The double empathy problem and the problem of empathy: neurodiversifying phenomenology

Points of interestDominant autism research continues to claim that autistic individuals lack empathy in some form or other.Critics of such claims argue that empathy is a two-way street where problems can emerge because of different people's social experiences and expectations.In philosophy, the tradition known as phenomenology has long studied empathy by examining how empathy is experienced.Insights from phenomenology further clarify when and how empathy can break down between autistic and non-autistic people.By including autistic and other diverse perspectives, phenomenological studies of empathy stand to benefit significantly in nuance and depth. The notion that autistic individuals suffer from empathy deficiencies continues to be a widespread assumption, including in many areas of philosophy and cognitive science. In response to this, Damian Milton has proposed an interactional approach to empathy, namely the theory of the double empathy problem. According to this theory, empathy is fundamentally dependent on mutual reciprocity or salience rather than individual, cognitive faculties like theory of mind. However, the theory leaves open the question of what makes any salient interaction empathic in the first place. The aim of this paper is to integrate core tenets of the theory of the double empathy problem specifically with classical, phenomenological descriptions of empathy. Such an integration provides further conceptual refinement to the theory of the double empathy problem while recognizing its core tenets, but it also introduces important considerations of neurodiversity to classic, phenomenological descriptions of empathy.