Empathy and the Historical Understanding of the Human Past

<p><em>Empathy and the Historical Understanding of the Human Past</em> is a comprehensive consideration of the role of empathy in historical knowledge informed by the literature on empathy in fields including history psychoanalysis psychology neuroscience philosophy and sociology.</p><p>The book seeks to raise the consciousness of historians about empathy by introducing them to the history of the concept and to its status in fields outside of history. It also seeks to raise the self-consciousness of historians about their use of empathy to know and understand past people. Defining empathy as thinking and feeling as <i>imagining</i> one’s way inside the experience of others in order to know and understand them Thomas A. Kohut distinguishes between the external and the empathic observational position the position of the historical subject. He argues that historians need to be aware of their observational position of when they are empathizing and when they are not. Indeed Kohut advocates for the deliberate self-reflective use of empathy as a legitimate and important mode of historical inquiry.</p><p>Insightful cogent and interdisciplinary the book will be essential for historians students of history and psychoanalysts as well as those in other fields who seek to seek to know and understand human beings. </p>