosta, Lou PhD (2024) “Rhetorical empathy in the context of ontology,” Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 5.
Available at: https://rdw.rowan.edu/joie/vol2/iss1/5