The coordinating team of the research projects “Poethics of Empathy” and “Cosmopolitanism: Justice, Democracy and Citizenship without Borders” organizes this international and interdisciplinary conference focused on the critical analysis of the conceptual history of ‘empathy.’ Considered at once as a cognitive, emotional and sociocultural process, empathy can and should be elucidated through the joint collaboration of different areas of Humanities and Sciences (namely, Aesthetics, Ethics, Epistemology, Psychology, Anthropology, Neurosciences, and Medicine); and the conference is intended to enhance a collaborative research style.

Broadly conceived, the history of empathy encompasses a manifold of significant moments and perspectives, including: the Neoplatonic concept of cosmic sympatheia, the Enlightened ethical imperative of sympathy (especially in D. Hume and A. Smith), the natural means and the valid scientific method to understand other minds (as in Th. Lipps’s Einfühlung and W. Dilthey’s Nachleben), the special mode of perception and assignation of ‘spiritual’ personhood (e.g., E. Husserl, M. Scheler, E. Stein, G. Walther, and the posterior generations of Phenomenology), and the key factor in the psychotherapeutic change of personality (e.g., in Psychoanalysis, under the guise of ‘transference’, and in Rogerian Humanistic psychotherapy).

Research papers to be presented at the conference are expected to deal with the above-mentioned figures of ‘Sympatheia / Einfühlung / Empathy,’ or any other related or more specific modes of intersubjective experience (such as compassion, care or love).
Paper submissions with title and short abstract (approx. 200 words) and/or panel submissions (i.e., a thematically coherent set of 3 or 4 papers) are equally acceptable. All submissions must be sent to paulorenatus@campus.ul.pt until November 15th, 2021.

This event will have a hybrid format. Therefore, participants may choose to present their research either in-person or on-line via Zoom. Every presentation may last up to 30 minutes in one of the following languages: English, French, Portuguese or Spanish.

Organizers: Fernando Silva and Paulo Jesus (CFUL)