Why care about cognitive empathy? It is not intrinsically truth directed. The state I am talking about as "occurrent grasping," elicited when thinking together, is non-factive apparent knowing. The end of thinking together is "cognitive alignment," evidenced by agents coming to share a language, to function within the same discourse. Cognitive alignment is not intrinsically truth directed. However, it is a desirable goal because it does entail the conservation of cognitive resources. Conserving cognitive resources is obviously desirable. Were we to question ourselves at every turn, show concern for the paradigm we are operating within, questioning our methods, our terms thrown in to doubt at every opportunity, always questioning the validity of the research program rather than simply pursuing the research program, in short, we wouldn't get anywhere. However, we must be mindful that preservation of cognitive resources is not the ultimate value, truth is. Thus, the virtue of cognitive alignment and preservation of cognitive resources is tempered by the virtue of critique.
The more ambitious claim: cognitive alignment gets us something more than just preservation of cognitive resources. Thinking together is valuable for reasons besides efficiency. Still working on this...
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