The author concludes that psychologists who claim empathy is the best way, in theory, to understand someone else are wrong. He concludes this by arguing that since it’s impossible to gain a direct and complete grasp of another person’s motivations, there’d be no way to achieve understanding according to the psychologists, and since one can understand people, the psychologists are wrong.

The author reasons that if the psychologists are right, we can’t achieve understanding. However, this reasoning is flawed because the psychologists didn’t argue that deep empathy is the only way to understand people, only that it’s the best way. Also, the author’s reasoning that the psychologists are wrong is flawed. Just because the theoretically best way to do something wouldn’t work in practice, it doesn’t mean it’s not the theoretically best way.