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Etymonline.com
1903, translation of Ger. Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"),

 Coined 1858 by Ger. philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-81) from Gk. empatheia "passion," from en- "in" + pathos "feeling" (see pathos). A term from a theory of art appreciation.
Empathize (v.) was coined 1924; empathic (adj.) is from 1909.

Historyofideas.org - Best  overview
1873	Robert Vischer	1847-1933 (German)	Einfühlung - On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics--1873 “feel into” works of arts and into nature
???	Rudolf Hermann Lotze	1817-1881 (German)	(German) Empathy - coined by Rudolf Lotze to translate German Einfühlung. Mikrokosmus 1858
	Wilhelm Wundt	1832-1920 (German)	in an aesthetic doctrine, When empathizing with a work of art, the beholder physically imitates the object and imaginatively projects himself into the object.
	Theodor Lipps	1851-1914 (German)	a student of Wundt, Einfühlung - "transfers it to psychology in an attempt to explain how we discover that other people have selves" The Ästhetik (1903-06) of Theodor Lipps is the most extensive analysis of empathy, presented with a host of examples from the visual arts
	Sigmund Freud	185-1939 (German)	Freud and the history of empathy. Freud picks up on it from Lipps
1909	Edward Titchener	1867-1927 (English)	psychologist. The word “empathy” (feeling-in) was coined by the American psychologist, as a translation of the German Einfühlung
1909			empathic (adj.) is from 1909
1924			The term 'empathize' was coined in 1924.
1942	Carl Rodgers	1902-1987 (American)	1942, 1195`, 1957, 1975 persistent investigation of empathy in psychotherapy
1980s and 1990s	Giacomo Rizzolatti		mirror neuron
	Giuseppe Di Pellegrino		mirror neuron
	Luciano Fadiga		mirror neuron
	Vittorio Gallese		mirror neuron “shared manifold of intersubjectivity” argued that the mirror neuron system is involved in empathy
	Stephanie Preston		argued that the mirror neuron system is involved in empathy
	Frans de Waal		argued that the mirror neuron system is involved in empathy
	Jean Decety		argued that the mirror neuron system is involved in empathy
	Christian Keysers		Social Brain Lab and colleagues have shown that people that are more empathic according to self-report questionnaires have stronger activations both in the mirror system for hand actions[ providing more direct support to the idea that the mirror system is linked to empathy.
2006	Goldman		mirror neuron

• Historical Introduction Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Empathy and its development By Nancy Eisenberg, Janet Strayer (detailed history)

• 1. The Concept of Empathy

  Since its inception, the sense of the term "empathy" has wandered. As a result, defining empathy is difficult and somewhat arbitrary. Still, a core formation can be reached by looking closely at etymology, and by focusing on conceptual differences between empathy and closely related terms, primarily sympathy.

  The concept of sympathy has a long history (Aristotle used it), but the term empathy is quite recent. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the German term "Einfühlung" was used by Rudolph Lotz and Wilhelm Wundt in an aesthetic doctrine, which was then elaborated by Theodore Lipps. (3) For Lipps, Einfühlung is a mode of inner imitation. When empathizing with a work of art, the beholder physically imitates the object and imaginatively projects himself into the object. Lipps also extended Einfühlung to the domain of interpersonal understanding. (4) E.G. Tichener, a student of Wundt, coined the English translation "empathy" in 1910.

  The German "Einfühlung" has a distinctive meaning of "feeling into" something. Unfortunately, Einfühlung was often translated as "feeling with", which is the usual meaning of Mitfühlung (sympathy). M.F. Basch (1983) notes that in the Greek derivation of empathy, the prefix em- means "in" or "within", while the prefix sym- means "with", "along with" or "together". Etymologically, therefore, the term sympathy means to share an experience with someone else. When one sympathizes with others, one "feels with" or shares their suffering. In contrast, Einfühlung is a more extensive concept than sympathy. It signifies the ability to comprehend another's state without actually experiencing that state. Basch tells us "its German synonyms, 'sich hineinversetzen' (to put oneself in another's place) and 'Fremdwarhrhnehmung' (to come to know the other or the stranger), imply an understanding of another person that includes, but is not limited to an affective experience, and there is nothing of the irrational or primitive implied by these terms." (1983, p. 110). The term sympathy, then, refers to our awareness and participation in the suffering of another person, while empathy refers to the attempt to comprehend either positive or negative states of another. Lauren Wispe (1991, p.80) describes the difference this way:

   

"Empathy is the idea that the vital properties which we experience in or attribute to any person or object outside ourselves are the projections of our own feelings and thoughts."

1858: Rudolf Herman Lotze
Coined  by Ger. philosopher Rudolf Herman Lotze

Rudolph Hermann Lotze
(1817-1881)

1872: Robert Vischer
"The idea was first elaborated by Robert Vischer in
Das optische Formgefühl  (On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics) 1872, as a psychological theory of art which asserts that because the dynamics of the formal relations in a work of art suggest muscular and emotional attitudes in a viewing subject, that subject experiences those feelings as qualities of the object. Aesthetic pleasure may thus be explained as objectified self-enjoyment in which subject and object are fused."

Theodor Lipps
Theodor Lipps (1851-1914), a philosopher who taught in Munich, gave empathy a broader, psychological range, attributing to this form of intuition access to knowledge of another's subjectivity. It is in this sense, and most likely from reading Lipps, that Sigmund Freud used the term, which was still uncommon at the time. Psychoanalysis Dictionary

1909: Edward Titchener,
"The word “empathy” (feeling-in) was coined by the American psychologist, Edward Titchener, as a translation of the German Einfühlung."
 ( He translated and brought in the English language the concept of empathy, which had been developed and coined by Robert Vischer (in German).)

Empathy enjoyed its greatest acceptance as a fundamental principle of the theory of art in the early part of this century. Variations of it appeared in the writings of Karl Groos and Johannes Volkelt in Germany, Victor  Basch in France, and Herbert Langfeld in America.
 

1950: Carl R. Rogers
The use of empathy was an important part of the psychological counseling technique developed by Carl R. Rogers.
Carl Rogers: Empathic: An Unappreciated Way Of Being


1960: Ralph Greenson
The concept did not become important until 1960, when Ralph Greenson studied it, no doubt influenced by the interest in countertransference that occurred after the work of Heinrich Racker and Paula Heimann. Answers.com
The concept did not become important until 1960, when Ralph Greenson studied it, no doubt influenced by the interest in countertransference that occurred after the work of Heinrich Racker and Paula Heimann. Since then a number of studies have emphasized the importance of the concept for communication during analysis. Psychoanalysis Dictionary

1981: Martin Hoffman
"one of the most comprehensive accounts of empathy and its relation to the moral development of a person is provided by the work of Martin Hoffman (for a summary see his 2000). Hoffman views empathy as a biologically based disposition for altruistic behavior (Hoffman 1981). He conceives of empathy as being due to various modes of arousal allowing us to respond empathically in light of a variety of distress cues from another person. Hoffman mentions mimicry, classical conditioning, and direct association—where one empathizes because the other's situation reminds one of one's own painful experience—as “fast acting and automatic” mechanisms producing an empathic response. As more cognitively demanding modes, Hoffman lists mediated association—where the cues for an empathic response are provided in a linguistic medium—and role taking."

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"The belief that, when one is in affective communion with another, subject and object become merged is recognized at least as early as Plato, who says of the beloved that “his lover is the mirror in whom he is beholding himself, but he is not aware of it” (Phaedrus 255, Jowett translation)."

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