Preface and Introduction to 2nd edition of Empathy & the Late Renuka Sharma

Abstract

Folk people often confuse empathy with sympathy. These two psychological or affective 'feelings' are very different, and they been so since Aristotle and the Buddha. The book traces the philosophical origins of the discourse and its appropriation in aesthetics, psychology and lately in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, as well as its re-emergence in feminist practical ethics. The theoretical part is complemented with clinical studies. The editor and authors of the new Preface-cum-Introduction tell us something about the author (and her premature demise), and provide the context for this discursive engagement with empathy demonstrated in the subsequent chapters. This early book of the ..