Sympathy

Sympathy ( borrowed sympathia from Latin, from ancient Greek συμπάθεια this sympátheia, connection ', noun from the verb συμπάθες sympathes, compassionate ') is the spontaneously resulting emotional affection. Your opposite is the antipathy ( aversion ).

Definition

Meyers Great Conversation Lexicon of 1911 commented:

"Sympathy is the ability to empathize with joy and sorrow of others, by some ethicists ( Shaftesbury, Hume, Adam Smith, Comte, Spencer ) is considered as the subjective basis of all morality [ ... ] Then, in contrast to the antipathy which apparently causeless affection to someone, the vague sense of inner relationship with someone. "

In Rudolf Eisler's dictionary of philosophical terms it means the essence of sympathy, it was:

"Co- suffering, witnessing of feelings and affections of others in the state of mind of others, which more easily possible, we are each related by involuntary imitation and " empathy " with those. The sight or thought strange suffering brought directly analogous feelings as those of the sufferer. Add to that under certain circumstances the grief of the suffering of others, and the joy of the happiness of others ( sympathetic joy, compassion ). "