The term “sympathy” comes from the composite of the Greek prefix syn- meaning with or together and the Greek word pathos meaning feeling. That is to say, “sympathy” etymologically means feeling together. For instance, when someone feels a particular emotion, I feel the same one. In this sense, it can be called “fellow- feeling”, that is, “being affected by the feelings of another with a feeling similar to or corresponding to the other’s” (Hacker 2017, 359). Unlike the term “sympathy”, “empathy” is a recently coined term. The American psychologist Edward Titchener introduced the term “empathy” into English in 1909 as a translation of the German concept “Einfühlung” (or “feeling into”), which etymologically means to enter into somebody’s feelings (Debes 2015, 286). According to Stephen Darwall’s definition of empathy, which reflects its etymology, it is “the capacity to put oneself in another’s shoes” or “[i]maginative projection into another’s standpoint or simulation” (Darwall 2006, 44).
Although the term “sympathy” and “empathy” have different etymological origins, in ordinary language there does not seem to be a clear distinction between the usage of the term “sympathy” and “empathy”. Andrew Terjesen says:
In trying to set a distinction between these two terms, people will sometimes appeal to linguistic intuitions about the ways in which those words are used. Unfortunately, there no longer seem to be consistent intuitions about their usage, due both to the fact that different disciplines choose to cut the distinctions in different ways and to the inherent fuzziness of the term. For example, Tiwald describes ‘imaginative reconstruction’ and ‘simulation of feelings’ as things we associate with ‘sympathy’ (and
he is not alone in doing so), but for a number of people ‘sympathy’ can refer only to our attitude towards other people’s suffering. (Terjesen 2013, 242)
We frequently use both terms interchangeably, and regard them as including both knowing or feeling how someone feels and feeling or caring for someone.
However, it is also true that many scholars try to make a distinction between these terms: empathy is knowing or feeling how someone feels, and sympathy is feeling or caring for someone. Michael Slote says:
In colloquial terms, we can perhaps do this most easily by considering the difference between (Bill Clinton’s) feeling someone’s pain and feeling for someone who is in pain. Any adult speaker of English will recognize that ‘empathy’ refers to the former phenomenon and ‘sympathy’ to the latter. … Thus empathy involves having the feelings of another (involuntarily) aroused in ourselves, as when we see another person in pain. ... However, we can also feel sorry for, bad for, the person who is in pain and positively wish them well. This amounts, as we say, to sympathy for them, and it can happen even if we aren’t feeling their pain (Slote 2007, 13).
That is, according to Slote, “empathy” refers to feeling someone’s pain, and “sympathy” to feeling for someone who is in pain. Stephen Darwall says:
Seeing the child on the verge of falling, one is concerned for his safety, not just for its (his safety’s) sake, but for his sake. One is concerned for him. Sympathy for the child is a way of caring for (and about) him. Sympathy differs in this respect from several distinct psychological phenomena usually collected under the term ‘empathy’, which need not involve such concern. … Empathy consists in feeling what one imagines he feels, or perhaps should feel (fear, say), or in some imagined copy of these feelings, whether one comes thereby to be concerned for the child or not. Empathy can be consistent with the indifference of pure observation or even the cruelty of sadism. It all depends on why one is interested in the other’s perspective. Sympathy, on the other hand, is felt as from the perspective of “one-caring”. (Darwall 1998, 261).
Paul Bloom and Peter Bazalgette also make the same distinction between “empathy” and “sympathy”. In his book Against Empathy, Bloom says, “I didn’t choose the word at random. The English word empathy really is the best way to refer to this mirroring of others’ feelings. It’s better than sympathy (in its modern usage) and
pity. … Also, terms like sympathy and pity are about your reaction to the feelings of others, not the mirroring of
them. If you feel bad for someone who is bored, that’s sympathy, but if you feel bored, that’s empathy. If you feel bad for someone in pain, that’s sympathy, but if you feel their pain, that’s empathy” (Bloom 2018, 40). In his book The Empathy Instinct, Bazalgette also says, “In this book I’ll use ‘sympathy’ only in its sense of ‘a feeling of compassion for the suffering of another.’ As for ‘empathy’, by that I mean something broader: ‘the ability to understand and share in another person’s feelings and experiences’” (Bazalgette 2017, 5). Thus, one way to distinguish empathy from sympathy is to understand empathy as knowing or feeling how someone feels, and sympathy as feeling or caring for someone.
between the concept of empathy and of sympathy. Needless to say, this distinction is valid only in their contemporary usage since as I have said, the term “empathy” was introduced into English in the early 20th century. Before that time in English world, the term “sympathy” must have covered both of them.