pity

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Compassion is participation in negative emotional qualities such as the pain and suffering of other people. (a) Compassion can also generally refer to the reverence for the creature and life and then also includes the whole (animate) universe. Compassion is different from compassion , which encompasses both positive qualities such as love and being for one another and negative qualities in equal measure. (b)

As a German word, “pity” is a translation loan word derived from the Latin “compassio”. This in turn goes back to the ancient Greek word ›παθειν‹ (pathein) “to feel” and “to suffer”. The German concept of sympathy arose from this.

The phenomenon of compassion relates to an emotional correlation in a community. It can be a community of organs in the biological sense of the organism or in the figurative sense of human society in the sense of an organic or organized community. The concept of sympathy was already used in medicine in ancient times .

Today predominant Christian-traditionally shaped understanding

Compassion is a central concept of the Christian tradition and, as a German word, also a synonym for the Latin misericordia , which was not accepted until the 17th century in the context of Bible translations.

In the occidental tradition, compassion is treated in the context of morality and ethics , the Christian image of man , psychology or as a value of occidental culture and is often understood as a positive quality or virtue of those who act to help out of compassion. Two basic forms of compassion can be distinguished: Either it is (1) pathological, i. H. we are only physically affected, we remain passive (Latin ›compassio‹) and pity remains in mere feeling. The pity and the feeling of pain can also motivate us to actively help. In this case, “the left does not know what the right is doing” (Mt 6: 3). Alternatively (2) compassion can also be guided by reason (Luke 10:27). However, disruptive influences in the sense of resentment can also play a role here. (c)

The essential question is whether compassion is an innate feeling and in this respect belongs to human nature , or whether this feeling is culturally conditioned and how the two are related. The answer to this question decides whether compassion is viewed as a more biologically conditioned emotion or rather as a cultural attitude or attitude. The condition of compassion is closeness; H. Actual compassion can only ever refer to clearly given suffering. Since people can not only feel pity for other people, but also have pity for animals, it plays a special role in animal ethics . Compassion is also often discussed in the broader context of compassion (e.g. empathy , etc.). Compassion as an episodic (temporary) feeling is also the subject of literature and literary theory .

Pity in antiquity

In ancient times, compassion appears as the subject of literature for the first time in the Iliad by Homer , when Achilles of his anger leaves and Priam his son Hector passes on his request the body. Aristotle , who made the first attempt to define pity and who counts it as an affects , determined it as follows:

“Compassion is defined as a kind of pain over an apparently suffering evil that hits someone who does not deserve it, an evil that, as expected, could also affect us or one of ours [...] Because it is clear that the person who pity should feel, must be in such a condition that he believes that he himself or one of his own would suffer an evil [...]. We also feel sorry for those who are similar to us in terms of age, character, habits, social position and origin [...]. "

- Aristotle, Rhetoric 1385b

According to Aristotle, the central prerequisite for feeling pity is at least partial identification with the person with whom one feels pity.

In his poetics , Aristotle names the affect of compassion within the catharsis concept he developed there: the tragedy is supposed to induce catharsis (i.e. purification) of the affects eleos and phobos in the viewer . This aesthetic effect is particularly significant through Lessing's tragedy-theoretical reception in the 18th century (see below), in which Lessing translates eleos and phobos with pity and fear. Whether this translation corresponds to the Greek is questionable. M. Fuhrmann even describes them in his translation of Aristotelian Poetics as wrong and misleading: The word eleos could be better translated as “pity” or “emotion”, because it always denotes a violent, physically expressed affect and is often with the expressions associated with complaints, moans, and wailing.

In Stoic philosophy, on the other hand, pity was explicitly rejected. Their goal was apatheia , freedom from all affects . The stoic sage faces his own possible misfortune just as calmly and unemotionally as the suffering of others. However, this by no means ruled out helpfulness and charity . The philosopher Seneca (approx. 1-65) wrote in the memorial De Clementia (About Mildness) dedicated to Emperor Nero :

“The wise […] feels no pity because this cannot happen without suffering for the soul. Everything else that in my opinion the compassionate should do, he will gladly and proudly do: he will come to the aid of strangers' tears, but not join them; He will reach out his hand to the shipwrecked [...] give the poor a donation , but not a humiliating one, as the majority of people who want to appear compassionate throw down and thus despise those whom he helps. "

