 In endorsing the direct perception account, Stein aligns with most classical phenomenologists such as Scheler (1913/26), Husserl (e.g., 1952, 1973) or Merleau-Ponty (1945). Like these authors, she rejects both the core tenet of one of the most influential theories of empathy of her time, namely Lipps’ theory of empathic mimicry or imitation, which can be viewed as a forerunner of the simulation theory, and also of Lipps’ opponents, the so-called “theory of inference by analogy” account, that she attributes to John Stuart Mill (1917: 41[26]).