Abstract
The term “empathy” appeared as a translation of the German Einfühlung in Anglophone psychology in the first decade of the twentieth century. Contrary to popular understanding, Edward B. Titchener was not the only one to introduce the term. James Ward also offered the translation, and J. Mark Baldwin suggested “semblance” as a better translation for Einfühlung than empathy. These divergent translations demonstrate the polysemic character of the term: Ward saw empathy as a means to personify nature and objects in line with his panpsychism; Baldwin viewed semblance as part of play activity; and Titchener defined empathy as a kinaesthetic mental image projected into an object. Lanzoni explores these multiple translations of Einfühlung and reflects on their significance for contemporary notions of empathy in social neuroscience.
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Notes
- 1.
Allport’s exposure to Einfühlung theory guided him to his own holistic version of personality and social psychology.
- 2.
Lipps described the forms of Einfühlung as general apperceptive Einfühlung for common objects; empirical Einfühlung of nature; mood Einfühlung, and Einfühlung with others, achieved through the sensory perception of living beings. See Lipps (1903, Chapter 14, “Die Einfühlung”, pp. 187–202). For a definition of aesthetic Einfühlung as an unmediated experience in which one’s own feelings are experienced in the aesthetic object, see Lipps (1902, p. 368). See also (Lipps, 1903/1960).
- 3.
Dilthey’s 1894 outline of a verstehende psychology, or a descriptive psychology in contrast to an explanatory or causal psychology included psychological and historical methods of transferring one’s self into expressions of another’s life as a way of re-experiencing, a sich hineinversetzen (similar to Einfühlung) (see Dilthey, 1894/1977; see also Makkreel; 2000; Ringer, 1969, pp. 81–127). Thomas Friedrich and Jörg Gleiter argue that Einfühlungsästhetik, as it emerged in the work of the Vischers, found aesthetics to be a special case of everyday sensory experience – a way of perceiving the expressive and soulful content of objects. Einfühlungsästhetik also influenced architectural theories of the embodiment of space, exemplified in Heinrich Wölfflin’s Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie der Architektur (1886) and August Schmarsow’s Über den Werth der Dimensionen im menschlichen Raumgebilde (1896), both reprinted in Friedrich & Gleiter (2007).
- 4.
The English “empathy” did appear a few years earlier, in 1895 – but not as a translation of Einfühlung. It was an energy concept described by E. L. Hinman in his review of a paper written by K. Lasswitz, Ueber psychophysische Energie und ihre Factoren [“On Psychophysical Energy and Its Factors”]. He writes, “For the capacity factor of psychophysical energy the name ‘empathy’ is proposed. Empathy is then a physical quantity, a physiological brain-function, and is defined as the relation of the whole energy at any change of the central organ to the intensity” (Hinman, 1895, p. 673). For details on the initial translation of Einfühlung as “enpathy” and its correction in the pages of The Philosophical Review in November 1908, see Lanzoni (2012b).
- 5.
See Chapter 10: Andrea Pinotti, on the history of empathy with inanimate objects, in this volume. See also Pinotti (2010).
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
Volume 1 was entitled Functional Logic, or Genetic Theory of Knowledge (1906/1975a), Volume 2 Experimental Logic, or Genetic Theory of Thought (1908/1975b), Volume 3 Interest and Art Being Real Logic. I Genetic Epistemology (1911/1975c), and Volume 4 The Genetic Theory of Reality (1915/1975d). See also Wozniak (1998).
- 9.
- 10.
Urban preferred the German Einfühlung: “We shall accordingly use the term to designate the entire process (projection, imitation, and ejection) involved in the activities of characterisation and participation, and shall consider it, more over, in its aspect of affective-conative process” (Urban, 1909, p. 235).
- 11.
In this book he uses “semblance” and “empathy” as synonyms.
- 12.
