Johannes Volkelt

He was educated at Vienna, Jena, and Leipzig. At Jena, he was a student of Kant scholar Kuno Fischer.^[2] At Leipzig, Volkelt's doctoral advisor was Hermann Lotze.^[3]

Volkelt became professor of philosophy at Basel in 1883 and at Würzburg in 1889, and 1894 was made professor of philosophy and pedagogy at Leipzig.^[1]

In philosophy, his main efforts have been his opposition to positivism and his attempt at a new metaphysical theory. His independent position was arrived at after successive periods in which he followed Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann.^[1]

Alongside Theodor Lipps and Stephan Witasek, he is considered one of the most important representatives of the psychology of aesthetics.^[4] He is particularly noted for his investigations of the concept of empathy as a fundamental principle of the theory of art. He proposed that experiencing a work of art with empathy has two variations: "proper empathy" (eigentliche Einfühlung) and "empathy of mood" (Stimmungseinfühlung).^[5] His thoughts on Einfühlung and the empathic process were documented in his work System der Ästhetik.^[6]