Avatar and Philosophy: Learning to See, First Edition. Edited by George A. Dunn. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 74 “I See You” through a Glass Darkly Avatar and the Limits of Empathy Massimiliano Cappuccio Avatar, a passionate movie about empathy, features characters who, in various ways, are able to experience the world through the eyes of another or, as the saying goes, to “put themselves into another’s shoes.” But, concealed beneath a surface of ecological pantheism, a contradiction lies at the heart of the movie’s portrayal of empathy. On the one hand, in ordinary empathy access to another person’s mind is mediated by our perception of her unique embodied identity. In other words, we perceive what’s going on “in there” – what she’s experiencing, feeling, or intending – by paying attention to her body, including her gestures and facial expressions. Of course, it may be hard to “read” someone whose background, lifestyle, and experience of the world are radically different from our own. That’s one reason why Jake Sully and other avatar drivers actually take on the form of the Na’vi when they want to get to know the blue-skinned humanoid inhabitants of Pandora. What better way to become familiar with the members of an alien species than to take on their appearance, along with some of the unique capabilities of their bodies, in order to live among them? On the other hand, Avatar introduces us to a seemingly more direct way to connect with the minds of others: tsaheylu – “the bond.” Tsaheylu is depicted as a computer-like exchange of information that’s indifferent to how the bodies of the two individuals appear to each other. So is this really just a more direct form of empathy, bypassing the need for visible bodily clues and going straight to hidden recesses