If understanding another agent requires thinking exactly as that agent did, then understanding agents from very different cultural presuppositions is unclear how it can be accomplished.
Understanding (in epistemology)(as used in the statement about understanding other agents)
Grasping not just facts about something, but the deeper meaning, reasoning, and context behind it—like knowing not just that someone is sad, but why and what that sadness means to them.
agent(Economics terminology applied to medical ethics)
The party in a principal-agent relationship who is instructed to produce the good or service on the principal's behalf — in the medical context, the doctor
The above considerations, however, do not justify the claim that empathy has no role to play within the context of the human sciences. It justifies merely the claim that empathy cannot be their only method, at least as long as one admits that recognizing the thoughts of individual agents has to play some role in the interpretive project of the human sciences. Accordingly, a second reason against empathy is also emphasized. Conceiving of understanding other agents as being based on empathy is see