The chapter takes up the question of how we come to understand and know others. After providing a brief introduction to the theory of mind debate, the focus is squarely on empathy. It is shown how some of the central suggestions proposed by contemporary simulationists such as Goldman, in particular the idea that empathy involves some combination of simulation and projection, can be traced back to Lipps’s influential account at the beginning of the twentieth century. Lipps’s theory preceded and influenced the analyses of the subsequent phenomenologists, who all remained quite critical of it. An obvious question to ask is consequently whether their criticism as well as their more positive exploration of empathy still has something to offer the current debate