Between Buber and Mbiti: Foundations for a relational theory of empathy in the twenty-first century

1. Introduction

The central claim of this paper is that empathy has become a key term in contemporary moral, political, and clinical discourse, frequently invoked as a remedy for phenomena as diverse as political polarisation, inter-personal violence, social fragmentation, and pervasive experiences of mental distress. In psychology and neuroscience, empathy is seen as a complex capacity involving affective sharing, cognitive perspective-taking, and regulatory mechanisms that modulate self–other distinction [1]. These approaches have yielded important empirical insights, but they often presuppose an individualistic ontology in which empathy is treated as an internal capacity or trait possessed by an already constituted subject. What remains comparatively underexplored is the ontological and ethical grounding of empathy, such as what kind of beings we must be for empathy to be possible at all and what kind of moral orientation empathy presupposes and generates.

This paper argues that a relational ontology can offer a more adequate foundation for understanding empathy in the twenty-first century. Buber’s dialogical philosophy and Mbiti’s African communitarian account of personhood are used to propose a relational theory of empathy that moves beyond dominant trait-based and mechanistic models. These frameworks depict empathy not as a psychological add-on but as an ontologically grounded mode of being-with others, involving affective resonance, cognitive understanding, and ethical responsiveness. In contemporary psychology, the most influential conceptualisation of empathy remains that of Davis’s multi-dimensional trait model, operationalised through the Inter-personal Reactivity Index (IRI). He defines empathy as comprising four relatively stable dispositions: perspective-taking, fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress [2]. This model has been widely adopted in empirical research and has proven methodologically fruitful. However, its underlying assumptions reflect a broader individualist paradigm, where empathy is something an individual has to a greater or lesser degree, measurable through self-report, and separable from the social and ethical contexts in which it is enacted. Critics have noted that such models might risk polarising empathy in a way that abstracts it from lived relations and moral responsibility [3].

A relational rethinking of empathy will require returning to more fundamental questions of personhood and inter-subjectivity. Buber’s Ich und Du (I and Thou) distinguishes between two basic word pairs that structure human existence: I–It and I–Thou. In the I–It mode, the world and others are experienced as objects to be known, used, or analysed. In contrast, the I–Thou relation is characterised by presence, mutuality, and address, in which the other is encountered as a whole being rather than reduced to properties or functions [4]. For him, the I itself is not a pre-given substance but comes into being through these relations, such as, ‘The I of the primary word “I–Thou” is different from that of the primary word “I–It”’. This claim has profound implications for empathy. If the self is constituted in and through relations, then the capacity to be affected by, understand, and respond to others is not secondary but foundational. Empathy, on this view, is not merely an inner simulation of another’s mental state but an expression of the dialogical structure of existence. Even though Buber did not develop a systematic theory of empathy as such, and he is at times sceptical of psychological attempts to ‘enter into’ the other’s experience, nevertheless, his emphasis on presence, openness, and responsiveness in the ‘I–Thou’ encounter can provide an ontological grounding for empathic relations understood as events that occur between persons rather than within isolated minds.

A similar, though culturally and conceptually distinct, relational ontology is articulated by Mbiti [5], where he argues that many African metaphysical and ethical systems conceive of personhood as fundamentally communal. Against Western individualism, he asserts that ‘the individual can only say, “I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am”’ [5]. This formulation is not intended as a denial of individuality but as a claim about its grounding, as the self emerges from and remains embedded in a network of relationships encompassing family, community, ancestors, and the living world. Such analysis situates personhood within a broader moral and ontological order in which relationality is primary. Moral obligations, emotions, and social practices are not external constraints imposed on an autonomous self but expressions of one’s being-in-community [5]. From this perspective, sensitivity to others’ suffering and well-being is not an optional virtue but an existential necessity. While he does not theorise empathy in contemporary psychological terms, his account implies a form of relational attunement in which affective and ethical responsiveness are integral to what it means to be a person.

We maintain that bringing both thinkers into dialogue will allow for a transdisciplinary reconfiguration of empathy that addresses limitations in dominant models. Even though both thinkers reject the notion of the self as an isolated atom and instead emphasise the constitutive role of relationships, we maintain that they do so from different intellectual and cultural traditions; while Buber speaks from his Jewish existentialism and dialogical philosophy, Mbiti does so from African philosophy and religious studies. Such convergence suggests that relational ontology is not a parochial claim but a cross-cultural insight with contemporary relevance. This aligns with, but also critically reframes, findings from neuroscience and developmental psychology. Research on early attachment, for example, indicates that affect regulation and social understanding emerge through embodied interaction with carers rather than from innate, self-contained capacities [6]. Similarly, enactive and phenomenological approaches to social cognition argue that understanding others is primarily achieved through direct, participatory engagement rather than detached inference [7]. These perspectives align with Buber’s emphasis on presence and Mbiti’s communal ontology, which suggest that empathy is an emergent property of relational life.