- L. Annaeus Seneca, On Mildness II, 6

Christian-Medieval Culture and Philosophy

Frans II Francken : The Seven Works of Mercy, 1605, German Historical Museum Berlin

In Christianity , compassion is the prerequisite for mercy ( misericordia ) and thus an essential part of active charity . Mercy is considered an existential, inner concern of the human being and consists above all in kind action, which is more than a mere feeling of pity. This is why compassion and the works of mercy have been an important theme in literature and art in the history of Christianity . Against the background of the humanistic reception of rhetoric , the images of mercy have been scenic and narrative since the 16th century in order to convince the viewer of the value of giving alms .

Lactantius already assesses the affect of compassion positively: According to religion, “misericordia vel humanitas” is the second duty, to which man is only stimulated by the “adfectus misericordiae”. Compassion is the affect “in which the reason of human life is almost entirely contained” and “is given to man alone in order to help out our poverty through mutual support; whoever picks it up makes our life that of animals. "

Madonna della Misericordia , Loggia del Bigallo, Florence

Augustine opposes the stoic tradition of ataraxia (imperturbability) with Christian mercy and explains it in terms of the affect of compassion:

"But what is pity but the sympathy for other people's misery in our heart, which in any case drives us to help as far as we can?"

- Augustine, De civitate Dei , IX, 5

This drive ( motus ) is reasonable if the helping act preserves justice, and serves - like all affects - the practice of virtue.

According to Thomas Aquinas , pity means that your own heart sympathizes with the suffering of others ("miserum cor 'super miseria alterius"); misericordia is a type of tristitia (sadness, sorrow) that is explained by love for the other. In terms of its essence, it is first of all a movement ( motus ) or excitation of the sensual or supersensible capacity for desire, which is why with him also from affectus misericordiae , i.e. i. one speaks of a (sensual as well as supersensible) affect of compassion; in the second place, the misericordia represents a virtue. Thomas clearly distinguishes between compassion as a pathological, bodily affective phenomenon, i.e. a feeling in the narrow sense, and a compassion determined by reason: compassion is a passion, if that sensual drive ( motus appetitus sensitivi ) is the only determining factor. If, on the other hand , pity is regulated according to reason as a motus appetitus intellectivi , then pity is a virtue.

17th and 18th centuries

Only with the 17th and then especially in the 18th century, in which compassion advanced to a central social feeling and was part of the core of an ethic of feelings, did the considerations on compassion become systematically relevant.

Descartes is referring to Aristotle when he describes compassion as a kind of sadness that is aroused when someone experiences an undeserved evil. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, expresses himself negatively about pity and attributes the affect to a selfish interest and fear of future own suffering. He describes pity as a "perturbation animi" that interferes with correct thinking. Even Spinoza rejects the compassion from:

"With a person who lives according to the guidance of reason, pity is inherently bad and useless."

- Baruch de Spinoza, Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata , IV, prop. 50

As proof, Spinoza cites that pity as a feeling of sadness is "bad in itself". The good that follows from compassion and consists in the fact that we “strive to free the pityed person from his misery” is what we want to do “according to the mere commandment of reason”.

Philosophy of the moral scythe

While Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza deal only briefly with pity, David Hume and Adam Smith work on a theory of pity, respectively, following Shaftesbury's and Hutcheson's philosophy of moral sense . sympathy , which - originated in the time of the Enlightenment - is historically significant for moral philosophy.

David Hume assumes that nature has created a similarity between people, which is the prerequisite for being able to understand the other and a condition for being able to make the feelings of the other one's own. The imagination enables the formation of a corresponding idea of ​​the feelings of the other, which turns into an "impression". Through symphathy it is possible for us to put ourselves in someone else's shoes , this also applies to pain and suffering. Pity as a special case of sympathy , according to Hume, has the following peculiarities: Pity depends on the sight of the pityed object. It is a feeling that requires a certain closeness and cannot tolerate too much distance.

