 Most generally defined, empathy, for Stein, is the basic form in which other embodied, experiencing subjects are given to us. Empathy is not merely an epistemological tool for accessing other subjects or merely registering their existence as minded beings; rather, empathy is itself a distinctive intentional experience. Whereas much of the epistemological debate of the knowledge of other minds is precisely based on the mootness of the question of whether there are other minds or how our knowledge of their existence and their content can be justified, Stein observes that any debate revolving around the nature of empathy rests on the tacit assumption that other minds (but not merely as “minds”) are indeed experientially given to us (1917:11–13[3–5]).