Against this backdrop, the persistence of person-centred models such as Davis’s appears increasingly inadequate. While these models describe substantial aspects of empathy, they risk losing sight of the ethical and ontological stakes of empathy by situating it solely within individual psychology. Such an approach could abandon and substitute relations. It is in terms of a triad consisting of affective resonance, cognitive insight, and ethical responsiveness. Affective resonance here means the ability to be moved by the situation of another person, while cognitive understanding has to do with grasping another person’s perspective, thoughts, and feelings intellectually, without necessarily sharing their emotions. Ethical responsiveness, on the other hand, means an obligation to act, react, or respond in a manner that recognises the other’s dignity and vulnerability.

These are not independent modules but mutually reinforcing phenomena and elements of relational involvement. Such reconceptualisation is quite urgent due to contemporary global crises. Social fragmentation, polarisation, and systemic violence can be interpreted, at least in part, as manifestations of what might be called an erosion of relational consciousness – the dehumanising of other people into objects, functions, or abstractions. Buber describes this as the expansion of the ‘I–It’ mode at the expense of ‘I–Thou’ relations [4]. At the same time, Mbiti cautions against social situations that break individuals away from their community ties [5]. From this perspective, empathy is not an individual ability but a socio-ontological and ethical orientation. We are of the view that reading Buber and Mbiti together will provide complementary foundations for a relational theory of empathy suited to the complexities of the twenty-first century. Our proposal does not reject empirical psychology or neuroscience but situates their findings within a broader philosophical framework that recognises the primacy of relation. When we ground empathy in dialogical and communal ontologies of personhood, it becomes possible to articulate empathy as a practice of attunement that fosters healing, dialogue, and cooperation across cultural, institutional, and disciplinary contexts.

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2. Dominant paradigms of empathy

In this section, we analyse how contemporary conversation about empathy seems to have been dominated by psychological and neuroscientific paradigms that struggle to explain how people perceive, share, and understand the mental and emotional states of others. These paradigms have produced a body of empirical research and have clarified many mechanisms involved in empathic experiences.

Nevertheless, they are, on the whole, unified by an implicit but presumed commitment to methodological individualism, where empathy is fundamentally conceptualised as a capacity, a process, a trait, a function, etc., within the individual organism. While the results have been ‘explanatorily productive’, there remains a pervasive a-theoretical, and indeed a-theonomic, stance towards the presuppositions upon which empathic engagements take place in the first place. An empirical model proposed by Davis, based upon a multi-dimensional perspective that is measured through an IRI, states that empathy is best conceptualised as a structure composed of four first-order components: perspective taking, where there is a tendency to adopt another’s point of view; fantasy, where there is the tendency to imaginatively transpose oneself into fictional situations; empathic concern, where other-oriented feelings of sympathy and compassion exist; and personal distress, where self-oriented feelings of anxiety in response to others’ suffering are inherent [2]. We maintain that a model of empathy such as this has been widely adopted because it allows empathy to be quantified and correlated with pro-social behaviour, aggression, and moral decision-making.

This kind of parading could be called empirical and, insofar as it is useful, requires us to believe that what we call empathetic understanding is present to an increased or decreased extent in the individual. The empathic encounter in such an approach was theoretically mainly investigated from a view centred around the internal psychological structures of the individual and not as a social procedure at all. Even when the role of surroundings and context was mentioned in the procedure of empathising, they were viewed primarily as external characteristics a social agent has on a social level. Critics have argued that this may risk fragmenting empathy into discrete components and neglecting its ethical orientation towards the other as other [3]. Closely related to such trait-based approaches are cognitive–affective models that distinguish between cognitive empathy, which is the capacity to understand another’s mental states, and affective empathy, which is the capacity to share or align with another’s emotions. This distinction is common in both social psychology and clinical research, particularly in studies of autism spectrum conditions and psychopathy [8].

While analytically useful, this bifurcation can obscure the lived unity of empathic experience, in which understanding and feeling are intertwined within concrete inter-personal situations. Many psychological models implicitly rely on a representationalist account of social understanding, wherein to empathise is to construct an internal representation or simulation of the other’s state. Goldman’s simulation theory, for example, holds that individuals understand others by imaginatively putting themselves in the other’s position and running their own cognitive mechanisms ‘offline’ [9]. Although influential, such accounts also presuppose a sharp self–other distinction and frame empathy as an inferential achievement rather than a direct relational engagement.

