Empathy and History: Historical Understanding in Re-enactment, Hermeneutics and Education (Making Sense of History Book 35)

Empathy and History offers a comprehensive and dual account of empathy’s intellectual and educational history. Beginning in an influential educational movement that implanted the concept in R.G. Collingwood’s re-enactment doctrine, the book goes back to reveal the fundamental role that empathy played in the foundation of the history discipline before tracing its reception and development in twentieth-century hermeneutics and philosophy of history. Attentive to matters of practice, it illuminates the distinct character of the historical context that empathetic understanding seeks to capture and sets out a new approach to empathy as a special variety of historical questioning. Since empathy first emerged as an object of inquiry within British history education in the early 1970s, teachers, scholars and policymakers have debated the concept’s role in the teaching and learning of history. Yet over the years this discussion has been confined to specialized education outlets, while empathy’s broader significance for history and philosophy has too often gone unnoticed. Empathy and History is the first comprehensive account of empathy’s place in the practice, teaching, and philosophy of history. Beginning with the concept’s roots in nineteenth-century German historicism, the book follows its historical development, transformation, and deployment while revealing its relevance for practitioners today. Contents Foreword to the Paperback Edition Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Part I EDUCATION CHAPTER 1 Reforming the Past CHAPTER 2 The Influence of the Philosophy of History CHAPTER 3 A Conceptual Portmanteau Part II ORIGINS CHAPTER 4 Empathy and Historicism CHAPTER 5 Historicism, Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics CHAPTER 6 Collingwood and the Continent CHAPTER 7 Questions, Answers and Presuppositions CHAPTER 8 Horizons of Context Part III CONSEQUENCES CHAPTER 9 Competing Conceptions CHAPTER 10 Historical Thinking and Historical Consciousness Conclusion Bibliography Index The History and Function of Empathy in Historical Studies is the first comprehensive account of empathy's place in historical scholarship, history pedagogy, and the philosophy of history. It explains how empathy became central to teaching history in schools, and traces its roots in nineteenth-century German historicism.