Empathy and First Personal Imagining

Adam Smith has claimed that imagination is necessary for empathy, in the sense that we identify with the person we are empathising with. But such imagination could take other forms, like simulating the other person's feelings. In her talk, Rae Langton explains (1) how empathy involves first personal imagining, and (2) what empathy might teach us about the first personal. She argues that empathic imagining is a de se attitude that involves an imaginative self-ascription of the other person's properties. | Rae Langton is professor for philosophy at the University of Cambridge.