sympathy
Sympathy (borrowed from the Latin sympathia , this from ancient Greek συμπάθεια sympátheia "sympathy" to συμπαθεῖν sympatheín "pity"; compare empathy ) is the spontaneously resulting emotional affection. Its opposite is antipathy (aversion).
definition
Meyer's Großer Konversations-Lexikon from 1911 comments:
“Sympathy is the ability to sympathize with the joys and sorrows of others, which some ethicists (Shaftesbury, Hume, A. Smith, Comte, Spencer) regard as the subjective basis of all morality [...] Then also, in contrast to antipathy, which is apparently baseless affection for someone, the vague feeling of inner kinship with someone. "
In Rudolf Eisler's dictionary of philosophical concepts it is said of the essence of sympathy that it is:
“Mit-Leiden, experiencing the feelings and affects of others through involuntary imitation and through" empathizing "with the state of mind of others, which the more easily possible the more related we are to them. The sight or thought of someone else's suffering immediately arouses feelings analogous to those of the sufferer. In addition, under certain circumstances, there is grief over the suffering of the other, or joy over the happiness of the other (sympathetic joy, pity ). "
literature
- Franz Passow : Concise dictionary of the Greek language. Darmstadt 1983.
- Dorothee Sölle : Sympathy. In: Christian Schütz (Ed.): Practical Lexicon of Spirituality. Herder, Freiburg i.Br. u. a. 1992, ISBN 3-451-22614-6 , Sp. 1244-1246.
