The Sublime and its Teleology: Kant - German Idealism - Phenomenology 9789004218192, 9789004221413

Citation preview

The Sublime and Its Teleology

Critical Studies in German Idealism Series Editor

Paul G. Cobben Advisory Board

simon critchley – vittorio hösle – garth green klaus vieweg – michael quante – ludwig siep rózsa erzsébet – martin moors – paul cruysberghs timo slootweg – francesca menegoni

VOLUME 4

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/csgi

The Sublime and Its Teleology Kant—German Idealism—Phenomenology

Edited by

Donald Loose

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The sublime and its teleology : Kant, German idealism, phenomenology / edited by Donald Loose. p. cm. – (Critical studies in German idealism, ISSN 1878-9986 ; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-21819-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Sublime, The–History. 2. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Kritik der Urteilskraft. I. Loose, Donald, 1949B2784.S83 2012 190–dc23 2011035563

ISSN 1878-9986 ISBN 978 90 04 21819 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 22141 3 (e-book) Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS

Volume Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction: The Kantian Sublime and Its Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donald Loose

1

The Genuine Sublime: Kant on the Sublimity of Moral Consciousness.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Herman van Erp Kant’s Aesthetics of Morals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Birgit Recki The Dynamic Sublime as the Pivoting Point between Nature and Freedom in Kant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Donald Loose Sublimity, Freedom, and Necessity in the Philosophy of Kant . . . . . . . 79 Arthur Kok Teleology in Kant’s Philosophy of Culture and History: A Problem for the Architectonic of Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Christian Krijnen The Lord and the Sublime: Free Life’s Transcendence of Finitude . . . 133 Paul Cobben The Sublime Monster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Jacob Rogozinski The Tragical Sublime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Simon Critchley The Sublime and the Limits of Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Frans van Peperstraten Melville’s ‘Sublime Uneventfulness’. Toward a Phenomenology of the Sublime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Ruud Welten

vi

contents

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

VOLUME FOREWORD

The sublime is an inherently transgressive and unstable concept in the history of thought. From Longinus to Burke, the sublime is understood as a violent transgression of human finitude. As Kant explains in the Critique of Judgment, the sublime is an emotion that places human beings in the fundamental tension between infinity (Unendlichkeit) and finitude (Endlichkeit), between immanence and transcendence, between representation and that which exceeds it. Placing in question the priority of beauty, the sublime opens up the question of the relation between epistemology, aesthetics and practical philosophy in post-Kantian thought, from German Idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) through phenomenology (Heidegger) to contemporary post-phenomenology (Lyotard, Levinas, Lacoue-Labarthe). The authors of this book investigate the unruly figure of the sublime as it appears in the history of philosophy in and after Kant and assess its contemporary relevance: not by repeating the discussion of eighties (that was concentrated on the aesthetical dimension), but rather by focusing on the political dimension. They show in what way the Kantian legacy on this topic inspires contemporary thinking, either in line with Kant or by overcoming his primary impetus for a modern philosophy of freedom in a critical reception. Paul Cobben, Series Editor, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

INTRODUCTION: THE KANTIAN SUBLIME AND ITS AFTERMATH

Donald Loose What are we talking about when we qualify something as sublime? Is it just a qualification of the beautiful in its most touching degree? Is it a qualification of something outside there anyway? Is it a feeling or a reflecting judgment on aesthetic appreciation? And can we reduce the sublime to the aesthetic? The authors of this book all take the analysis of Kant in The Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ) as their primary reference. The argument of this book however is to show in what way the Kantian legacy on this topic is still a main stream of inspiration for contemporary thinking, either in line with Kant or by overcoming his primary impetus for a modern philosophy of freedom in a critical reception. According to Herman van Erp two main points of difference between Kant’s aesthetic theory of sublimity and many other approaches of the sublime are firstly, that Kant makes a distinction between what he calls the genuinely sublime and the sublime in a broader but improper sense and secondly, that he seems to make a tight connection between this genuine sublime and moral ideas. To clear up these points, the author compares Kant’s theory of the sublime with Burke’s and Schiller’s, which were both known to him and to which he also dedicated some short remarks. The feeling of sublimity as a purely aesthetic feeling is different from the respect for the moral law. Therefore, one could distinguish these feelings by the different names of awe and respect. Their resemblance and relationship ask for explication, but particularly the difference between them must be elaborated more clearly than Kant did himself. Van Erp argues that according to Kant, although moral consciousness is the transcendental precondition of the validity of judgments concerning sublimity and the criterion for what can be considered as genuine sublime, within purely aesthetic judgments, we are not clearly aware of this distinction between genuine and improper forms of sublimity. When this distinction becomes a determining element in our judgments of the sublime, these judgments lose their purely aesthetic character.



donald loose

That is also the case with judgments of taste, if beauty is functioning as a symbol for morality. Our moral consciousness is authorized, on transcendental grounds and within borders determined by reason, to enlist the help of the imagination to represent moral ends and thus to sustain the will. In this function, however, aesthetic judgments are no longer pure but connected with teleological and moral concepts. As a conclusion the author brings forward that thinking further in the line of Kant’s CPJ, we must not consider purely aesthetic judgments as capable of bridging the gap between the realms of nature and freedom. The bridge must and can only come from moral action. As aesthetic representations in a more or less pure form, aesthetic ideas of both the beautiful as well as the sublime remain abstract and undetermined concepts, which can move our mind but do not oblige us to do anything. In the second chapter, Kant’s Aesthetics of Morals Birgit Recki develops a Kantian aesthetics of morals. Kant reserves the term “the moral feeling” exclusively for the feeling of respect for the law. His efforts to strip feelings in morality of any suspicions of heteronomy, changeability, elusiveness and unreliability lead Kant to a conception of feelings as a form of reflection. By this, the feeling does not lose the character of an emotion and of sensual sensation. It also becomes clear that Kant wants to solve the motivational problem by postulating a feeling that moves us to action. The chapter ‘Of the Motives of Pure Practical Reason’ in the Critique of Practical Reason provides an analysis of respect for the law, which is meant to make two things clear: respect for the law is the moral feeling and the missing link to motivating actions. And it possesses the causal power (of reason) to affect sensibility in accordance with its own principles: reason motivates by a feeling that is “created unaided”. As it turns out, a “feeling caused by reason”, which Kant deemed necessary in the interest of morality, also has a direct relevance for his systematic appreciation of those feelings occurring in the aesthetic attitude. Kant has a feeling caused by reason at his disposal, which gives him the nice opportunity to also apply the idea elsewhere. The first part of the CPJ will show that Kant makes accepting the aesthetic feeling into a critique of reason dependent on its a priori and hence epistemic constitution. Between the ‘Motives of Pure Practical Reason’ and the ‘Analytic of the Sublime’, we can thus find more than just a one-directional influence. Instead, there is a systematic interconnectedness on several levels. The analysis of the moral feeling gives Kant the crucial idea about the general