Developmental psychology has complicated purely trait-based accounts by showing that empathic capacities emerge through early interaction rather than appearing fully formed. Research on infant development indicates that sensitivity to others’ emotions is rooted in embodied, pre-reflective forms of interaction, such as affective attunement, imitation, and rhythmic exchange between infant and carer [6]. These findings challenge the idea that empathy is merely an internal capacity and suggest instead that it is scaffolded by relational environments. Even developmental accounts often interpret these findings within an individualist framework to describe how social interaction shapes neural and psychological capacities inside the developing child. Here, the relational field tends to disappear from view once the capacity is internalised. As a result, empathy is still primarily understood as a property of individuals rather than as an ongoing, dynamic process that unfolds between persons across time.

Neuroscience has further reinforced the mechanistic understanding of empathy by identifying neural correlates associated with empathic processes. A landmark contribution is the discovery of mirror neuron systems, initially observed in premotor areas of the macaque brain and later proposed to play a role in human action understanding and emotional resonance [10]. These findings have been interpreted as providing a neural basis for affective empathy: observing another’s action or emotion activates similar neural circuits in the observer.

Decety and Jackson [1] further propose a model of empathy as a multi-component system involving affective sharing, self-other distinction, perspective-taking, and emotion regulation. Importantly, they emphasise that empathy is not reducible to emotional contagion; it requires regulatory processes that prevent the collapse of self into others. This has especially had an impact in the clinical setting, where too much empathic distress may result in burnout or withdrawal. Although these models provide some useful information, they are prone to finding empathy in the brain of the consumer. Neural activation patterns become explanatory endpoints, and the inter-personal relation is re-described as a stimulus triggering internal processes. As phenomenologists and enactivists have noted, this may risk committing what has been called the ‘neural localisation fallacy’, a situation where we explain relational phenomena exclusively in terms of sub-personal mechanisms while neglecting the level at which meaning and ethical significance arise [7]. Prevailing psychological and neuroscientific paradigms have improved knowledge on the aspects of empathy, its formation, and brain mechanisms. They have assisted in providing practical implications for psychotherapy, education, and conflict resolution and have helped to differentiate empathy from related phenomena such as sympathy and emotional contagion. Nevertheless, their shared limitations become apparent when empathy is considered not merely as a functional capacity but as a mode of being-with others.

These paradigms are likely to separate empathy from ethical orientation. Empathy is defined in terms of accuracy, intensity, or regulation, although little is said about its normative dimension, its orientation towards the good of the other, and its role in responsibility and care. The ontological status of the self is largely taken for granted, as the empathising subject is mostly assumed to be an already constituted individual who projects empathic capacities outwards. This assumption is put in opposition to relational ontologies that interpret the self as something emerging through interaction. By privileging internal mechanisms and traits, dominant models may risk reinforcing the very forms of social fragmentation they seek to address. If empathy is conceived primarily as an individual resource, its erosion is attributed to personal deficits rather than to breakdowns in relational, institutional, and cultural structures.

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3. Buber’s dialogical ontology and the I–Thou relation

We maintain here that Buber’s dialogical philosophy (a philosophical movement that emphasises the importance of relationships and encounters) can offer one of the most sustained and radical critiques of modern individualist ontology. In Ich und Du (I and Thou), he rejects the notion that the human person is a self-contained substance that subsequently enters into relationships. He proposes that relation is ontologically primary, where the human being becomes a person only in and through relation. This claim is articulated through his famous distinction between the two ‘primary word pairs’ that structure human existence, such as ‘I–It’ and ‘I–Thou’ [4]. Such a relation, for him, is characterised by experience, use, and objectification. In this mode, the world, including other human beings, is encountered as a collection of objects that can be known, categorised, analysed, or instrumentalised. This mode is necessary for practical life and scientific inquiry, but it is not exhaustive of human existence. By contrast, it is defined by encounter, presence, and mutuality. In speaking the word ‘Thou’, the ‘I’ does not relate to an object but enters into a living relation with a being who cannot be reduced to properties or functions [4]. He insists that these relations are not merely different attitudes adopted by an already constituted subject. Each relation gives rise to a different mode of selfhood: ‘The “I” of the primary word “I–Thou” is a different “I” from that of the primary word “I–It”’. This statement encapsulates his ontological reversal of modern subjectivity. The self is not the ground of relation; relation is the ground of the self.

