Empatia: il contributo delle neuroscienze all’analisi sociale

Abstract

Empathy is the ability to place oneself in another person's situation or, more precisely, to immediately understand the emotional processes of the other at the basis of social conception, bonds, research and interpersonal relationships. The aim of this research thesis is both to understand if empathy is the basis of human and social relationships, and to investigate the aspects that can allow neuroscience to provide an important contribution to social research. Through a bibliographic search it was possible to carry out a longitudinal analysis on the concept of empathy, investigating and treating it within two perspectives, Sociological and Neurosociological. All this comes to a clear definition of the concept of empathy from a sociological point of view: empathy is the ability to place oneself in the situation of another person or, more precisely, to immediately understand the emotional processes of the other at the basis of the social conception, bonds, research and interpersonal relationships (Churchland, 2011). Starting from the classics, Weber, Husserl and Schütz above all, we come to analyze the discovery of mirror neurons, made by the Rizzolatti team, to understand their conceptual and practical evolution, to culminate with the analysis of Rifkin and TenHouten's thought. In this work a transdisciplinary approach was used, that is an approach that does not limit to recognizing interactions or reciprocities through specialized research, but identifies those connections within a total system, without stable boundaries between the disciplines themselves (Piaget, 1971). In this way it was possible to generate a bibliographic path through a critical evaluation of the thought and analysis of various authors belonging to disciplinary sectors apparently distant from each other, for example the critical analysis of thought by Fechner, TenHouten and Lotze, respectively psychologist, sociologist and physician-philosopher. An issue that seems important to address here is the working method used in the analysis path object of this research. The starting point is an analysis of reflections on the connection between empathy, neuroscience and sociology, where empathy was considered more as understanding than as identification, underlining how understanding the emotional conditions of the other can give new strength to interactions. In the light of these reflections, in the research work, the need emerged to treat empathy from a new point of view for sociology, integrating the studies on mirror neurons and looking for the novelty that lies both in the evolution of the term and in the transdisciplinary methodology to analyze it. Starting from this concept, in the thesis work the question of the reductionist error committed in sociology was addressed. ... [edited by Author]