introduction: the kantian sublime and its aftermath



a priori character of aesthetic feelings. It also becomes clear that the feeling of respect and the feeling of the sublime are both characterized by the contradictory dynamics of pleasure through displeasure. The analytic of the sublime also manages to illustrate the dynamics of the feeling of respect for the law in more detail. We can also assume an analogous conflict between imagination and reason for the moral feeling, just as Kant has attributed it to the sublime. In the third chapter, The Dynamic Sublime as the Pivoting point between Nature and Freedom in Kant, Donald Loose focuses on the dynamic sublime which can be considered as the pivoting point between nature and freedom. His article aims at correcting the classic view of Kantian dualism in general and readjusting the characterization of the dynamic sublime as mere conflict and resistance to the supremacy of nature. Even more than as pivot, one can view the sublime as transition (Übergang) and even as point of interaction of nature and freedom, of mechanics and morality. We can interpret §  and  and the subsequent general remark as the turning point of the entire CPJ. The sublime is beyond the beautiful but not yet a judgment concerning the teleology of nature. If the dynamic sublime is really the pivoting point of nature and freedom, this entails to point out the sublime as mediation of nature and freedom in nature itself as indication that nature may be a possible ally of freedom. Reversibly we should recognize the sublime conflict with nature in freedom itself and in its highest realization as well. The resistance of the categorical imperative against the natural incentive does not only constitute the possible idea of transcendental freedom. Realized freedom ultimately remains marked by the sublime task to continue to resist the permanent resistance to freedom. That shows Kant’s assessment of war, rightful rebellion against unlawful power, the foundation of criminal law, constitutional law and international law in the perspective of everlasting peace, and pre-eminently his analysis of radical evil. The author argues that the Kantian sublime offers a view of the intelligible although this explicitly is not reducible to nature and nature does not elevate itself to the supersensible. It may be so that the opposition between nature and reason cannot be sublated (aufgehoben) as it is in Hegel because a dialectic transition from the imagination to reason is impossible; nonetheless we recognize a realization of the mechanics of nature at a higher level (teleology). The idea of an Unbedingtes in der Welt may be completely alien to Kantian aesthetics, yet one claims too much when one denies any mediation of the sensible through symbolization



donald loose

towards reason. The symbolic representation is for Kant precisely an— indirect to be sure—representation (Darstellung) of the unrepresentable, that still offers more than the merely negative representation. Ultimately the symbolic representation is an all-integrating interpretative rereading in a reflecting judgment on a second level concerning a first level reflecting judgment on the oppositional logic of the mechanics of nature as a whole, that now is understood as purposive in the perspective of human freedom. The chapter Sublimity, Freedom, and Necessity in the Philosophy of Kant discusses the problem of necessity from the perspective of an immanently-critical analysis of Kant’s critical philosophy. Arthur Kok argues that Kant’s analysis of the dynamical Sublime plays a key role in understanding Kant’s concept of the Noumenon. He systematically discusses the fundamental relation between freedom and necessity from, basically, three perspectives, which correspond to the three Critiques. The general idea is that the Noumenon is pure reason, or reason in itself, and that each Critique puts forward a distinct aspect of the Noumenon. These distinct aspects put together in a cohesive manner should compose a systematic understanding of what the Noumenon means. The intention of this chapter is to further develop Kant’s philosophical investigation of the possibility of metaphysics. Kant’s project is principally tenable but not in every respect satisfactorily fulfilled. Kant does not at all times adequately distinguish between evidence and necessity. For example, systematically, the understanding and the intuition only produce evidential data. Only from the standpoint of pure reason a possible necessity of these evidences can be claimed. Kant indeed develops the transcendental standpoint to assess this possible necessity but he remains, nonetheless, ambiguous. The immanently-critical analysis points out some of these ambiguities in the Critique of Pure Reason, and points out that a theoretical perspective on necessity cannot exist without presupposing a practical perspective on necessity. Pure practical reason has primacy over theoretical reason. However, to combine the theoretical and practical perspective in a hierarchical manner, the dynamicallysublime judgment is needed. The chapter is divided into six sections. In the first section, Kok introduces the definitions of freedom and necessity. The definition of freedom is developed in line with the Kantian definition of noumenal freedom as the possibility to be the cause of an object. The definition of necessity is developed through discussing a Cartesian, a Humean, and a Kantian notion of necessity. Also, this section preludes a criticism of Kant’s

introduction: the kantian sublime and its aftermath



notion of necessity and offers an outlook on a somewhat uncommon, but presumably more cohesive, interpretation of Kant. This interpretation is elaborated, sketchily, in the second section, which outlines the central problem of the chapter. The third and fourth sections investigate this problem from, respectively, the perspective of the Critique of Pure Reason and the perspective of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. The third section also presents the argument against Kant’s ambiguous use of evidence and necessity. The fifth section deals with the Critique of the Power Judgment, and identifies the Sublime as the key outlook on the Noumenon, and as the first time Kant gives an actual positive signification of what the Noumenon is. In the sixth and last section Kok considers his analysis of the Sublime as the positive articulation of the Noumenon to be a condition for the possibility of metaphysics as a whole, drawing an intimate relation between the objects of metaphysics (the free will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God) and the moral end of the human being, namely, to be autonomous. This section does not follow Kant’s doctrine of the postulates of practical reason but tries to give an original analysis of the objects of metaphysics, which goes beyond the philosophy of Kant. This analysis makes a much stronger connection than Kant did between the negative character of the moral obligation and the regulative (i.e. negative) character of transcendental knowledge. The chapter concludes with an outlook on a possible post-Kantian philosophy that strives for a more concise formulation of the nature of the Noumenon. In the fifth chapter Christian Krijnen draws attention to a problem concerning the architectonic of reason that has to be tackled if Kant’s philosophy of culture and history is to be relevant for contemporary philosophy. The problem is Kant’s division of philosophy in a ‘theoretical’ and a ‘practical’ direction of reason. The author discusses the problem of this division of philosophy, and its meaning for the philosophy of culture and history. For understanding the teleology in Kant’s philosophy of culture and history, Kant’s critique of teleological judgment, especially the doctrine on the final end (Endzwecklehre), is very important. This doctrine, however, plays a functional role within the overarching problem of Kant’s third critique, as exposed by Kant in the introduction to the CPJ. On top of this, what are known as Kant’s political writings, especially his Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht, are illuminating.