Personhood is thus fundamentally relational, not accidental to relation. This relational ontology stands in sharp contrast to Cartesian and post-Cartesian traditions that conceive of the self as a thinking substance or autonomous will. The attempt to locate the essence of personhood in inner consciousness already presupposes the I–It mode, in which even one’s own mental states are treated as objects of introspection. Genuine personal existence, by contrast, emerges only in dialogical encounter, where the other is addressed as ‘Thou’ and not grasped conceptually. Such an understanding of relation is not reducible to reciprocity in a contractual or symmetrical sense.

Mutuality, in this sense, does not mean equality of power, emotion, or awareness. What defines the I–Thou relation is not sameness but presence – a turning towards the other in their concrete, irreducible particularity. As he writes, ‘Relation is mutual; my “Thou” affects me, as I affect it’. The emphasis here is on affectivity and openness, not on cognitive mastery. This ontological primacy of relation also grounds his broader anthropology. Human life unfolds in what he calls the ‘between (das Zwischen), the sphere of lived relations that cannot be located exclusively within either participant [11]. The ‘between’ is not a figurative expression but an actual aspect of being, which cannot be reduced to a state of subjectivity or a form of objectivity. In this inter-human sphere, meaning, responsibility, and ethical demand emerge. He does not come up with a systematic theory of empathy but offers a deep reorientation of empathy as it should be conceptualised.

In pre-eminent psychological paradigms, empathy is generally understood to be an inward process whereby a person symbolises or feigns the mental or emotional conditions of another person. His philosophy questions this framework of representation by demanding that true relation is not to get into the inner world of the other as an object of knowledge. In fact, he specifically dissociates himself from what he refers to as empathy (Einfühlung) in the sense that it can be interpreted as imaginative projection or empathic identification [4]. In his case, the risk of such accounts is that they lead to a reduction of the other, which is too subtle to be an object of our own experience. To ‘feel oneself into’ the other may still operate within the I–It mode if the other’s experience is appropriated, interpreted, or consumed by the self. But the I–Thou relation requires restraint, openness, and a willingness to be addressed rather than to grasp. Empathy, reconceived dialogically, is therefore not an act of mental substitution but a mode of presence. Its presence consists of being in the presence of the other with no pre-conception, letting the other be what he/she is, and responding within the very relationship. This is as inclusion (Einschluss), which is different from emotional identification. Inclusion here implies awareness of the other’s situation and reality without losing oneself; it does not lose the difference despite acknowledging the connection [11]. Such a conception is foreseen by subsequent phenomenological critiques of empathy as fusion and agrees with those which focus on self-other distinction as a state of authentic ethical relation.

In this respect, empathy is not essentially epistemic but ontological and moral. It does not come out of knowing the way the other feels but rather being alongside the other in such a way that recognises his or her presence and vulnerability. An empathic moment is therefore placed in the ‘between’ and not within the psyche of the empathiser. This has great consequences regarding the meaning of empathy in moral life. Instead of being an ability that can be used in different ways to accomplish different purposes, empathy in its dialogical meaning is already morally directed. To encounter another as Thou is to recognise their claim upon oneself. Such insistence that the Thou can never be fully grasped also guards against the instrumentalisation of empathy. In modern therapeutic, managerial, or political contexts, empathy is often valorised as a skill that can be cultivated and applied strategically. Buber would regard such instrumentalisation as symptomatic of the expansion of the I–It mode. Genuine dialogical presence cannot be willed or produced on demand; it occurs as an event, a meeting (Begegnung), that interrupts habitual patterns of objectification. At the same time, he does not romanticise the permanence of I–Thou relations but acknowledges that every Thou inevitably becomes an It once the moment of encounter passes. Human life requires oscillation between these modes, and no society could function without the objectifying structures of I–It [4]. Working ethically is, however, to resist the totalisation of the I–It mode and to be open to a new experience. As a dialogic phenomenon, empathy is thus fragile, intermittent, and transformative. This weakness is particularly relevant to the new discussions of empathy fatigue and burnout.

These phenomena may not demonstrate a surplus of empathy but rather its perversion into emotional over-identification or instrumental care, instead of the excessive quantity of empathy as claimed in a dialogical approach. Dialogical presence does not always demand a level of emotion but remains attentive and responsible in terms of relation rather than absorption. In this regard, his description precedes subsequent distinctions between empathy, sympathy, and compassion without dehumanising them into psychological processes. He extends this by relating the dialogical model to the natural world and the divine, rather than solely to relations among people. Though the empathy of the human being is a subject of discussion nowadays, it is worth mentioning that Buber’s I-Thou relation is limited to the ultimate horizon of the Eternal Thou [4]. It is this theological detail that supports the argument that relation is not contingent but constitutive of reality. Even if one brackets the theological ‘it’, on its side, it carries the implication that to be human is to be addressable and answerable within a web of relations.

