Translation of the German term Einfühlung: the state of being emotionally and cognitively ‘in tune with’ another person, particularly by feeling what their situation is like from the inside, or what it is like for them. Sometimes we feel what it should be like for someone else, for instance by feeling embarrassed for someone making a fool of themselves, although they are unaware of it. Empathy may or may not precede sympathy. The place of empathy both in our understanding of other persons and in our ethical responses is much debated: see simulation theory, Verstehen. Less centrally, empathy is invoked in the suggestion that some aesthetic experiences have us feeling as if we ourselves are part of the object, as when we tense our muscles while we look at a flying buttress.