From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Empathy (from the Greek åìðÜèåéá, "to suffer with") is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively divine another's modes of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.
Contrasting empathy to other phenomena
One must be careful not to confuse empathy with either sympathy, emotional contagion or telepathy. Sympathy is the feeling of compassion for another, the wish to see them better or happier, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially a child or a person in a mob) identifies with strong emotions others are showing and becomes subject to the same emotions themselves. Telepathy is a controversial paranormal phenomenon, which differs in that empathy is based not upon the paranormal but upon sophisticated processing of what is seen and heard in the usual way.
I'm with you on this SD. Empathy is feeling the emotion of another because you have had a like experience. Sympathy is feeling compassion for another because you care about their pain. I can empathize with someone who has lost a son because I have lost a son. I sympathize with someone who has lost their spouse because I realize it is painful for them, but I can't empathize with them because I have not yet lost my spouse. I do not know how that would feel. I can imagine, but I can't know.
Exactly what I was saying. It even repeats the "somebody else's shoes" phrase that I used.
Me, Post 4912:Saddam's crimes were criminal to all. I pity those who have no more empathy than bystander-ness when it comes to crime and the victims of crime.
Definitions;
The imaginative ascribing to...a feeling.
The vacarious experiencing of the feelings...of another.
I used the word correctly. You should stop with the straw man fallacy. And you did agree that celebration was in order although you still wrongly accuse many nameless posters of wanting a villan to execute.