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4. Mbiti on the communal ontology of personhood

Mbiti’s work has been influential in philosophy and theology, with its perennial attempt to challenge Western individualism and its articulation of an ontology of personhood rooted in communal grounds. He asserts that most African worldviews possess a means of not conceiving a human being as an isolated and self-sufficient entity but as a being whose identity, moral standing, and even metaphysical reality are constituted through relationships. This ontic priority of the communal over the individual may be encapsulated in the best-known dictum: ‘I am because we are; and since we are, then I am’. This cannot be seen as merely a sociological fact or a rejection of individuality; rather, it is a metaphysical declaration of the situation of personhood. The person is only present as he/she is an element of that circle of relationships that involves not only the living community but also ancestors, future generations, and the spiritual world. Personhood is not, however, a privilege, let alone a psychological achievement or a gift; it is cultivated and preserved within a common horizon [5]. What he called a ‘corporate understanding of life is the way human life is lived, in which the existence of the individual cannot be disengaged from the manners, rites, and obligations of communal life. He provided a metaphysical disposition that discredits the acute distinction between ontology and ethics, since to be is to belong and to be responsible.

The basis of his argument is that community is not merely an amalgamation of people but a living entity that exists both before and beyond individuals. Identities are specified, names are assigned, and ethical standards are transmitted through the framework of society. Without this framework, the individual may be exposed to the danger of ontological degradation. He remarks that to be ostracised, exiled, or to experience the breaking of kinship ties – such as being excluded by the community – is more than social isolation; it is a sort of existential loss. This notion of personhood is very much opposite to the mainstream Western paradigms, according to which identity is founded on autonomy, rational self-reflection, or rights-bearing individuality. He does not deny that African societies recognise personal agency or responsibility, but he asserts that agency, as such, can only be conceptualised as part of a relational matrix. The self is not lost in the group but is known through the assistance of communal life. Individuality is thus maintained, although the relations are ever mediatory. African philosophers have both developed and critiqued his position, particularly regarding the risk of romanticising consensus or underplaying internal dissent. Nonetheless, his articulation of communal ontology remains a crucial point of departure for understanding relational personhood beyond Western frameworks. His work invites a rethinking of moral concepts, including empathy – not as private psychological states but as practices embedded in communal forms of life. Although he does not offer an explicit theory of empathy in the contemporary psychological sense, his account of communal ontology has direct implications for how empathy is understood and practised within African contexts.

If personhood is constituted through relations, then sensitivity to others’ suffering, needs, and aspirations is not an optional moral virtue but a structural requirement of communal life. Empathy, in this sense, is less a discrete capacity than a mode of communal attunement. His emphasis that African moral systems are deeply concerned with maintaining harmony, balance, and continuity within the community makes such a claim even more explicit. Moral wrongdoing, thus, is often interpreted not simply as a violation of abstract rules but as a disruption of relationships that threatens the well-being of the whole. Here, responsiveness to the remainder of some occurrences, specifically suffering and exposure, is elemental to moral repair. Acts of care, solidarity, and ritual reconciliation presuppose an ability to recognise and be affected by the condition of others. This communal interaction supports forms of empathy that are accomplished through joint practices or, alternatively, introspective criticism. For example, sadness, healing rituals, and collective labor are structured habits of significance, attuned to another’s burdens. Mbiti describes, by virtue of this, that despair, pleasure, and crisis are exceptionally not known in isolation; they are together unquestioned and ritually arbitrated [5].

Empathy here is not generally conveyed through spoken articulation of impressions but through closeness, participation, and joint operation. Such practices challenge mainstream psychological models that delineate understanding in terms of individual perspective – whether through attractive or sensitive simulation. In shared circumstances, understanding is distributed across the group and entrenched in public roles and expectations. Elders, blood relatives, and neighbours are expected to respond to suffering not because they possess a high level of an internal trait but because their relational identity obliges them to do so. Empathy is thus inseparable from responsibility. His discussion of hospitality further demonstrates this point. Hospitality towards strangers and guests is not grounded in abstract moral universalism but in the recognition of shared humanity within a relational worldview. To fail in hospitality is to deny the relational basis of one’s own being, which presupposes a readiness to attend to the needs and vulnerabilities of others – a skill that closely accompanies what modern discourse would call understanding responsiveness. Because society is the basic locus of moral existence, understanding concern is often organised by affinity, ancestry, and social acts.