Adam Smith shares Hume's view that the reason for caring about the fate of others lies in human nature: compassion arises as soon as we see another suffer or when his or her suffering is vividly portrayed. However, he draws attention to the difference that the pain we feel at seeing someone else's suffering is not the same pain that the sufferer feels. The role of the imagination in the imagination becomes even more apparent to Hume: We cannot experience the feelings of others directly, but only through an image that we make of them, i.e. H. the idea we have of the feelings:

"Even if our own brother is on the torture rack, as long as we are well, our senses will never tell us what he is suffering."

- Adam Smith, Theory of Ethical Feelings

Sympathy referred to Smith compassion ( fellow feeling ), "with any kind of emotions" on the other. The concept of sympathy forms the core of his moral philosophy.

Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the pioneers for the concept of compassion, as it is typical of modernity. According to Rousseau, pity is a pre-reflective affect (which precedes reflection), which he also calls instinct. This is based - as with Hume and Smith - in nature and, according to Rousseau, can therefore also be observed in animals. Compassion is a “purely natural feeling” and it is the only “natural virtue” that he ascribes to the “savage” (i.e. man in a natural state ). The Enlightenment explicitly opposes Hobbes' image of man , who characterizes man in the natural state as man's wolf ( homo homini lupus est ): “Man has been given an impulse [...] the wildness of his self-love or [...] the care for his own Tame conservation. The innate reluctance to see others suffer, moderates the zeal for one's own well-being. "Rousseau also emphasizes the aspect of the vividness of suffering and defines pity as identification:" It is undisputed that pity must be more intense, the more sensitive the animal watching is, to take the place of the sufferer ”. In the natural state it appears instead of the laws and motivates to provide assistance:

“It is therefore certain that pity is a natural feeling and is conducive to the mutual preservation of the whole sex, since it moderates the effectiveness of self-love in each individual person. This sensation leads us to give aid to anyone who is suffering without thought; in the state of nature she takes the place of laws, morals and virtue, and has this advantage that no one is tempted to refuse to obey her sweet voice. "

- J.-J. Rousseau, Treatise on the Origin and Fundamentals of Inequality among Men

Rousseau expressly rejects a morality that seeks its maxims “in subtle reasoning” in the manner of the Golden Rule , and opposes it with a “maxim of compassion”: “Promote your best, but let it be as little disadvantageous to others as possible is ".

Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing is primarily interested in compassion in the aesthetic perspective. For the Enlightener Lessing, the central function of literature is to convey moral tenets. He counts the ability to compassion among the most important civil virtues. Compassion is the effect that tragedy (i.e. a form of 'civil tragedy') evokes in the viewer and which is intended to purify him in order to improve him morally: “The most compassionate person is the best person”.

Lessing develops his theory of tragedy in discussion with Aristotle. In doing so, he takes up its aesthetic effects , which consist in the fact that the tragedy has a cathartic effect by arousing pity and fear in the audience (see above, there also on the translation problem):

“He [Aristotle] was misunderstood, wrongly translated. He speaks of pity and fear, not pity and horror; and his fear is by no means the fear which the impending evil of another, for that other, arouses in us, but it is the fear which springs for ourselves from our resemblance to the suffering person; it is the fear that the misfortunes which we see inflicted upon them may affect us; it is the fear that we may become the object of pity ourselves. In a word: this fear is self-related pity. "

- Lessing, Hamburg Dramaturgy , 75th piece

He interprets Aristotle to the effect that the affect of fear is not the completely different affect of pity, but rather its expanded form. Fear is a self-referential compassion that we feel when we think that the suffering seen on stage could also affect us. Lessing justifies his thesis by resorting to the aspect of our similarity or equality with the sufferer, already mentioned by Aristotle, which is necessary for identification. This equality or similarity means not only that we can empathize with the sufferer and understand his feelings, but also that we have to 'fear' that we will easily find ourselves in the same position causing the same suffering. In order to arouse the affect of fear through which compassion only matures - as Lessing puts it - the tragic hero must be like the spectator, so he must be one of us:

"From this equality arises the fear that our fate could very easily become just as similar to his own as we feel ourselves to be it: and it is this fear which, as it were, brings pity to maturity."

