In the space between us
Empathy as moral and existential gestrure
I write this as someone who has experienced both the presence and the absence of empathy firsthand. My relationship with my mother — often emotionally unavailable and unreachable — and later a destructive romantic relationship with a narcissistic woman, painfully taught me what happens when empathy is missing: emptiness arises, confusion, detachment. Where empathy disappears, truth dissolves. And without truth, the sense of who you are begins to fade.
Still, I do not wish to dwell in trauma. I want to understand — not from a place of distance, but from involvement. From the conviction that empathy is not merely a human capacity, but a moral compass. Not a gentle luxury, but a revolutionary act.
In this essay, I explore how philosophers have helped me find words for what I intuitively feel: that empathy forms the bridge between truth and connection — and thereby, between human being and being humane.
Levinas: the other as ethical starting point
Emmanuel Levinas taught me that the Other makes a demand on us even before we understand what or who they are. In the encounter with the face of the Other, there is a call — an appeal that is not rational or psychological, but existential. This call asks for responsiveness — for the willingness to be touched, without analyzing or appropriating.
What moves me in Levinas’s thinking is that he does not ground ethics in rules or systems, but in proximity and vulnerability. The Other obligates us by their presence alone. I recognize this image from my own therapy: the moments when I was truly seen — looked at without judgment — were moments of healing. No explanation, no solution, just empathic presence.
Buber: truth in the I–Thou
Martin Buber helps me understand that not every relationship is a true encounter. In the I–It mode, we treat the other as a thing, a function — a means to an end. But in the I–Thou relationship, the other appears as a full, living being — and it is precisely there that empathy can arise.
What I learn from Buber is that empathy is not the same as putting yourself in someone else's shoes, but about being present together in the not-knowing. It reminds me of deep conversations in which no one had the answer, yet there was space to simply be together. Something happens there. That is where truth emerges — not as possession, but as encounter.
Fromm: love as an active force
Erich Fromm describes love and empathy as verbs. They require practice, attention and discipline. In The Art of Loving (1956), he argues that true love consists of care, respect, responsibility and knowledge.
Fromm’s view affirms what I intuitively feel: that empathy is not passive sensitivity, but an active choice — a willingness to know and to acknowledge. In a world that often teaches us to survive by hiding ourselves, empathy becomes an act of loving resistance — the decision to truly see someone, even when it is confronting or uncomfortable.
Habermas: truth as an intersubjective process
Jürgen Habermas adds something fundamental: he describes truth not as an individual claim, but as something that arises within the tension of dialogue and mutual understanding. In his theory of communicative rationality, he argues that truth only becomes meaningful when it is open to shared validation through open communication.
Habermas helps me understand that truth is not something one possesses, but something that emerges between people. In conversations where I was not believed or where I was deliberately manipulated, I felt how essential that intersubjective foundation truly is. Where it is absent, gaslighting takes root. Where it is present, healing becomes possible — and the path to genuine encounter opens.
Rogers: empathy as unconditional acceptance
Carl Rogers, founder of client-centered therapy, emphasized the importance of unconditional positive regard — the ability to fully accept someone exactly as they are, without judgment. For Rogers, empathy is not a technique, but a posture of deep receptivity: a willingness to enter the inner world of another without trying to correct or control it.
In therapy, I experienced how powerful this approach can be. It wasn’t analysis that helped me grow, but the experience of existing in the eyes of another — that my emotions were allowed to be there, even when they were chaotic, angry or sad. Within that unconditional acceptance, something new unfolded: self-compassion. Rogers reminds me that empathy is not something you do for someone else, but something you are with someone else.
Arendt: plurality and responsibility
Hannah Arendt emphasizes that truth cannot exist outside the public space of plurality and action. For her, truth is rooted in human speech and deed — in showing up for one another. She warns against systems that try to fix or exclude truth, because they inevitably lead to violence.
Arendt makes me aware of the danger of systems without empathy. In her thinking, I feel a deep kinship: truth is never abstract or neutral, but intrinsically tied to our responsibility to be seen — and to truly see the other. Truth requires courage — the courage to speak, even when it hurts.
Byung-Chul Han: Transparency as Violence
Byung-Chul Han is the philosopher who confronted me with the deceptive ideal of transparency. In a world where everything must be visible, measurable, and understandable, the space for mystery, for not-knowing and for the relational begins to vanish.
His critique of the transparent society resonates deeply with my sense that empathy is often co-opted by systems that reduce it to a measurable skill — a tool in service of efficiency. But true empathy is not a metric. It is the courage to fall silent before the incomprehensible. Han reminds me that the other is always, in part, a mystery. And that honoring that mystery is essential.
In-between space: the metamodern grounding
What all these thinkers have in common is that they situate empathy within the relational field — not as an individual achievement or rational analysis, but as an ethical, existential presence between human beings.
In a time when empathy is reduced to a measurable competency — packaged into training modules, applied as strategy, deployed in service and sales — true empathy feels like an act of resistance. It defies the logic of efficiency and verifiability. In the light of metamodernism — which oscillates between irony and sincerity, hope and despair — empathy calls us into a radical state of in-betweenness.
It asks us to endure ambiguity, to leave meaning open, to remain with what cannot be resolved. In this way, empathy becomes a moral anchor in confusing times — a gentle force that refuses to harden, a loving gesture that must continuously reinvent itself in the space between us.
Epilogue: A Personal Truth
Empathy saved me. Not as a skill, but as a vital remembrance. Of who I am. Of who the other is. And of what connects us.
Its destructive absence taught me what truth is not: manipulation, projection, denial.
But also this: that truth without love becomes cold and dangerous. A means of control.
The philosophers I’ve reflected on here help me find words for what I feel: that empathy is not optional. That it’s the connective tissue of truth, love, and humanity. That it’s not a technique, but a posture. Not sentiment, but an act.
Empathy is the willingness to stay.
With yourself.
With the other.
With discomfort.
With love.
And perhaps that is the most radical act in a world that teaches us to flee.