This does not contradict understanding but situates it within a moral preservation that prioritises related proximity and joint past. Such a constitution raises important questions for modern worldwide morality, particularly in pluralistic and transnational frameworks, but it again highlights the situatedness of empathic practices. Importantly, he recognises that expansionist doctrine, urbanisation, and new economic structures have deeply upset the traditional shared makeup. He outlines that the erosion of affinity networks and traditions of life leads to forms of estrangement that are both public and existential [5]. In such conditions, the communal grounding of empathy is weakened, and individuals can acknowledge agony in isolation. His argument accordingly anticipates contemporary concerns about public decomposition and the loss of comparative support schemes. From a transdisciplinary view, his judgements align with accompanying sociological and anthropological reports that emphasise the public embedding of sentiment and moral existence.

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5. Towards a relational theory of empathy

Despite the thriving proportion of empathy in psychological, ethical, and political discourse, the main hypothetical example continues to approach it through an inevitably individualist perspective. Whether conceptualised as a trait, a cognitive capacity, or a neural mechanism, empathy is typically located within the individual subject, understood as a self-contained entity that subsequently relates to others. Even when empathy is described as ‘other-orientated’, the ontological priority of the individual is rarely questioned. This section proposes a framework called the Relational Attunement Theory of Empathy (RATE) that sees empathy as not primarily a psychological process occurring inside individuals but a relational mode of being that arises between persons and within communal forms of life. We ground this claim in a relational ontology informed by Buber’s dialogical philosophy and Mbiti’s African communal ontology, but it is not reducible to either. Instead, it constitutes a fresh view on theoretical synthesis that integrates dialogue and community into a unified ontological, ethical framework. This can reposition empathy from the domain of intra-psychic (being or occurring within the psyche, mind, or personality) to the domain of relational ontology and articulate it as a triadic structure of affective resonance, cognitive understanding, and ethical responsiveness that is internally integrated rather than modular. It will also establish it as intrinsically normative, such that ethical responsibility is not a contingent outcome but a constitutive dimension of empathic relation. It will define empathy as an ontologically grounded mode of being-with others, emerging within dialogical encounters and sustained by communal life. Rather than a psychological capacity possessed by individuals, it is constituted in the relational ‘between’, where persons are mutually addressed, affectively attuned, and normatively obligated. It is neither emotional contagion nor cognitive simulation but a form of relational attunement through which personhood, moral responsibility, and care are co-constituted. Here, empathy is constituted by three co-emergent and mutually reinforcing dimensions that are not stages or components that can be isolated without distortion but function as a unified relational whole. The following claims are used to explain our contribution:

1. Affective resonance (feeling-with as relational attunement)

   Affective resonance here refers to the capacity to be emotionally moved with another person, without collapsing into emotional fusion or self-loss. This dimension is often conflated in the literature with emotional contagion, but at present, we insist on a crucial distinction. Emotional contagion involves unreflective affective transmission, whereas affective resonance presupposes relational openness and responsiveness. In the I–Thou relation, for instance, the other is encountered as a presence that affects me prior to reflection or categorisation, as the relation is mutual. This affectivity is not a psychological mechanism but an existential condition of encounter that arises in the immediacy of presence and cannot be reduced to inner feeling states. Mbiti’s collective knowledge further deepens this insight by situating feelings and intuition within joint practices and traditions. Emotions such as despair and pleasure are not privately possessed but altogether enacted, as he observes that agony and festivals are rarely carried out uniquely; they are collectively recognised and ritually signified. Affective reverberation, thus, is not a private copy but is socially interfered with and emerges in the shared space of encounter and community rather than inside individual subjects.

2. Cognitive understanding (recognition rather than simulation)

   Cognitive understanding, within dominant paradigms, is often defined as perspective-taking through imagination or simulation. Davis’s influential model treats perspective-taking as an internal cognitive disposition [2], while simulation theorists describe empathy as running one’s own mental processes ‘offline’ to model the other [9]. The Relational Attunement Theory rejects this representationalist assumption and argues that genuine understanding does not consist of mentally reconstructing the other’s inner states. Understanding must arise through address and response, not through simulation. Mbiti’s communal ontology reinforces this account, where one understands another not by imaginatively stepping into their place but by recognising them as a fellow participant in a shared moral and existential world. The recognition of shared humanity is grounded in belonging to the communal ‘we’, within which the other’s suffering is already intelligible. This is best understood as recognitive understanding: the acknowledgement of the other as a meaning-bearing subject within a shared relational horizon, rather than as a process of mental simulation.

