Hume's And Spinoza's Discourses on Sympathy: A Comparative and Evaluative Study

Abstract

Hume tells us that sympathy is the human capacity to 'receive' the feelings and beliefs of other people (in his Treatise of Human Nature 2.1. 11.2). It is the process by which we experience what others are feeling and thinking. This process begins by forming an idea of what another person is experiencing. Seeking to explain the love of fame, Hume finds one of its causes in the opinions of others, whose influence upon us is due to that propensity we have:

• To sympathize with others, and
• To receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own.

The bare opinion of another, especially when enforced with passion, will cause an idea of good or evil to have an influence upon us, which would otherwise have been entirely neglected. This proceeds from the principle of sympathy or communication. This work is interested in making a contrastive study of the perspectives of David Hume and Benedict Spinoza on Sympathy. The goal of this comparison is to determine the plausibility and implications of the entire discourse on sympathy for human existential experiences.