donald loose

The CPJ as a whole is about the unity of the two apparently separated legislations of nature and freedom: freedom has to be actualized in a world determined by natural laws. With regard to Kant’s concept of culture, it turns out that culture is the end of nature, hence man insofar as humans are capable of self-determination. Kant’s philosophy of culture deals with the aptitude of rational beings to determine themselves. Based on his philosophy of culture, Kant’s philosophy of history is a philosophical attempt to determine the universal history of mankind. Despite the fact that Kant in cultural philosophical perspective speaks of the ‘development of all dispositions of man’, he primarily conceptualizes human action as ‘practical’ and ‘moral’. His teleology of culture and history is conceived of within the tension between nature and freedom understood as practical and moral. This focus of freedom and teleology on the practical and moral is consequent, because it is indebted to Kant’s division of reason, and with that to his system of philosophy. Kant does not develop a concept of freedom that contains the manifoldness of concepts of freedom present in his own work, a concept of freedom being able to function as ground for the unity of all its specifications. Indeed, there is no systemic possibility to deal with ‘all dispositions of man’ in a truly compassing way. Kant’s distinction is not a complete opposition. Therefore, not whole founded and justified in itself, i.e. reason is brought about. Rather, an embracing ‘quasi-practical’ moment is presupposed, which qualifies itself as freedom beyond the opposition of the theoretical and the practical. In the contribution of Paul Cobben the various forms of Kant’s conception of the Power of Judgment in CPJ are compared with various forms of Hegel’s conception of the lord in the Phenomenology of Spirit. His thesis is that the lord is the representation of pure freedom which results from the experience of the fear of death. This background implies that the representation of the lord mediates between nature and freedom. On the one hand, it results from the experience of the superior power of nature, and, on the other hand, it represents pure freedom. The initial forms of the lord’s representation can be recovered in the religion of nature. The religion of nature, however is sublated into, respectively, the religion of the work of art, the revealed religion and absolute knowledge (philosophy). At this last level, the lord is most suitably represented as the absolute spirit. The religion of the work of art, the revealed religion and absolute knowledge, can be considered Hegel’s equivalents, respectively, of Kant’s conception of the beautiful, the mathematic sublime, and the dynamic sub-

introduction: the kantian sublime and its aftermath



lime. The main difference between Kant and Hegel appears to concern the social mediation between freedom and nature. Both assume the experience of the beautiful and the sublime. However, the lord presupposes a social mediation (cultural education), which for Hegel is only reflected in the object towards which the experience of the lord is performed, while according to Kant, the beautiful and the sublime can be experienced in relation to immediate objects of nature. In the first part the author shows that Hegel introduces his concept of the fear of death as a concept that mediates between what Hegel considers as Kant’s distinction between theoretical and practical reason. In this sense, the fear of death has the same status as Kant’s concept of the power of judgment. The argumentation is divided into four steps. Hegel’s reception of the Critique of Pure Reason in the Consciousness chapter of Phenomenology of Spirit focuses on the proposal that all theoretical knowledge is grounded in a ‘cogito’. In contrast to Descartes, however, this cogito is essentially related to a living organism. Secondly Hegel’s reception of the Critique of Practical Reason in the Self-Consciousness chapter of Phenomenology of Spirit explains how the unity of the cogito and the living organism should be understood as a social organism. In a third step the fear of death as mediation between theoretical and practical reason, the representation of the fear of death in the ‘lord’, and the analysis of the relation to the lord can be understood as an aesthetic judgment in the Kantian sense. The argument expands upon the manner in which the relation between cogito and social organism is mediated through the fear of death. This allows the social organism to be described with the help of the lord/bondsman metaphor. The bondsman stands for the individual who expresses his freedom in practice by serving the social organism. The lord is the representation of the individual’s pure freedom. Finally, the relevance of the lord for the aesthetic experience can be developed. The fourth section describes how the relation to the lord satisfies the criteria of the aesthetic experience of the beautiful in the Kantian sense. In the second part of his contribution, Cobben discusses the manner in which Hegel provides a systematic development of the various forms of the fear of death and their representation in the various forms of the ‘lord’. In addition, he sketches the manner in which this systematic development is related to a cultural development. In the Greek world, the lord is represented as a work of art. The aesthetic experience is sublated in the relations of religion and philosophy. These relations can be compared with the experience of the sublime in Kant.



donald loose

In his concluding remarks Cobben summarizes his analysis by stressing that in Hegel the superior power of nature is internalized as the fear of death. He understands this experience as the process in which all determined ties to nature are overcome, so that a free attitude to nature can be developed. In this sense, the fear of death is the presupposition of the free self. Through the fear of death, the free self can experience itself as the ‘lord’ of its body. The internal experience of being-lord-of-the-body is represented in an external ‘lord’. Therefore, this lord is the image of the free self. Hegel discusses the systematic and historic development of the ‘lord’ in the last chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit: Religion and Absolute Knowledge. Considering the supposed correspondence between the fear of death and the power of judgment, the development of the forms of the lord helps to illuminate the internal unity of the various forms of the power of judgment and their cultural presuppositions. With the contribution of Jacob Rogozinski, The Sublime Monster, the Kantian Sublime is investigated at its extreme limits. According to Kant, in its sublime phenomena, ‘Nature contains nothing of ungeheuer’ (CPJ § ). The ‘monstrous’—if this term is appropriate to translate ungeheuer—would never be sublime. It is this demarcation which the author questions. Could there be a Sublime Monster? This possibility is excluded by the Third Critique, but Kant will consider it a few years later. He will insist in the Anthropology on the connection between the sublimity and the beauty, which prevents the representations of the sublime from causing repulsion and terror: from becoming ungeheuer (§ ). This text so confers on beauty an eminent mission: to transfigure the monstrous into sublimity, to sublimate it. The sublime which would only be sublime, which would not blend with the beauty, always risks overturning into monstrosity. While most of the interpreters emphasize their discontinuity, the Anthropology would thus restore a continuity between the feeling of the beautiful and that of the sublime, but also between the sublime and the monstrous, so that their demarcation becomes almost undecidable. From the quantitative point of view, we can say that the same object can be considered sometimes sublime and sometimes monstrous, as the aim of the imagination goes just behind or just beyond the maximal limit of its comprehension. From the qualitative point of view, the ‘fast succession of attraction and aversion’, which characterizes the feeling of the sublime, would carry out an unstable synthesis between the pure pleasure of the beauty and the horror of the Ungeheuer. It is from the point of view of the finality that their demarcation seems the most well-grounded, because the monstrous character of a phenomenon is determined by its negative

