Empathy
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- Date Submitted: 05/27/2012 06:26 AM
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F.H.Fisher. Word Count : 4593
( Inc. Quotes )
Empathy
An Exploration of the Historical and Philosophical Development:
Analysed – How it Lives in Society/Self:
Defined in the Counselling Relationship:
The passive noun empathy is so often conflated with that of sympathy; however they are different words with different meanings, albeit with similarities- I feel the clear distinction must first be explained. The Oxford Dictionary defines the former as initially from the Greek - empatheia, rendering, physical affection, partiality; and later from the German - after this was adapted by Hermann Lotze and Robert Vischer into the German active noun Einfuhlung - at the end of the nineteenth century, (this being the route by which it entered the English language) – in feeling or feeling into, an understanding so intimate that the feelings, thoughts and motives of one person are readily comprehended by another. The inert English noun empathy – as Einfuhlung was translated by the psychologist E.B.Titchener in 1909 - becomes active with the form empathize … The power of projecting one’s personality into, and so fully understanding the object (sic) of contemplation. Thus inanimate objects could be empathized with, surely very different from any connotation of the word sympathy, hence a fundamental difference. The root of the word sympathy is the Greek sympatheia – from together and passion, to be affected by, to suffer; indeed the proper term I use when addressing the Greek mother of my son-in-law is “sympethera,” one of relationship; and in the philosophy of Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) sympathy was a corresponding affection or quality, affinity of body. Unlike affective...
F.H.Fisher. Word Count : 4593
( Inc. Quotes )
Empathy
An Exploration of the Historical and Philosophical Development:
Analysed – How it Lives in Society/Self:
Defined in the Counselling Relationship:
The passive noun empathy is so often conflated with that of sympathy; however they are different words with different meanings, albeit with similarities- I feel the clear distinction must first be explained. The Oxford Dictionary defines the former as initially from the Greek - empatheia, rendering, physical affection, partiality; and later from the German - after this was adapted by Hermann Lotze and Robert Vischer into the German active noun Einfuhlung - at the end of the nineteenth century, (this being the route by which it entered the English language) – in feeling or feeling into, an understanding so intimate that the feelings, thoughts and motives of one person are readily comprehended by another. The inert English noun empathy – as Einfuhlung was translated by the psychologist E.B.Titchener in 1909 - becomes active with the form empathize … The power of projecting one’s personality into, and so fully understanding the object (sic) of contemplation. Thus inanimate objects could be empathized with, surely very different from any connotation of the word sympathy, hence a fundamental difference. The root of the word sympathy is the Greek sympatheia – from together and passion, to be affected by, to suffer; indeed the proper term I use when addressing the Greek mother of my son-in-law is “sympethera,” one of relationship; and in the philosophy of Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) sympathy was a corresponding affection or quality, affinity of body. Unlike affective...