[A_perfect_lady]

But again, if that is your answer, what was the question? (I don't recall having asked about animal souls.) Let's try again.

I thought you were asking me for some sort of clarification of the nature of empathy and how to recognize it. Or something along those lines.

[betty boop]

I thought you were asking me for some sort of clarification of the nature of empathy and how to recognize it.

Okay. We can go with that.

We can start by asking what "empathy" means. Merriam-Webster defines it as

1: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

On this basis, would you say that cats have a capacity for empathy?

It seems both our last replies crossed in the mail. I'll take a breather till such time as we can catch up again.