WESEN UND FORMEN DER SYMPATHIE (SECTION A, I – II)

We hereby present to the reader a translation of a fragment of one of Max Scheler's main works, The Nature of Sympathy. Max Scheler was the most important figure in the philosophical life of Europe in the 1910-20s in phenomenology, axiology and philosophical anthropology. This work is an example of expressive, original and deep interconnection and intersection of these directions. The book was published in 1923 and was a significantly expanded, supplemented and rethought version of the book Phenomenology and Theory of the Feeling of Sympathy and of Love and Hate (1913). One of the central themes of this work is the development of a holistic theory of phenomenology of intersubjectivity (which first appeared in printed form) on the basis of the examination of the problems of personal relations between the “I” and “Other” by the experience of emotional sympathy. In the presented translation, Scheler carries out a detailed phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon of “sympathy” (Mitgefühl), in the course of which he criticizes theories of the Other (such as that of T. Lipps) and reveals various forms of “sympathy.”