Why the nature/nurture and the affective/cognitive dichotomy won’t go away: The case of empathy

The goal of this paper is to reveal why the affective/cognitive and the nature/ nurture dichotomy are still present in the literature on empathy and why most of the theoreticians find them appealing. In the first part of the paper I will provide a short overview of the psychological theories of empathy, while in the second part I will turn to the reasons that keep the affective/cognitive and the nature/nurture dichotomies alive in these theories. I will argue that such reasons could be found in the underlying Cartesian picture of mind, emotions and the nature of communication, that most of the contemporary developmental theories implicitly accept. As a result of these assumptions, the phenomenon of empathy within these theories is closely tied to the Cartesian epistemological problem of other minds. My goal is to show that the aforementioned dichotomies are part of the solution of this particular Cartesian problem and if we abandon the problem we will be in a position to abandon these dichotomies. Finally, at the end of the paper I will explore what it would mean to step outside of the Cartesian boundaries and what kind of implications that would have for our understanding of empathy.