Theodor Lipps

Theodor Lipps (born July 28, 1851, Wallhalben, Bavaria [Germany]—died Oct. 17, 1914, Munich) was a German psychologist best known for his theory of aesthetics, particularly the concept of Einfühlung, or empathy, which he described as the act of projecting oneself into the object of a perception.

At the University of Bonn (1877–90) Lipps wrote a comprehensive account of psychology of the time, Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens (1883; “Fundamental Facts of the Inner Life”). After serving as professor at the University of Breslau (1890–94), he was appointed to the faculty at the University of Munich (1894–1914), and in 1897 he wrote Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen (“Spatial Aesthetics”), an experimental study of optical illusions that influenced much contemporary research on this subject.

According to Lipps’s concept of empathy, a person appreciates another person’s reaction by a projection of the self into the other. In his Ästhetik, 2 vol. (1903–06; “Aesthetics”), he made all appreciation of art dependent upon a similar self-projection into the object.