Framing the alter ego as an analogue of the ego fails to explain how the other continues to appear as other rather than as a projection of the self

To some, it would appear to be an obvious fact that individuals are able to understand others, in their being and essence, both as alike and other than themselves. From a phenomenological standpoint, however, this fact is a problem which is neither obvious nor easy to explain, and it is a problem whose solution was viewed differently by both Ortega and Husserl. For Husserl, the solution to this problem was found in his notion of Einfühlung (“empathy”, or literally, “feeling oneself into another”