introduction: the kantian sublime and its aftermath



relation to its finality or to its concept. Unlike the representations of the beautiful and the sublime, which are supposed to happen without any relation to a concept. However, by determining identically as ‘counterfinal’ the sublime (in the third Critique) and the monstrous (in the Anthropology), Kant seems again to bring together these two feelings. Would the monstrous be the most extreme mode of the sublime? Would it be possible to consider the Ungeheuer—which defines for Hölderlin the ‘presentation of the tragic’—as the preliminary phase of sublime catharsis? This introduces us to the sublime as the tragic. In the eighth chapter, The Tragical Sublime, Simon Critchley investigates the possible relation between the concept of the sublime and tragedy along two historical and philosophical axes. Firstly, in the context of Plato’s critique of tragedy for its excessive emotionality and Aristotle’s description of tragedy in terms of the feelings of pity and fear and the experience of catharsis, he considers the link between tragedy and the feeling of the sublime in Longinus (or, more properly, the Pseudo-Longinus). For Longinus, the feeling of the sublime tethers the potential of the human mind and imagination to the greatness of nature and the cosmos. What kind of accommodation can be made between tragedy and sublimity? Is tragedy sublime? The risk of tragedy for Longinus is that true sublimity can slip into mere bombast. There are good and bad manipulations of fear and other emotions in tragedy, they can be low, but can also cause a kind of sublime awe in the spectator. True heroism, for Longinus, strives courageously into zones beyond pity and fear. Secondly, and more importantly for his purposes, with the link having been made between tragedy and the sublime, the author turns to the linking of the tragic and sublimity in the early Schelling. Following Peter Szondi, he shows how the experience of the tragic turns on the experience of the struggle between freedom in the subject and necessity in the object. What interests Schelling, drawing specifically on Oedipus Tyrannos, is the situation where the tragic hero freely submits to necessity in the experience of fate. This situation is described on two key occasions by Schelling in his / lectures on the philosophy of art as ‘sublime’, namely for subjective freedom to ‘fight and fall’ in the struggle with objective necessity, i.e. nature. The stakes of this linking of freedom and necessity through the concept of the tragic could not be more important. If the experience of the aesthetic is what might allow for a possible reconciliation of the realms of nature and freedom in philosophy after Kant, then the tragic sublime is



donald loose

the highest exemplar of the aesthetic. The tragical sublime is the aesthetic completion of philosophy. Critchley concludes with some remarks on the comic as an alternative to and deepening of the tragic. In The Sublime and the Limits of Metaphysics Frans van Peperstraten introduces two representatives of recent French philosophy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-François Lyotard, who both paid special attention to the sublime, because they both suppose that precisely the experience of the sublime can be a point of departure for overcoming traditional philosophy (‘metaphysics’). Both authors agree that Kant still thought the sublime on the basis of the opposition of matter and form, which is one of the traditional oppositions of metaphysical thinking. In his attempt to overcome metaphysics, Lyotard points out that the sublime is rather to be understood as a presence that cannot be represented. Lacoue-Labarthe, for his part, is concerned that Lyotard’s interpretation of the sublime still belongs to the negative metaphysics of the modern era. According to Lacoue-Labarthe the key to a non-metaphysical understanding of the sublime can be found in Heidegger’s work, even if Heidegger ignored the term ‘sublime’. This means that the sublime is to be thought as the event of appearing, which precedes every appearance as such. In Heidegger’s view the fact that the work of art is demonstrates something extraordinary, namely the event through which truth happens. Lacoue-Labarthe concludes that the sublime is the presentation of the fact that there is presentation at all. This is an affirmative account of the sublime, contradicting the traditional negative account in which the sublime is understood as a presentation in which a failure or lack prevails. From here, Lacoue-Labarthe takes two steps more: first of all he integrates the sublime in his interpretation of mimesis in general, as conveying an ‘original supplementarity’, and secondly he connects the sublime—and mimesis—to Kant’s theory of genius as the origin of beautiful art. However, by comparing what Kant says about genius and his aesthetic ideas on the one hand, and about the sublime on the other hand, it is shown here that Lacoue-Labarthe’s proposition—that genius is the artist of the sublime—is untenable. Returning to Lyotard, van Peperstraten stresses that he keeps genius and the sublime apart. Drawing on Kant, Lyotard even distinguishes three types of aesthetics: the quiet contemplation of beauty, the wild production of beauty by genius, and the sublime. Lyotard agrees with Lacoue-Labarthe that the sublime is to be understood as an event, but for Lyotard the event coincides with matter—matter, not as the coun-

introduction: the kantian sublime and its aftermath



terpart of form, but as something preceding form. For Lyotard the sublime means that one’s sensibility is touched before imagination can even start trying to assemble the impressions of the senses into any order, for instance into a form. In Lyotard’s view there is indeed an—even twofold—negative aspect to the sublime: first of all, we feel matter without knowing what we feel, and secondly, matter is both the state of birth and the announcement of death in a representation. The question whether this approach of the sublime by Lyotard goes beyond metaphysics is hard to answer: it would suppose that metaphysics is something we can easily delimit, or in other words, that metaphysics is itself a matter which can be put into a form. In a final contribution Melville’s ‘Sublime Uneventfulness’ Toward a Phenomenology of the Sublime Ruud Welten offers a phenomenological analysis of the sublime. The sublime is something strange, beyond our imagination, uncanny even. The word is often used to describe a certain kind of experience, but what does it actually refer to? What are philosophers talking about, when they talk about the sublime? At the very least, it is a philosophical concept that plays an important role in Kant’s Third Critique. But does it refer to anything outside this conceptual context? If it refers to nothing but a philosophical discourse, than it is an artificial term without reality. The article elaborates in a new refreshing way on these questions in two approaches. First, it elucidates the idea of the oceanic experience, as described by among others Herman Melville (Moby Dick) and Sigmund Freud as an example of a sublime experience. Secondly, it develops a phenomenological understanding of the sublime. Since the purpose is to describe the sublime as an experience, it makes sense to develop a phenomenology of the sublime. Attempting to sketch the oceanic experience from a classic (Husserlian) phenomenological viewpoint, we are immediately confronted with some fundamental problems. Are these problems inherent to classic phenomenology itself, or are they inherent to the topic of the sublime? Focusing on the matter of a phenomenology of the oceanic experience, we are faced with the impossibility to understand the state of mind we call experiencing the sublime as a consciousness of something. The article makes use of the ideas of Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry in order to describe a phenomenology of the sublime.