The title page of the journal Mind, for October 1908 reads: “Mind, a quarterly review of Psychology and Philosophy, edited by Professor G. F. Stout, with the co-operation of E. B. Titchener, American Editorial Representative, and of Dr. E. Caird, Professor Ward, Professor Pringle-Pattison, and other members of an advisory committee.” In this volume, “empathy” is mentioned in the “Philosophical Periodicals” section: “We attain to consciousness of the existence of beings analogous to ourselves by way of empathy, which is based mainly upon the impulse to imitation; we communicate and understand ideas by the gradual growth of the speech-function” (Mind, Oct. 1908, p. 593). It is unclear who wrote these periodical sections, as both Ward and Titchener were editorial contributors. Titchener had been paid for writing on periodicals in the journal in the 1890s, evidenced by Stout’s letter of thanks to Titchener for penning “fresh Notices of Periodicals” (G.F. Stout to Titchener, May 17, 1894. E. B. Titchener Archive, Cornell University Special Collections). Ward thanks Titchener for his visit in a letter (Ward to Titchener, November 28, 1904, E. B. Titchener Archive 14/23/545).
- 13.
Baldwin to Titchener, March 10, 1910; E. B. Titchener Archive 14/23/545 Box 2.
- 14.
Although Baldwin’s genetic logic was not of great influence in the United States, Wilbur Urban discussed Baldwin’s ideas at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Urban preferred his own translations of “sympathetic participation” or “affective projection”, although he did invoke “empathy” when he analysed how it was “through sympathetic projection of my own feeling, I may apprehend the inner life of others, how subjective feeling in me may become the bearer of an objective meaning and reference”. To him, feelings had a cognitive character: “feelings have as their presuppositions judgments and assumptions” (Urban, 1917, p, 281).
- 15.
- 16.
Titchener alluded to aesthetic Einfühlung theory in 1899 when he spoke of aesthetic sentiments as “one’s own emotions, projected into other people or into external nature, and refound there by one’s active attention” (Titchener, 1916, p. 330). For more on Titchener’s view of empathy see Titchener (1909a, 1910, 1915).
- 17.
Ward to James Frazer, Nov. 11, 1915 (Add. Ms. b. 37/331), Trinity College Library Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.
- 18.
R.F. Hoernle attributes the translation to Ward in his review of A.C. Macmillan, The Crowning Phase of the Critical Philosophy; A Study in Kant’s Critique of Judgment (London: Macmillan & Co., 1912) in Mind New Series, Vol. 23, No. 92 (Oct. 1914), 597–604, p. 600. See also C. Spearman’s review of C. S. Myers, Text-book of Experimental Psychology, “New Books” in Mind New Series, vol. 18, no. 72, October 1909, 617–18; (Valentine, 1912).
- 19.
He published a portion of it entitled “An Attempt to interpret Fechner’s Law” in the journal Mind in 1876 (Ward, 1927, p. 53).
- 20.
Ackerman describes Robertson Smith as the first “to apply the comparative evolutionary anthropological approach to the study of an entire family of religions, the Semitic” (Ackerman, 1987, p. 58). He cites a letter Frazer wrote to Jackson in 1888, which seems to refer to Ward. Therein Frazer writes that one’s way of looking at the world is a product of a long period of cultural growth and change, an idea that a psychologist should be interested in, preferably a modern physiological psychologist (Ackerman, 1987, p. 89).
- 21.
Ward to Frazer, Nov. 11, 1915 (Add. Ms. B. 37/331), Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.
- 22.
On the differences that Titchener spelled out between a kinaesthetic image and sensation, see Lanzoni (2012b).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge for permission to reproduce the image of James Ward’s letter of 1915, and the archivist Adam Green for his assistance. I would also like to thank members of my writing group, IWSS, the anonymous reviewers of my manuscript, as well as the editors of this volume for helpful feedback.
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Lanzoni, S. (2017). Empathy’s Translations: Three Paths from Einfühlung into Anglo-American Psychology. In: Lux, V., Weigel, S. (eds) Empathy. Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51299-4_12
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