(Lipps 1892)

Theodor Lipps

Theodor Lipps and the Concept of Empathy: 1851–1914

Christiane Montag M.D.

Jürgen Gallinat M.D.

Andreas Heinz M.D.

Published Online:1 Oct 2008"

"Today Theodor Lipps is remembered as the father of the first scientific theory of Einfühlung (“feeling into,” “empathy”), although the term had earlier been coined by Robert Vischer in 1873. Unlike his predecessors, he used the notion of Einfühlung to explain not only how people experience inanimate objects, but also how they understand the mental states of other people. From translating Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature into German, Lipps had learned the concept of “sympathy” as a process that allows the contents of “the minds of men” to become “mirrors to one another” (6) ."