empathic understanding

a form of understanding and explanation achieved by imagining oneself in the role of the social actors whose actions one seeks to understand or explain. Since this form of explanation would appear to rest on a suspect introspective psychology, the method is often dismissed as ‘unscientific’ (Abel, 1977). Sometimes it is wrongly assumed, as by Abel, that all forms of MEANINGFUL UNDERSTANDING AND EXPLANATION are equally suspect, depending merely on introspection. However, the most widely used forms of interpretive explanation in sociology (e.g. in WEBER's work) only impute meanings to actors where the likelihood of such meanings can be confirmed by prevailing social norms and values (see VERSTEHEN). See also EMPATHY.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

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