Theory as behaviour: Why empathy research needs horizontal, mutualistic habits of seeing

Abstract

I propose that theory, typically understood as a mere intellectual position, is also a habit of seeing (in the Deweyan sense). It is a form of behaviour organized through person–environment collaboration that reshapes both person and environment, facilitating and constraining subsequent potentials for action. I discuss two of psychology’s habits of seeing and their effect upon empathy research: (a) the vertical worldview, a habit of searching for reality at higher or lower levels, which neglects the empathizer’s context and (b) dualism, a habit of treating organisms as distinct from environments, which creates the problem of other minds. I present two alternative habits of seeing: (a) van Dijk and Withagen’s horizontal worldview, which looks outward to empathizers’ contexts and (b) organism–environment mutuality, which approaches organisms and environments as processes rather than entities. These latter habits, I conclude, better afford psychologists the possibility of addressing the practical problem of nonempathetic behaviour.