THE GENUINE SUBLIME: KANT ON THE SUBLIMITY OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Herman van Erp Treatises on beauty and sublimity are popular in the second half of the eighteenth century. In his Critique of Judgment () Kant calls Burke one of the most important authors on the subject. Burke’s book was published in .1 Already in , Kant wrote his first essay on beauty and sublimity, which he characterized as more descriptive than philosophical.2 Whether he had read Burke at that time is not clear. In older French and German literature the words sublime and erhaben are used mainly in the sense of noble and elevated. Since Burke, sublimity has been connected particularly with vehement emotions and fascination for terrifying things. Kant’s early essay determines the difference between the sublime and the merely beautiful by the fact that the first one brings the emotions in commotion while the other is charming. Sublimity is connected with masculine, beauty with feminine properties. Kant discerns three types of sublimity: the terrifying sublime, the noble, and the splendid. He offers many examples of things with a sublime character. Morality contains a lot of beautiful qualities but, within the moral domain, only true virtue, i.e. acting out of moral principles, is called sublime, notably in the sense of noble. While Homer’s heroes are sublime in the sense of terrifying sublimity the heroes of Virgil are noble and ask for moral admiration.3 Twenty-five years later, Kant resumes the theme thoroughly in the first part of his Critique of Judgment.4 Here, not description but transcendental analysis and legitimation of aesthetic judgments is the aim of the work. Aesthetic judgments of beauty and sublimity appear to have their own a priori properties and as such they have a special place within the whole of human cognitive capacities. This place must be explained and legitimated. 1

Edmund Burke, . Immanuel Kant, , pp. –. 3 Immanuel Kant, , pp. –. 4 The Kritik der Urtheilskraft is published in Akademie Ausgabe Bd. V. Within my text I will refer to it by ‘V’, followed by a page number. (I took English translations from http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/Ktexts.html). 2



herman van erp . Kant’s Critique of Judgment: In the Playground between the Two Realms of Nature and Freedom

The idea that we, as moral beings, are not subjected to nature, the idea that, acting in conformity with our reason and freedom, we have to obey other laws than the laws of nature—laws of which the necessity has the character of duty instead of causal enforcement—and that we have, therefore, another destination than can be determined by nature, belongs to the most central and fundamental insights of Kantian philosophy. We must call this a practical, not theoretical insight. The moral vocation of humanity and the consciousness that persons must be willing to act freely out of duty elevate human beings above nature as it appears to our experience and imagination and as it can be understood theoretically. Many authors hold the view that Kant’s moral perspective was an impediment to the development of an adequate aesthetic theory of sublimity in art.5 My interest in the criticisms of the Kantian approach is not only cultural-philosophical but fostered by the question of validity. I do not have the presumption to ground any claim that Kant’s theory of the sublime is the best or that it is indispensable particularly for our understanding of art. But to do justice to the Kantian approach it is important to recognize first that a theory of art was not Kant’s main purpose and second that he makes a distinction between a more common use of the term sublime and what he calls the genuine sublime. What sublimity means is not merely a question of stipulative definitions. Sublimity is an evocative and evaluative notion and it is certainly a philosophical task to investigate the validity of the values which play a role behind the often obscure connotations we have with the vague notion of the sublime. I shall try to clear up the philosophical presumption of Kant’s theory of the sublime and its consistency with his philosophy as a whole. The Kantian analysis of the sublime may not be rejected because its moral bias is not appreciated or considered out of date. I think that, in its normative character, it offers a perspective that is indispensable for an unprejudiced approach of the question what genuinely deserves to be qualified as sublime.

5 Schopenhauer places the sublime in the tragic of the will and refuses—like Nietzsche later on—the moral perspective. Herder rejects the opposition between sublimity and beauty and defines the sublime as the highest beauty. Recently, Crowther’s judgment, after serious research, is still that Kant’s ‘Critical ethics are such that he does not succeed in establishing the credentials of sublimity’ (Paul Crowther, , pp. , ,  ff.).

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



The Kantian view of sublimity in nature is not detached from what can be called, with a term of Max Weber, the disenchantment of nature and the place of human beings within it. According to Kant, natural or savage men live in an unfree state of fear and superstition, in which the power of nature appears threatening and overwhelming to such an extent that any experience of its sublimity is impossible. From a culturalphilosophical point of view, two causes of this absence can be given. First, savage men have, through the lack of technical capabilities, little power over their surroundings and, second, the feeling of sublimity presupposes a high degree of refinement of the inner life, which cannot be expected in uncivilized men. Technical and cultural development are the empirical conditions for any experience of the sublime. But the transcendental condition of this experience is the a priori structure of human consciousness and the way in which sensibility, concepts, and rational ideas are connected. Awareness of these connections awakes primarily in the moral feelings that are, according to Kant, present and common in all human beings. Without moral feelings the observation of the overwhelming power of nature only can be the cause of fear. Technical capabilities presuppose theoretical knowledge of causal natural relations, which is a synthesis of categories of the understanding and sensible intuition and only possible in the form of empirically based knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is confined to a concept of nature that is connected with the sensuous elements of our imagination. We only can form an objective theoretical concept of ourselves insofar as we are a part of nature and are determined by nature in the way we understand it in the light of that kind of knowledge. But, our moral consciousness elevates us above this representation of nature. This view of the relationship between ourselves and nature is characterized by Hegel as the moral worldview (moralische Weltanschauug).6 Characteristic of the moral worldview is that it sees human personality, with its moral vocation, and nature as two independent and subsistent realms of reality which are determined by their own specific laws. The implication of this is, for Hegel, that not only human freedom is postulated in opposition to nature, but also that nature, as the object of knowledge, has become ‘free’, i.e. liberated from moral considerations.7 Kant himself would not have been happy with this terminology of 6

G.W.F. Hegel, , pp. –. G.W.F. Hegel, , p. : je freier das Selbstbewusstsein wird, desto freier auch der negative Gegenstand seines Bewusstseins. Er ist hierdurch [. . .] eine Natur überhaupt, 7



herman van erp

liberation of nature; for him, nature is the subject of a restricted realm determined by causal laws and as such understandable for our theoretical reason. Theoretical knowledge is itself confined to this realm. Instead of liberation he speaks of restriction, confinement, and limitation. But this limitation does not concern nature in itself, which is a supersensible or noumenal idea, but concerns the way and scope within which understanding can claim to have knowledge of nature. Nature as the object of valid or scientific knowledge is not ‘nature in itself ’ in the way traditional and pre-critical metaphysics thought to know it, but a representation of nature that is detached (and in this sense ‘liberated’) from supersensible determinations; it is the merely phenomenal nature (natura phenomenon instead of natura noumenon) or nature as the whole set of objects of possible experience. To remain within the terminology of Kant, it is preferable to say that not nature itself but its scientific concept has, by critical reason, been liberated from religiously, morally, and metaphysically biased representations. The result of this scientific liberation is the conception of a nature which is wholly in accordance with the schemes formed on the bases of syntheses between the logical categories and the formal representations of time and space. This is the realm determined by the laws of natural causality. The realm of morality and freedom is subjected to other laws, the necessity of which has the character of obligation. These laws do not express necessity of relations between factual events but express what ought to be done. Of course it is possible to perform research concerning the ways natural, cultural and psychological factors are relevant for the development of moral ideas and human behaviour. For this goal we can use not only causal laws but also representations of nature as an organic whole, within which functional and teleological relationships may play an important role. But it is not possible to deduce criteria for judging the validity of moral feelings and ideas from those observations. Judgments concerning what is morally right and/or good are ideal entities and not determined by the psychological and cultural conditions within which they become real and function within human consciousness. Kantian philosophy prohibits reducing morality to a mere subject of empirical science.8 The moral will is totally different from a natural reaction of the mind or emotions in response to external events and inner deren Gesetze wie ihr Tun ihr selbst angehören, als einem Wesen, das unbekümmert um das moralische Selbstbewusstsein ist, wie dieses um sie. 8 Monique Castillo, , p. .