- Lessing, Hamburg Dramaturgy, 75th piece

The pity that the tragedy excites in the audience is initially an episodic (temporary) feeling. According to Lessing, in order to be effective as a moral feeling, it must be transformed into a permanent feeling. In this transformation lies the cathartic moment, the actual task of the tragedy:

“If it is true, then, that the whole art of tragic poetry is based on the sure excitement and duration of the unified compassion, then I now say that the ability of tragedy is this: it is supposed to expand our ability to feel compassion. It should not just teach us to feel compassion for this or that unhappy person, but it should make us feel so that the unhappy person must move and win us over at all times and in all forms. [...] The most compassionate person is the best person, the most inclined towards all social and all kinds of generosity. So whoever makes us compassionate makes us better and more virtuous, and the tragedy that does that also does this, or - it does that in order to be able to do this. "

- Lessing, correspondence about the tragedy (letter to Friedrich Nicolai, November 1756)

So the tragedy resp. the theater is morally justified because it promotes human morality and makes him morally better. Lessing takes a counter-position to Rousseau in the heated controversy about the moral value of theater. This criticizes the episodic character of the pity aroused in the audience, which does not motivate to help, and considers the theater to be useless, if not harmful:

“I hear it is said that tragedy leads to compassion through fear. Well. But what kind of pity is that? A fleeting and vain shock that lasts no longer than the appearance that causes it; a remnant of a natural sensation [...] a sterile compassion that soaks itself with its own tears and has never produced the slightest act of humanity. "

- Rousseau: letter to Mr D 'Alembert

It is above all the moral claim of art made by Lessing that becomes effective in tradition (especially around 1800 in the broader context of the discussion about the relationship between art and reality). So formulated z. B. Schiller already made this claim in the title of his poetological work: The Schaubühne regarded as a moral institution .

19th century

Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer is the great theoretician of compassion within Classical German Philosophy . Based on Rousseau, he regards pity as an original feeling that connects all beings capable of suffering with one another and is based on identification . As the only moral driving force, compassion forms a counterbalance to egoism and is suitable as the basis of morality.

Compassion as a way to negate the will

In Schopenhauer's pessimistic metaphysics of the will, pity fulfills an important systematic function, insofar as it leads to the understanding of the essential identity of all living beings as sufferers ( tat tvam asi ) and thus paves the way to the negation of the will. In his main work The World as Will and Idea , pity is not a purely pre-reflective affect, but the identification with the sufferer carried out in pity is a form of "knowledge of the suffering of others" which is only "immediately understandable from one's own suffering and equated with it" becomes. For Schopenhauer, pity understood as caritas is the only form of love; all other feelings so designated are deception and serve the purpose of procreation and thus egoism: "all true and pure love is pity, and every love that is not pity is selfishness". For Schopenhauer, all forms of compassion can ultimately be traced back to self-pity, which he sees in the phenomenon of crying:

“When we are moved to cry not by our own but by others' suffering; So this happens because we vividly put ourselves in the place of the sufferer in our phantasy or see the fate of the whole of humanity and consequently our own fate in his fate and so weep over and over again over ourselves through a long detour, pity feel with ourselves. "

- Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea I.

When we see the suffering of another (including an animal) we identify ourselves in such a way that we feel and recognize our own suffering in the suffering of others. A significant step beyond that and an expansion of compassion consists in recognizing the suffering of the whole world in the suffering observed, and not only feeling it like your own, but in it recognizing the essence of your own innermost being:

“[…] Such a person who recognizes himself, his innermost and true self in all beings, also regards the endless sufferings of all living things as his and thus has to appropriate the pain of the whole world. Suffering is no longer alien to him. All the torments of others that he sees and is so seldom able to alleviate, all the torments of which he has indirect knowledge, indeed which he only recognizes as possible, affect his mind like his own. [...] He recognizes the whole, grasps the essence of it and finds it in a [...] constant suffering, sees wherever he looks, the suffering humanity, the suffering animal life and a shrinking world. This is now as close to him as only his own person is to the egoist. "

- Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea I.

In Schopenhauer's metaphysics, pity is a form of self-knowledge. Ultimately, it is the will to live that recognizes itself in its being. At this level of compassion, it acts as a " quiet "; H. as a counter-motive to the affirmation of the will expressed in egoism and leads to the negation of the will via the state of " resignation ".

