In a message dated 10/2/2015 11:26:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
_lawrencehelm@roadrunner.com_ (mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) writes:
"the
ones he likes the best, the ones in whom he finds this sublimity."
For the record, below, some thoughts on this very Kantian idea, after Hanna
Ginsborg, "Kant's Aesthetics and Teleology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/kant-aesthetics/>.
Kant distinguishes two notions of the sublime: the mathematically sublime
and the dynamically sublime.
In the case of both notions, the experience of the sublime consists in a
feeling of the superiority of our own power of reason, as a supersensible
faculty, over nature.
In the case of the dynamically sublime, the feeling of reason's superiority
to nature is more direct than in the mathematical case. Kant says that we
consider nature as "dynamically sublime" when we consider it as "a power
that has no dominion over us".
We have the feeling of the dynamically sublime when we experience nature as
fearful while knowing ourselves to be in a position of safety and hence
without in fact being afraid. In this situation "the irresistibility of
[nature's] power certainly makes us, considered as natural beings, recognize
our
physical powerlessness, but at the same time it reveals a capacity for
judging ourselves as independent of nature and a superiority over nature…
whereby the humanity in our person remains undemeaned even though the human
being must submit to that dominion.
Kant's examples include overhanging cliffs, thunder clouds, volcanoes and
hurricanes.
The feeling associated with the sublime is a feeling of pleasure in the
superiority of our reason over nature, but it also involves displeasure.
In the case of the mathematically sublime, the displeasure comes from the
awareness of the inadequacy of our imagination; in the dynamical case it
comes from the awareness of our physical powerlessness in the face of nature's
might.
Kant is not consistent in his descriptions of how the pleasure and the
displeasure are related, but one characterization describes them as
alternating: the "movement of the mind" in the representation of the sublime
"may be
compared to a vibration, i.e., to a rapidly alternating repulsion from and
attraction to one and the same object."
Kant also describes the feeling of the sublime as a "pleasure which is
possible only by means of a displeasure" and as a “negative liking".
He also appears to identify it with the feeling of respect, which in his
practical philosophy is associated with recognition of the moral law.
Judgments of the sublime are like judgments of beauty in being based on
feeling, more specifically on pleasure or liking.
They are also like judgments of beauty in claiming the universal validity
of the pleasure, where that claim is understood as involving necessity
(everyone who perceives the object ought to share the feeling).
But as we have seen, the pleasure is different in that it involves a
negative element.
The following differences should also be noted as it is particularly
emphasized by Kant:
In making a judgment of the sublime, we regard the object as “
contrapurposive,” rather than purposive, for the faculties of imagination and
judgment.
While judgments of the sublime do involve the representation of
purposiveness, the purposiveness differs from that involved in a judgment of
beauty
in two ways.
(a) It is not the object, but the aesthetic judgment itself which is
represented as purposive.
(b) The aesthetic judgment is represented as purposive not for imagination
or judgment, but for reason or for the "whole vocation of the mind".
The claim to universal validity made by a judgment of the sublime rests,
not on the universal validity of the conditions of cognition, but rather on
the universal validity of moral feeling.
While we can correctly call objects beautiful, we cannot properly call
them sublime.
Sublimity strictly speaking "is not contained in anything in nature, but
only in our mind."
While judgments of beauty involve a relation between the faculties of
imagination and understanding, the faculties brought into relation in a
judgment
of the sublime are imagination and reason (§29, 266).
The importance of the sublime within Kant's aesthetic theory is a matter
of dispute.
Kant has a great deal to say about the beautiful, but mentions the sublime
only fleetingly and in the Analytic of the Sublime itself he notes that
"the concept of the sublime in nature is far from being as important and rich
in consequences as that of its beauty" and that the "theory of the sublime
is a mere appendix to the aesthetic judging of the purposiveness of nature."
Kant's views about the sublime also appear to be less historically
distinctive than his views about the beautiful, showing in particular the
influence of Burke.
On the other hand, Kant's account of the sublime has been influential in
literary theory, and the sublime also plays a significant role in Kant's
account of the connection between aesthetic judgment and morality.
Another focus of debate concerns the question of whether sublimity,
according to Kant, is restricted to objects of nature, or whether there can
also
be sublime art.
A good overview of Kant's theory of the sublime and its connection with
Kant's aesthetic theory more generally is provided by Crowther.
Other useful expositions include Guyer, Budd, and Allison.
The question of the artistic sublime in particular has been raised by
Abaci, who defends Kant's restriction of sublimity to nature.
Clewis defends the opposite view.
A possible case study is offered by Myskja, who attempts to bring the
notion of the sublime to bear on a specific work of art, Samuel Beckett's
"Molloy".
Cheers,
Speranza
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