The Heterogeneity of Empathy

Abstract

Since empathy is currently of similar relevance for academics in both the natural sciences and the humanities, the concept forms an exceptional subject for exchange and collaboration between the “two cultures”. However, the concept of empathy carries different meanings across disciplines and was based on opposing paradigms throughout the history. In this introductory chapter, Weigel briefly outlines four constellations that are significant for the diverse cultural and conceptual history of empathy and its related concepts: the discovery of the mirror neurons and empathy research in neuroscience and experimental psychology since 2000; the roots of empathy in the concept of “Einfühlung” from aesthetics around 1900; the conceptual overlap with sympathy in the eighteenth century; and the Christian and pre-modern history of sympathy, compassion, and pathos.