Compassion as the basis of morality

In the prize publication On the Basis of Morality , Schopenhauer systematically elaborates compassion into the foundation of morality. His ethic of compassion is directed primarily against the deontological ethics of Kant, which wants to dictate how people should act (see: Schopenhauer's criticism of the categorical imperative ). On the other hand, Schopenhauer wants to find the foundation of ethics on the 'empirical path' by asking: “Whether there are any actions to which we have to recognize real moral value”. It is therefore necessary to look for the corresponding “driving force” that motivates a moral act. Schopenhauer finds such a driving force, the only moral one at all, in pity as an “ethical primordial phenomenon” and an “undeniable fact of human consciousness”.

According to Schopenhauer, there are "three basic drivers" to which every human act can be traced back: "a) egoism that wants one's own well-being (is limitless), b) malice that wants the woe of others (goes up to extreme cruelty, c) Compassion, which wants the good of others (goes up to nobility and generosity). "Compassion is defined as the" immediate being motivated by the suffering of the other "Schopenhauer specifies here the identification necessary for compassion:" the difference between myself and everyone else on which the egoism rests, [is] at least to a certain extent abolished ”. Despite identification, a distance is maintained, which is made possible by the knowledge: “But since I am not in the skin of the other, I can only use the knowledge I have of him, i. H. the idea of ​​him in my head, I identify with him to such an extent that my deed announces that difference is canceled ”. Schopenhauer criticizes the idea that we “put ourselves in the place of the sufferer” with pity and perceive his pain as ours:

“It is by no means so; Rather, it remains clear and present to us every moment that he is the sufferer, not us : and precisely in his person, not in ours we feel the suffering [...] We suffer with him, so in him, we feel his pain as to his and do not have the illusion that he was ours. "

- Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality

As the highest principle of ethics, Schopenhauer sets up the following maxim (and thus contradicts his approach formulated above, precisely not to set up any normative ethics ): "Neminem laede, imo omnes, quantum potes iuva!" (Do not hurt anyone, rather help everyone as much as you can!) . According to Schopenhauer, this rule can be used to distinguish between two classes of actions, which refer to two degrees of compassion: 1. Passively, it leads to omission by counteracting egoism (as quietive , see above) and preventing us from being “cause ourselves to become someone else's pain ". From this arises righteousness as one of the " cardinal virtues ". 2. Compassion reaches a higher level when it actively “drives me to active help”. From this arises the cardinal virtue of human love.

With Schopenhauer, pity is not a pure feeling. This represents the basis, but in its expanded form it should be a knowledge, i.e. H. it is related to reason. The question is therefore raised whether Schopenhauer's concept of pity is not more an attitude (in the sense of a 'cultivated feeling'). Schopenhauer's ethic of compassion is repeatedly discussed in animal ethics .

Nietzsche's criticism of pity

Friedrich Nietzsche was opposed to pity. In contrast to Schopenhauer, however, he looks at this phenomenon from the perspective of those who try to create compassion for their fellow human beings. He called it a “need of the unfortunate” to ultimately exercise power over those who suffered by “showing off” their suffering. Wanting to actively generate compassion represents an attempt by a person to "hurt" the person suffering in order to compensate for their own weakness to a certain extent:

“Rather, one observes children who cry and scream so that they will be pitied, and therefore wait for the moment when their condition can be evident; One lives in intercourse with the sick and the mentally depressed and wonders whether the eloquent complaining and whimpering, the display of the misfortune basically pursues the goal of hurting those present : the pity that those then express, is a consolation for the weak and suffering, as they recognize that they still have at least one power , despite all their weakness: the power to do woe . The unfortunate gains a kind of pleasure in this feeling of superiority which the witness of compassion brings to mind; his imagination rises, he is still important enough to cause pain in the world. Thus the thirst for compassion is a thirst for self-enjoyment, at the expense of others; it shows people in all the ruthlessness of their own dear self [...] "

- Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, II, Nr.50


20th century

The following important information is still missing in section:
Theories of pity by Max Scheler and Käthe Hamburger and the latest discussion in neuro-biology, keyword: mirror neurons
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Max Scheler distinguished two types of pity: genuine pity and pure emotional contagion . With the latter, the person concerned suffers.

In her book Das Mitleid , published in 1985, Käte Hamburger took the position that pity is an ethically neutral feeling.

