ABSTRACT
‘Cognitive empathy’ refers to empathy that is directed towards understanding others. It is thought to involve mainly, or exclusively, cognitive mental structures. This chapter discusses the theory theory versus simulation theory debate, mirror neurons, perspective taking, and self-knowledge. It considers some of the most common objections to the use of perspective taking, such as the objection from impossibility and from transformative experience, and provides an idea of how to meet those challenges. Psychologists talk less of simulation and more of perspective taking. The most popular objection to simulation and perspective taking is that it is impossible for us to imaginatively transform ourselves enough to capture what something is like for another person. Cognitive empathy is a broad term for what is usually known as ‘simulation’ in philosophy of mind or ‘perspective taking’ in social psychology, although it also sometimes describes any form of theory of mind activity.