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



impulses, or to what can be considered as either beneficial or harmful for us or others. Moral will is not the outcome of a causal process. It consists in the consciousness that we ought to and are able to determine the rightness of our actions on the basis of universal reasonable principles, independently from what we are naturally inclined to, and in the will to make this consciousness more and more purely the highest principle of our moral judgments and the only motive of our actions. Thus, moral inclination is the effect of a purely intellectual judgment as an act of reason, the causality of which cannot be understood in a temporal scheme. In contemporary literature, there exists a tendency to label the Kantian perspective, in which the human person is considered as a unique being elevated above all other creatures, as a misplaced sense of superiority said to be a characteristic of modern western anthropocentrism.9 This is a misunderstanding. For Kant, the elevation of humanity above nature does not exist in mastering and controlling the environment through instrumental rationality. On the one hand, the claim of moral autonomy cannot be understood as a merely social-cultural aspect of the ‘disenchantment of the world’ as pictured by Max Weber. On the other, it cannot be considered a moral goal to offer a counterbalance to that so called anthropocentric worldview by embracing a kind of romantic holistic concept of nature pretending to know nature in its own essence and value. Kant’s sharp distinction between the realm of nature and the realm of moral autonomy does not imply that he was not interested in the wide field of representations in which feeling, imagination, and concepts enter into connections with each other in some kind of free play.10 As a philosopher, he is particularly interested in principles on the basis of which such connections can be judged as significant even if they do not result in genuine knowledge concerning the sensible or supersensible realms. Finality in different senses is the leading principle here. Teleological judgments concern purposes in nature and history. Beauty and sublimity are 9 An extreme example: “Bonnie Mann, in an important critique of the Kantian sublime, argues that what Kant in fact depicted as a universal, objectively valid aesthetics was instead the expression of a project ‘of Euro-masculine self-constitution’, one that helped to generate and legitimate that durable ontological fiction of the disembodied, rational, self-controlled male subject” (quoted from: John Sambonmatsu, , pp. – ). 10 ‘realm’ (Gebiet) and ‘field’ (Feld) are expressions used by Kant himself. Concepts are related to a field; only the part of a field which may become the object of knowledge and laws is called a realm. (V, ).



herman van erp

the place for a kind of subjective finality. Like many thinkers after him, Friedrich Schiller admired Kant’s CPJ and saw in it a way to overcome the dualism between nature and reason but he criticized the Kantian concepts of duty and moral law as lacking any grace and beauty. In section  I will defend the Kantian standpoint in opposition to Schiller’s. . The Sublime. First Impressions: Burke, Kant and Schiller The word sublime is often used in a very broad sense, even for things of extreme refinement or which count as beautiful or pleasant in a very high degree. This is not the meaning of the word sublime within Burke’s and Kant’s tradition, except for the fact that they, too, connect the sublime with the experience of something extremely impressive. The sublime causes violent and ambivalent emotions in us, in which pain and delight go closely together: the sublime is simultaneously terrible and respectable; it causes astonishment in the sense of fear and wonder. Those aspects of the sublime are described by Burke in detailed and pregnant observations and play also an important role in Kant’s Analytik des Erhabenen, a section of the CPJ. Burke’s influence on Kant is clear enough, but there are some important differences that I want to put forward in advance. With all due respect for Burke, Kant notices that his explanations of the sublime only refer to physiological-psychological causes. Kant himself offers a transcendental explication explaining the a priori structure from which judgments of sublimity take their normative character (V, , –). The different approach leads also to different objects that are considered as sublime. For Burke, the wild and threatening ocean is an excellent example of sublimity, but Kant opposes: . . . the sublime, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be contained in any sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason, which, although no adequate presentation of them is possible, may be excited and called into the mind by that very inadequacy itself which does admit of sensuous presentation. Thus the broad ocean agitated by storms cannot be called sublime. Its aspect is horrible . . . 11 (V, )

11 ‘. . . das eigentliche Erhabene kann in keiner sinnlichen Form enthalten sein, sondern trifft nur Ideen der Vernunft [. . .] So kann der weite, durch Stürme empörte Ocean nicht erhaben genannt werden. Sein Anblick ist gräßlich [. . .]’ Cf. also: ‘. . . dass das Erhabene der Natur nur uneigentlich so genannt werde und eigentlich bloß der

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



In the passages where Kant, nevertheless, refers to the wild ocean as an example of the sublime, he apparently uses the qualification of sublimity in what is for him a less stringent manner. The distinction made by him between the genuinely sublime and objects that are inappropriately called sublime in a common but less strict sense is substantiated by transcendental arguments and does not depend on empirical knowledge concerning semantics or the vehemence of emotions. The difference between what is called genuinely sublime and other things called sublime is a fundamental one and not only a matter of degree. Only in regard of the latter can we speak of gradations of sublimity. Another difference is that the distinction between the mathematical and the dynamic sublime is not present in Burke’s exposition. The mathematical sublime is connected with ideas of infinity and totality. In Burke’s analyses, infinity plays a minor role and is understood, in a rather naïve way, as indetermination and lack of limits. Burke’s examples of sublimity are mostly specimens of the dynamic sublime because of the emphasis on threat and fear. In what follows, I shall also refer mainly to the dynamic sublime because it is to a greater extent than the mathematical sublime directly connected with morality. Burke distinguishes different degrees of sublimity: ‘Astonishment [ . . . ] is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are awe, admiration, reverence, and respect.’ (Part II, section I, and Part IV, section VII). Those are passions or emotions of a rather positive quality. But, Burke’s characterization of the sublime is dominated by the idea that sublimity is a quality of things—and particularly of nature—insofar as they are awful and cause fear: ‘Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling’ (Part I, section VII). ‘Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime’ (Part I, section II). Even great power is not sublime if it is not accompanied by threat: ‘wheresoever we find strength, and in what light sever we look upon power, we shall all along observe the sublime the concomitant of terror, and contempt the Denkungsart, oder vielmehr der Grundlage zu derselben in der menschlichen Natur beigelegt werden müsse’ (V, ) and ‘. . . daß die wahre Erhabenheit nur im Gemüthe des Urtheilenden, nicht in dem Naturobjecte, dessen Beurtheilung diese Stimmung desselben veranlaßt, müsse gesucht werden’ (V, ).