Deadly pity

Ernst Klee (1980) and Klaus Dörner (1988) showed that the German merciless murderers of the 20th century saw themselves as compassionate redeemers and thereby outsourced their own suffering and suffering to their victims . The Führer decree, which was backdated to September 1, 1939, the beginning of the war with Poland, stated that “ according to human judgment, incurably sick people can be granted death by mercy if their condition is critically assessed. "

“In pity there is not only arrogance, but also contempt for the useless, who are only shown pity. Compassion is a death sentence. Because pity kills. "

- Ernst Klee: Disabled, about the expropriation of body and consciousness.

Co-determining and compassionate togetherness were proposed as antidotes to the attitude of fatal pity. The subtly planned killing machinery, however, took place “without mercy”.

See also

literature

  • Käte Hamburger : The pity , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-608-91392-0
  • Fritz Hartmann: Homo patiens. On the medical anthropology of suffering and pity . In: Eduard Seidler, Heinz Schott (ed.): Building blocks for the history of medicine . Stuttgart 1984 (= Sudhoffs Archiv , supplement 24), pp. 35-44.
  • Henning Ritter : Near and distant misfortune. Try about pity . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-52186-7
  • Irmela von der Lühe, Nina Gülcher: Ethics and Aesthetics of Compassion . Rombach Verlag, Freiburg i. B./Berlin/Wien 2007, ISBN 978-3-7930-9460-9
  • Alexander Lohner : Is compassion a sufficient basis for morality? Critical comments on Arthur Schopenhauer and other compassionate ethics . In: Overdick-Gulden, M. u. Schmid-Tannwald, I. (Ed.): Prenatal medicine between healing mandate and selection. Zuckschwerdt Verlag, Munich a. a. 2001. ISBN 3-88603-754-1 , pp. 153-168
  • Markwart Michler : Medical ethics . In: Würzburg medical history reports . 24, 2005, pp. 268–281, here: pp. 276–281 ( own worries from other people's suffering ).

Web links

Wikiquote: Pity  Quotes
Wiktionary: pity  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Remarks

  1. ↑ The double positive and negative meaning is also reflected in the ancient Greek meaning of ›παθειν‹ "to feel" and "to suffer". The verb is therefore an opposition word .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Wilhelm Karl Arnold et al. (Ed.): Lexicon of Psychology . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-508-8 ; (a) Col. 1386 on Lemma “Pity”; (b) Col. 1368: on Lemma “Compassion”; (c) Col. 1904 on Lemma "Resentment".