3. Ethical responsiveness (empathy as a normative orientation)

   The third dimension of our proposal is anchored in ethical responsiveness. Many contemporary models treat empathy as morally neutral, capable of motivating both prosocial and partial or even harmful actions. In contrast, the Relational Attunement Theory insists that empathy is intrinsically normative. In Buber’s philosophy, we see that the I–Thou encounter places the self under obligation without recourse to rules or principles. To encounter another in that way is already to be claimed by them, as ‘Responsibility is the response to the Thou’. This responsibility arises not from deliberation but from relation itself. Similarly, Mbiti’s account of communal life understands moral obligation as constitutive of personhood, especially as one does not first exist and then choose to care; rather, care is demanded by one’s belonging to the community. Ethical responsiveness is therefore not an optional moral virtue but an ontological requirement. The implication is that empathy is incomplete unless it issues in ethical responsiveness; affective and cognitive attunement that does not orient action remains ontologically deficient. The central ontological claim here is that empathy is a mode of being-with others, not a psychological process occurring within isolated minds. The within is not limited to momentary encounters but is sustained across generations through communal structures, rituals, and moral expectations. Empathy, on this view, is both eventful (dialogical) and enduring (communal).

Care ethics, particularly in the work of Held, emphasises relationality, responsiveness, and the moral significance of care. However, it remains primarily a normative ethical theory, focused on moral reasoning and values rather than ontological constitution [12]. By contrast, we argue that it is ontological before normative. It does not begin with moral values but with the structure of being-with.

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6. Applications and contemporary relevance

We maintain that the RATE has considerable practical and contextual significance in modern times, as it will redefine and reframe the very concept of empathy not as a psychological option but as a relational mandate in a crisis-ridden world. Today’s world troubles, such as those triggered and fuelled by forced migration, violations of the rule of law, and infectious diseases, cannot be seen solely in technical or practical terms; a crisis in relationship, self-recognition, and self-imperative exists. Both the reduction and relegation of the human element to mere statistics, abstract categories, or even perceived deadly menaces signal a profound crisis of relational awareness and understanding within societies and in global affairs. Contemporary global crises can be understood as the expansion and normalisation of the I–It relationships, accompanied by the erosion, dissolution, and fragmentation of we-oriented relationships.

Empathy, when thought of as relational attunement, can possibly bring a way of counteracting the reduction by making persons visible again in the system. For example, one of the greatest world crises of the twenty-first century is the crisis of forced displacement. According to UNHCR data, there were more than 100 million forcibly displaced individuals worldwide who faced displacement on account of war, persecution, and environmental disasters [13]. The discourse pattern concerning them is usually instrumental and abstract, with agreements about ‘flows’, ‘burden’, and ‘freedom risks’, and thus an I–It fashion instead of I–Thou. But relational attunement shows up in grassroots and community-based responses, which resist this abstraction. Ethnographic research on refugee accompaniment programs, such as community sponsorship initiatives in Canada, illustrates the ways in which sustained face-to-face relationships between host communities and refugee families may nurture forms of empathy that surpass charitable sentiment [14]. Sponsors report that shared daily life, like meals, school meetings, and healthcare navigation, can turn initial compassion into durable responsibility.

This shift reflects the triadic structure of empathy proposed here. Affective resonance arises through proximity to lived vulnerability; cognitive understanding develops through recognition of shared aspirations rather than imagined simulation; and ethical responsiveness is enacted through long-term commitment rather than episodic aid. Empathy here is not an internal feeling but a mode of being-with that reshapes communal identity. Also, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), while often analysed in legal or political terms, also represents an attempt to institutionalise relational empathy in the aftermath of apartheid. Tutu, who chaired the TRC, explicitly drew on the African concept of ubuntu, which closely aligns with Mbiti’s communal ontology, to frame reconciliation as the restoration of broken relationships rather than mere punishment [15]. Victims’ public testimonies were not intended solely to establish facts but to re-humanise both victims and perpetrators through dialogical encounter. Empirical reasoning of the TRC indicates that, for many colleagues, the hope to be perceived and approved contributed to mental and friendly healing, even when material lawfulness remained incomplete [16]. This serves to demonstrate the possibilities regarding the embedding of dialogical presence and encountering into a communal-institutional setting. From the perspective of relational attunement, the TRC testifies to an ethics of generative, as opposed to exhaustive or draining, empathy. The emphasis was not one of emotional identification with the experience of suffering as such, but on responsibility for a shared future on the basis of the acknowledgement of belonging to one and the same community. This is along the lines of our proposed argument about the insistence that empathy leads to ethics.

