Empathic Ability of Sherlock Holmes. Can we have it?

Recently, I’ve bought Sherlock Holmes novels compilation, which I regard as one of most valuable collection of mine. In the novels, I found out that Sherlock Holmes is a very empathic person. What is empathic? How can we become an empathic person? I will explore on this topic, as it is one of literature materials that makes me think critically to get the gist of it.

Empathy is a concept that was introduced by Theodore Lipps. It is where we can share experiences and mental condition of other people. Being empathic means that we are able to understand, or at least know other people’s feelings, conditions, thoughts, and motivation. Empathic is one of the ability that Sherlock Holmes reveals to us. Better than any of us that read this blog, he is surprisingly able to take on other’s point of views, thus, he can discover a criminal’s motives by being empathic. Sometimes Holmes empathic level extends as far as to side with the criminal over the law when he discovered enough the circumstances of the crime.

Where do you think empathy come from? When we are observing a little girl acting in a certain way or showing a certain emotion, we automatically mirror it in our own mind. In conclusion, when we see someone is smiling, we re-enact the scene in our heads, and sometimes, what we think usually shows on our face.

When we see someone is eating an apple, we automatically replay that action ourselves in our mind, And as we do so, we begin to comprehend not just how the action happened, but also why the action is being executed. Why she is eating an apple? It is because she is hungry. This is the direction of thinking that leads to empathy.

Somehow, this tendency to think can be developed more into a better empathetic ability to the point of where we let a murderer go, because we understand where he’s coming from. Compared to the Sherlock fictions, in real life problem would be deeper and harder to comprehend. But the principle is valid, and can be used in real life too.