Theodor Lipps

Theodor Lipps
File:TLipps.jpg Theodor Lipps (unknown year)
Born	28 July 1851 Wallhalben
Died	Munich, German Empire
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Munich phenomenology
Main interests	Aesthetics
Notable ideas	Lipps–Meyer law
Influences Edmund Husserl
Influenced Moritz Geiger

Theodor Lipps (German: [lɪps]; 28 July 1851 – 17 October 1914) was a German philosopher, famed for his theory regarding aesthetics, creating the framework for the concept of Einfühlung (empathy), defined as, "projecting oneself onto the object of perception." This has then led onto opening up a new branch of interdisciplinary 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. Lipps then being the main supporter of the idea of the Unconscious. He adopted Robert Vischer's notions of empathy or esthetic sympathy (Einfühlung, literally translated to "feeling-into"). This concept of aesthetic resonance finds parallels throughout aesthetic philosophy. Late in life, Lipps adopted some ideas from Edmund Husserl. 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 and meaning of empathy in which the influence of Lipps is relevant.

See also

• Otto Selz

Works

• Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens (1883)
• Grundzüge der Logik (1893)
• David Hume: Ein Traktat über die menschliche Natur (1894; 3 volumes)
• Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen (1897)
• Komik und Humor (1898)
• Die ethischen Grundfragen: Zehn Vorträge (1899)
• Vom Fühlen, Wollen und Denken (1902)
• Leitfaden der Psychologie (1903)
• Ästhetik (1903–1906)
• Philosophie und Wirklichkeit (1908)
• Schriften zur Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie (2013; 4 volumes)

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. "On the Comic", 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

• Works by Theodor Lipps at Project Gutenberg
• Some digitized texts by Lipps in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science