herman van erp

attendant on a strength that is subservient and innoxious’ (Part II, section V). But the feeling of the sublime is also always accompanied by some feeling of delight. The emotions incited by the sublime ‘are delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger, without being actually in such circumstances; this delight I have not called pleasure, because it turns on pain, and because it is different enough from any idea of positive pleasure. Whatever excites this delight, I call sublime’ (Part I, section XVIII). To incite fear the sublime must be connected, according to Burke, with obscurity and uncertainty as the passions do not agree with clearness and insight. ‘To see a thing distinctly is to see its bounds, and cut it off from infinity’. That is one of the reasons why he considers poetry a better instrument to inspire feelings of the sublime than the art of painting (Part II, section IV).12 The images of poetry are always obscure. Darkness in particular is a source of the sublime where it is connected with fear, mystery, and superstition (Part IV, section XIV). Thus, representations of hell and the awesome nearness of God’s terrible majesty can inspire equally to religious horror and be called sublime on their own account. Speaking about Virgil, Burke says: ‘he knows that all the images of a tremendous dignity ought to be united at the mouth of hell’ (Part II, section VI). Here we find an important difference with Kant. The representation of heaven and hell are called sublime by Kant, too. But where he calls them so, he refers to a representation in which they are strictly separated and in which the sharp division between light and darkness does not permit any smooth transition. That representation is called sublime only because the clear and distinct idea of the difference between a morally good and morally bad way of life is symbolized in the (Christian) antithesis of heaven and hell.13 Dark sides of human life have always been a fascinating subject for art and literature. Even the most immoral examples of dark practices have captivating sides. According to Schiller, the representation of terrible and awesome events must have the function of strengthening our moral feelings and consciousness to resist brutal inclinations: ‘We are aided by the pathetic spectacle of mankind wrestling with fate, the irresistible elusiveness of happiness, confidence betrayed, unrighteousness triumphant and innocence laid low; of these history supplies ample instances, and

12 In Das Ende aller Dinge Kant, too, calls eternity furchtbar-erhaben because of its darkness, (AA VIII, p. ). 13 Immanuel Kant, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. VI, p. n.

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



tragic art imitates them before our eyes’.14 This idea is further developed by Schiller in the essay Über das Pathetische (), where already at the beginning he asserts that for art the portrayal of suffering is an instrument for its goal to represent the supersensible, which exists in the moral independence of natural laws: ‘The sensuous being must be profoundly and strongly affected, passion must be in play, that the reasonable being may be able to testify his independence and manifest himself in action’.15 The characterization of the sublime with an emphasis on strong emotion was particularly influential within the following Romantic area. The Romantic mind was inspired by representations of an overwhelming, threatening, and mysterious nature as the counterpart of cool and realistic rationalism and as the symbol of a soul moved and tormented by vehement emotions, but therefore elevated. The artist became the one who was pre-eminently capable of portraying the sublime. Thus, in Romanticism, it was art itself which became more and more the entity in which sublimity got its shape. According to Shaw, ‘Romantic poetry seeks to bring the supersensible back into the realm of sensuous representation. Poetry, on this view, will enable us to comprehend the sublime.’16 Schiller had already developed the idea that the artist’s mind mirrors the sublime. Great art and sublimity become narrowly connected. A step further is the idea that sublimity is just the creation of art in its capacity to portray the most horrible and what can hardly be seen in a form open to sensuous intuition. Then, the aesthetics of the sublime have been totally detached from any moral interest. In the next section, I will emphasize the Kantian approach of the sublime in contrast with the Romantic representation of sublimity in nature and art. . Art and Nature are not the Genuine Subjects of Sublimity Kant’s exposition of the sublime is elaborated only in regard of sublimity in nature. In the analysis of beauty, or judgments of taste, beauty in art is the preferred object before natural beauty, but in matters of sublimity the relationship between art and nature is the reverse. Since beauty in nature presupposes a kind of finality and harmony, judgments about natural

14 15 16

Friedrich Schiller, a. Friedrich Schiller, b. Philip Shaw, , p. .



herman van erp

beauty are based on an analogy with art: they enlarge our concept of nature to a representation of it as an object of art; nature appears as the product of an artist (V, ). Nature is beautiful if at the same time it looks like art (V, ). But, according to Kant, sublimity in art is always dependent on the way art is in accordance with nature in that sense. Abaci argues—rightly, I think—that, ‘although there may be various senses in which sublimity can be attributed to works of art, none of these attributions can be understood as genuine instances of a judgment of sublimity’.17 But I do not think this is because there is ‘a notion only of natural sublimity in Kant’s mind’, since according to Kant even nature is not sublime in the genuine sense. Abaci is right insofar as we restrict judgments of sublimity to purely aesthetical judgments. The sublimity of the moral will is not the object of a purely aesthetic but of an intellectual judgment. Art has a sublime character if it represents nature in its chaotic and destroying power. Therefore, Kant calls products of art sublime merely in analogy to the sublimity of a nature which overwhelms us through its wildness. The picture of sublime and noble things, therefore, must emphatically not be of an artificial style or be dominated by fine and beautiful forms (V, ). The shape and proportions of works of art are determined by human goals; they may exceed normal proportions and appear colossal, overwhelming and magnificent like the pyramids or St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. But, exceeding the proportions is connected with the thought of functions, ends, and expectations. As a purely aesthetic judgment, the sublime must not be contaminated with any teleological judgment or representation of an end. Calling animals, forests, mountains, the desert or the ocean colossal is mostly done in comparison with not very well defined expectations or with our climbing or navigating capabilities. Those judgments are not purely aesthetic. Thus, we must look for the sublime in the wild nature, be it that ‘even there, only insofar it does not have any charm and does not disturb us through real danger’ (V, ).18 The sublime, thought of as an object, is what exceeds all imaginative power and also science fiction. The idea of an infinitely big universe 17

Uygar Abaci, , p. . This is also a basic element in Schiller’s conception of sublime art in the essays quoted above. The artist presents the sublime to the imagination through the contrast between the savage and untamed nature (including the human passions) and the harmony of the ‘schöne Seele’. Wild nature can please us only because, in the artistic representation, we are not its direct victims. 18