  2. ↑ Albert Schweitzer : From my life and thinking . Stuttgart house library. Licensed edition by Richard Meiner-Verlag, Hamburg, undated, 237 pages; P. 225 to district “pity”.
  3. ↑ a b Lemma pity . In: Günther Drosdowski: Etymology . Dictionary of origin of the German language; The history of German words and foreign words from their origins to the present. 2nd Edition. Dudenverlag, Volume 7, Mannheim 1997, ISBN 3-411-20907-0 ; P. 463.
  4. ↑ Article pity : In: Historical dictionary of philosophy , Bd. 5, Sp. 1410.
  5. ↑ Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007, pp. 168 and 185.
  6. ↑ Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007, p. 168.
  7. ↑ Aristotle: Poetics , Greek / German, translated a. ed. v. M. Fuhrmann, Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, p. 162.
  8. ↑ Christoph Halbig, Die stoische Affektenlehre , In: Barbara Guckes (Ed.), On the ethics of the older Stoa , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, p. 66f.
  9. ↑ cf. Ralf van Bühren: The works of mercy in art from the 12th to 18th centuries Century. On the change of a picture motif against the background of modern rhetoric reception, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1998, pp. 55–224.
  10. ↑ Lactantius: Epitome divinarum institutionum , 253 or 709, cf. Article pity : In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 5, Sp. 1411.
  11. ↑ Article pity : In: Historical dictionary of philosophy , Bd. 5, Sp. 1411.
  12. ^ Thomas Aquinas: Summa theologica , II / II, q. 30, 1c, 2c, 3c, 4; see. Misericordia , In: Ludwig Schütz: Thomas-Lexikon , 3rd ed. Enrique Alarcón, prepared in Pamplona, ​​University of Navarre, 2006 [1] and article pity , In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 5, Col. 1411f.
  13. ↑ René Descartes: The Passions of the Soul , Frz./Dtsch, ed. v. Klaus Hammacher, Hamburg 1984, Art. 62, p. 102; see. Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007, p. 172.
  14. ↑ Thomas Hobbes: De homine (1658) , Opera, ed. v. W. Molesworth 2, London 1839, Reprint 1966, pp. 103f; see. Article pity : In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 5, Sp. 1412.
  15. ↑ Baruch de Spinoza: The ethics according to the geometric method presented , translated and with notes v. Otto Baensch, Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1994, p. 232.
  16. ↑ David Hume: A treatise on human nature , Book II, translated v. Theodor Lipps et al. ed. v. Konrad Blumenstock, Darmstadt 1967, p. 49.
  17. ↑ David Hume: A treatise on human nature , Book II, translated v. Theodor Lipps et al. ed. v. Konrad Blumenstock, Darmstadt 1967, p. 52.
  18. ↑ David Hume: A treatise on human nature , Book II, translated v. Theodor Lipps et al. ed. v. Konrad Blumenstock, Darmstadt 1967, p. 49; see. Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007, p. 104f.
  19. ↑ a b Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007, p. 173.
  20. ↑ Adam Smith: Theory of ethical feelings , translated a. ed. v. Walther Eckstein, Hamburg 1994, p. 4.
  21. ↑ Adam Smith: Theory of ethical feelings , translated a. ed. v. Walther Eckstein, Hamburg 1994, p. 2.
  22. ↑ Article compassion : In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Bd. 5, Sp. 1412.
  23. ↑ Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Treatise on the origin and the foundations of inequality among people . In: Ders .: Schriften , Vol. 1. Ed. Henning Ritter, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, pp. 218f.
  24. ↑ Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Treatise on the origin and the foundations of inequality among people . In: Ders .: Schriften , Vol. 1. Ed. Henning Ritter, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, p. 218.
  25. ↑ Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Treatise on the origin and the foundations of inequality among people . In: Ders .: Schriften , Vol. 1. Ed. Henning Ritter, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, p. 220.
  26. ^ A b Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Treatise on the origin and foundations of inequality among people . In: Ders .: Schriften , Vol. 1. Ed. Henning Ritter, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, p. 221.
  27. ↑ See: http://www.uni-duisburg-essen.de/einladen/Vorlesungen/dramatik/lessingbr.htm
  28. ↑ Gottfried Ephraim Lessing: Hamburg Dramaturgy . In: Ders., Works , Fourth Volume. Edited by Herbert G. Göpfert. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1995, p. 578f.
  29. ↑ Gottfried Ephraim Lessing: Hamburg Dramaturgy . In: Ders., Works , Fourth Volume. Edited by Herbert G. Göpfert. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1995, p. 581.
  30. ↑ The expression "episodic feeling" as a determination of feelings that are aroused by literature, I take from Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007.
  31. ↑ http://www.uni-duisburg-essen.de/einladen/Vorlesungen/dramatik/lessingbr.htm
  32. ↑ Rousseau: Letter to Mr. D 'Alembert about his article “Geneva” in Volume VII of the Encyclopedia and in particular about the plan to build a theater in this city . In: Ders .: Schriften , Vol. 1. Ed. Henning Ritter, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, p. 357.
  33. ↑ Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007, p. 174.
  34. ↑ a b Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation I . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 1, p. 511.
  35. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation I . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 1, p. 513.
  36. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation I . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 1, p. 515.
  37. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the basis of morality . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 3, p. 726.
  38. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the basis of morality . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 3, pp. 744 and 745, respectively.
  39. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the basis of morality . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 3, pp. 741f.
  40. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the basis of morality . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 3, p. 743.
  41. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the basis of morality . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 3, p. 740.
  42. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the basis of morality . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 3, pp. 743f.
  43. ↑ a b Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the basis of morality . In: Ders .: Complete Works . Edited text critically u. ed. v. Wolfgang Frhr. von Löhneysen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, Vol. 3, p. 744.
  44. ↑ Cf. Chr. Demmerling, H. Landweer: Philosophy of feelings. From respect to anger . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2007, p. 176.
  45. ↑ See e.g. B. Ursula Wolf: The animal in morality , Frankfurt a. M. 1990, p. 51.
  46. ↑ http://www.textlog.de/21623.html