Abstract
A single line in Kant regarding the “communicability of feelings” is taken as a clue. A full, robust definition of empathy makes use of the four moments of the judgment of aesthetic taste— disinterestedness, universality, purposiveness without purpose, and necessity. Like taste, empathy is disinterested, involves universal communicability of feelings, recruits the form of purposiveness, and relates necessarily to the other. Empathy then also requires bringing in the distinction of “the other.” This inquiry is possible because empathy recruits the same underlying aspects of the human mental apparatus as does taste—the sensus communis in both forms—though it is applied differently. The cultivation of empathy enhances taste and vice versa.Keywordsaesthetic disinterestednesscommon sensecommunicability of feelingempathyImmanuel Kantsensus communistastethe other
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