The COVID-19 pandemic is another case of the practical applicability of relational empathy. Indeed, the public health strategies of mask-wearing, vaccinations, and physical distancing were typically explained in technical or individualistic risk terms. However, the study of public health ethics appears to affirm the following point: public compliance with and support for these measures were significantly determined by the way public health agents explained these actions as caring for other people, rather than as imposing burdens on themselves or others [17]. For example, where public messaging highlighted the relational responsibility of caring for elderly people, immunocompromised individuals, or healthcare staff, there was greater public readiness to embrace communal sacrifice [18]. Here, again, it seems feasible to infer the practical effects of empathy understood as relational attentiveness. These measures also uncovered blatant inequalities, where the marginalised section of society suffered greatly through illness and death. Thus, the understanding that is gained through relations can aid in fault-finding, not in a slightly sorrowful way, but in a fundamental kind of attentiveness, where the understanding that exposure is delivered unevenly can necessitate a kind of precise care.

Other than crisis intervention, RATE becomes most relevant in the domain of cross-cultural or inter-religious dialogue, areas that are usually fraught with cross-recognition, stereotyping, and power imbalances. Here, measures like the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) program undertaken in the USA offer a tangible manifestation of Relational Empathy in practice. For instance, the focus of the IFYC intervention is on jointly working on social projects instead of engaging in purely intra-spiritual debates. Similarly, sociological assessments suggest that participants demonstrate more profound feelings of respect and solidarity where mutual action occurs, rather than from discussion of doctrine only [19]. This process relates to both forms of the triadic intention of empathy, in which felt reverberation could occur on account of mutual concern about actual issues, intelligent apprehension occurs on account of a sense of common moral responsibility, and moral openness occurs on account of mutual care for a larger society.

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7. Conclusion

Our concern in this text has been not only to fill the existing void in the current debates on the theme of empathy, particularly with regard to the lack of an appropriate ontological and ethical dimension that can adequately answer the challenges of the relational crisis of the twenty-first century, but we also seek to make amends for the deficiency in the major psychological and even biological discourses on the theme. Though these discourses provide indispensable data related to the emotional and cognitive bases of empathic phenomena, they still generally assume an individualistic view of human selfhood. Our main argument concerning the theme that we pursued in the present text is that such views, though crucial, are still not quite adequate with regard to the attempt to identify the significance of the very phenomenon of empathy as foundational to human existence.

In bringing Martin Buber’s dialogical ontology into conversation with Mbiti’s African ontology of communality, the present paper has provided a relational alternative. In both Buber’s thought, where he grounds personal being in terms of the initiating I-Thou relationship, and in Mbiti’s thought, where personal being arises from a sense of communality expressed in terms of ‘we’, there is a shared insight into personal being, whereby human being is not something that comes after a series of pre-existing individual human beings go on to encounter others in relationships. Rather than this, human beings are in relationships from the outset. Empathy itself, in light of this new relational ontology of human being, can no longer simply be conceived on inner experiential grounds.

RATE, as formulated here, redefines empathy as a mode of being-with others, constituted through affective resonance, cognitive recognition of shared humanity, and ethical responsiveness. These will be understood not as additive nor sequential dimensions but as mutually constitutive. Affective resonance embeds empathy within embodied and relational openness; the cognitive understanding renames perspective-taking as a mode of recognition rather than simulation; ethical responsiveness embeds responsibility not as a contingent consequence but as an intrinsic dimension of empathic relation. The integration of these elements within the theory will allow it to avoid both reductive psychologism and abstract moralism.

In addition, our approach builds on and improves existing relational thought. Whereas existing approaches in care ethics focus on moral values and practices of caring without making explicit statements on ontology, our approach explicitly demonstrates how care is rooted in the very ontology of ‘being with’ or ‘being within’. Whereas existing approaches to relational ethics, like dialogical ethics, focus on the immediacy of encounter without making specific provisions for their persistence through time and/or institutionally, our approach makes specific provisions for persistence through time and institutionally via our reliance on Mbiti’s ontology of the communal. Whereas existing approaches to enaction and phenomenological accounts of empathy focus on the importance of embodied encounter without making specific provisions for normativity, our approach makes specific provisions for normativity.

Empathy is far from being morally optional, as its importance is tied to being a necessary aspect of coexistence that is inherent to being a person, since persons are directly addressable and answerable to other persons. The consequences of these ideas are profound for inviting a reengagement with various thought systems and contemporary morality, as well as for underscoring the importance of ensuring that research into empathy is less focused on individualistic traits and brains and more focused on the inter-related, institutional, and cultural settings. As a conceptual tool, its relevance to the practical concerns of mental health, education, conflict, and public domains is undeniable.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge that artificial intelligence tools were used to polish grammar and improve linguistic clarity in selected sections of this work, but all substantive content and arguments remain the author’s own.