Theodor Lipps (; 28 July 1851 – 17 October 1914) was a German philosopher, known for his theory regarding

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

, creating the framework for the concept of ''Einfühlung'' (

empathy Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are ...

)'','' defined as, "projecting oneself onto the object of

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

." This has then led onto opening up a new branch of

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...

research in the overlap between psychology and philosophy.

Biography

Lipps was one of the most influential German university professors of his time, attracting many students from other countries. Lipps was very concerned with conceptions of art and the aesthetic, focusing much of his philosophy around such issues. Among his fervent admirers was

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

. There were at least two theories that made an impact on Freud's works. The first was Lipps' theory of the unconscious mental events. Lipps was then a main supporter of the idea of the unconscious. The second was Lipps' works on humor.

''Einfühlung''

He adopted Robert Vischer's notions of

or esthetic sympathy (''Einfühlung'', literally translated to "feeling-into"). He was responsible for popularizing the term by modifying Vischer's conceptualization. Particularly, Lipps concealed some of the thinker's mysticism, hiding it within the sphere of scientific psychology in his work, ''Aesthetics of Space and Geometrical Illusions''. The term was used to describe the process of contemplating art objects as representation of our feelings. Lipps developed it into an aesthetic theory, which was refined further by other thinkers such as Roger Fry and Vernon Lee. This concept of aesthetic resonance finds parallels throughout aesthetic philosophy. In this concept, empathy is said to begin with both the object and the pleasure drawn together in a single act instead of a separate object with which we have aesthetic enjoyment or with pleasure taken in an object. According to Lipps, empathy incorporates movement or activity, which is bound up with observed object by: 1) being derived from it; and, 2) by being inseparable from it. For his works, he is considered one of the most important representatives of the psychology of aesthetics alongside Stephan Witasek and Johannes Volkelt.

Psychologism

Lipps was an important adherent of psychologism early in his career. This philosophy was based on the Neo-Kantianism that became influential in German philosophy during the second half of the nineteenth century. He became a spokesman of this school as evidenced in his early publications. In his work, ''Logik'' (1893), he declared his "unlimited foundational logical psychologism", which is based on a partial identity of psychology of thinking and the logic of thinking. Here, logic is considered the "physics of thinking" rather than an "ethics of thinking". According to Lipps, "logic is a psychological discipline, as certain as the cognition occurs only in the psyche, and the thinking, which completes itself in the cognition, is a psychical event." Late in life, Lipps adopted some ideas from

Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...

as he developed in another direction. Disliking his psychologism, some of his students joined with some of Husserl's to form a new branch of philosophy called phenomenology of essences. Among them there was Moritz Geiger who wrote one of the first phenomenological essays on the

essence Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the ...

and meaning of empathy in which the influence of Lipps is relevant. There was also who studied under Lipps at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat and dealt with Husserlian phenomenology in his first publication, ''Die phänomenale Sphäre''. In the so-called aesthetics of "oughtness", Lipps attempted to reconcile "ought" with "is".

References

Sources

* Hatfield, G
Psychology Old and New
Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No.IRCS-01-07 (University of Pennsylvania, 2001) * Lyubimova, T

in: Aesthetics, Art, Life: A Collection of Articles, compiled by T. Lyubimova, M. Ovsyannikov; general editorship by A. Zis; translated from the Russian by Sergei Syrovatkin (Moscow: Raduga Publishers, 1988), pp. 200–211.

External links