“Feeling, Cognition, and the Eighteenth-Century Context of Kantian Sympathy”
by Carl Hildebrand
in British Journal for the History of Philosophy

This article examines the conversation around sympathy when the concept first emerged in 18th century philosophy, comparing Immanuel Kant with David Hume and Adam Smith. While Hume’s concept of sympathy more narrowly involves one’s affective capacities, Smith’s is grounded in the imagination and associated cognitive abilities. It is argued that Kant adapted central features of Smith’s account, and distinguished between two types of sympathy: one that is instinctual or pre-reflective, and one that is reflective. The latter is a moral virtue. It provides an important historical antecedent to the contemporary conversation around the ethics of cognitive and affective empathy.