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



with inhabited or habitable worlds may be overawing but is based on teleological representations and, therefore, not the subject of a purely aesthetic judgment (V, ). Even the representations of nature as a whole system and of a limitlessly expanding universe are not sublime for Kant. Those are representations we make with our understanding in analogy to an organic whole or by expanding a spatial representation in the way we can continue a series of numbers infinitely. The additive process of the imagination in running through a series of partial representations of a given manifold of intuition is not enough for causing in us a feeling of the sublime. A feeling of sublimity is evoked only if we regard this possible infinity of objects of intuition simultaneously, by our reason, as a closed totality which we try to represent as a unity sensuously given to our intuition. This totality, however, can only exist in thought; it is ‘an intellectual comprehension for which all aesthetical comprehension is small’ (V, ). The comparison between the intellectual idea and the absolute deficiency of the aesthetic imagination to grasp it produces the displeasure and tension inherent in the feeling of the sublime. Nevertheless, the experience of this deficiency is also accompanied by a feeling of delight; it is a mixture of feelings or, better, a complex feeling comparable with the feeling of respect. The experience of some kind of respect accompanied with the feeling of a deficiency is only possible because we are vaguely aware that the ideas of reason are of a totally different order than our perceptions of nature and the concepts we can have of it. The genuine object of respect is not nature but reason, the supersensible faculty which evokes in us the idea of the infinite as a totality. The sublimity of the feeling we experience is transferred to the object of our perception (V, ). We borrow the respect for the sublime from the respect we owe to the reasonable person that we are ourselves and transfer it to a natural object. Since we address our respect, in feeling the sublime, to nature and not to the proper object, which is the law or principle of reason, Kant speaks here of a ‘Subreption’ or confusion (V, ). . The Sublime and the Supersensible Thus, the fact that Kant, in characterizing the sublime, gives priority to nature does not imply that natural phenomena or nature as a whole must be considered as genuine subjects of sublimity. The sublime is not in the natural object but in the attitude of the mind which is evoked by



herman van erp

the representation of it (V, , , –). In the beauty and the sublime of nature (but also in teleological judgments) our imagination goes, under the direction of reflective judgment, further than nature as the object of possible theoretical knowledge. This ‘further’ evokes the thought of a natura noumenon, the supersensible substrate of natural appearances. It seems as if the sublime in nature gives us an entrance into nature in itself, into the noumenal entity behind the phenomenal reality. This belief can be a source of superstition and magic because the objective reality of supersensible ideas is in another realm than nature and can be validated only in the experience of ourselves as moral beings who are subjected to the law of morality. In regard of the supersensible substrate Kant says that it stays conceptually undetermined in matters of beauty as well as sublimity, but also that it is determinable through our intellectual power (V, ). The latter remark means that the idea of a natural organism behind the natural appearances has a worthwhile meaning for our reason: the representation of nature is, so to speak, through a transgression of our schematic concepts made adaptable for a way of use that does not lead to objective knowledge but is merely of significance for us as rational beings. That is the subjective finality, which is characteristic for beauty as well as natural sublimity. In beauty the transgression consists in a kind of contemplative liberation from the causal laws of nature, in a ‘disinterested’ play with forms, free of obligations. Beauty causes in us a feeling of harmony between nature and all our mental capacities while the sublime confronts us with the infinite distance between supersensible ideas and sensible reality. A famous sentence at the end of the Critique of Practical Reason says that two things have captured the human mind with an always new and increasing admiration and awe: the star-spangled sky above us and the moral law within us.19 After what has been said above, it is clear that, when the admiration of the sky with its systems of stars fills us with a feeling of sublimity, this is not a judgment of taste about the beauty of it. It is the aesthetic experience of being overwhelmed by the awareness of the abyss between our capacity to form an image of the infinity of the cosmos, which remains an additive process of the imagination, and the absolutely great, which is a rational idea transcending all sensuous representation and concepts of the understanding (V, ). Only the ideas

19

Immanuel Kant, Akademie Ausgabe V, p. .

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



of reason are great in themselves in an absolute sense, but these ideas are purely intellectual, not aesthetic, because they contain a concept for which no sensual intuition or imagination can ever be adequate. Intellectual ideas must not be confused with what is called by Kant aesthetic ideas. The former have a negative relationship to the imagination and cause displeasure, while the latter are a qualification of representations of artistic genius so rich in connotations that we cannot grasp their meaning in a concept (V, ). Thus, aesthetic ideas are more connected with beauty and cause pleasure in giving ample room to our imagination. An aesthetic judgment of sublimity is given when the reflecting judgment, confronted with the representation of objects that are great (mathematical sublime) or mighty (dynamical sublime), evokes ideas of reason in comparison with which these objects are small. When we feel that the imagination fails to represent the absolute greatness and power, judgment has compared these with the supersensible ideas of theoretical or practical reason. ‘Kant’s sublime reveals either our cognitive capacity to think what is greater than any magnitude in nature or our moral capacity to resist all powers of nature’.20 Thus, the aesthetic judgment consists in the fact that the mind makes a comparison or conjunction between the admiration or astonishment for a sensible object and an intellectual idea that is great or mighty in an absolute sense and makes the mind feel its strength. The complex and ambivalent attitude of the mind evoked by this movement is the genuine sublime in the aesthetic sense. Sublime in general is what is great in itself, without qualification or without comparison with other things or without being measured by a specific magnitude. The distinction between the genuinely sublime and the sublime in the broader, common sense is based on the difference between the idea of absolute greatness and representations of things that are called great in themselves. The latter we call great without qualification; we do not refer to an external measure, but nevertheless, there is an undetermined measure playing a role in the background: something is great in relation to what is normal or what can be observed in a single perception. In that way we speak of the greatness of a lot of things: architecture, animals, virtue, and even beauty (V, ). Thus, extreme beauty, magnificence, nobility, and majesty are examples of a kind of improper sublimity, and artistic genius, too, can create sublime objects and may be called sublime itself, but always in this improper sense.21 20 21

Uygar Abaci, , p. . Abaci’s article gives good arguments why art cannot be purely sublime in the



herman van erp . Sublimity: Negative Pleasure Caused by a Supersensible Idea

Burke characterizes the delight accompanying the feeling of sublimity mainly negatively: it is the transition from fear and displeasure to a feeling of relief, knowing that we are safe. It seems that Kant brings more positive qualities to the fore by emphasizing the resemblance between the feeling of sublimity and the feeling of respect for the moral law (V, , ). But, respect for the law or for other persons is also accompanied by less or more negative feelings of submission and humility. The pleasure in the feeling of the sublime is especially negative since it deprives the imagination of the freedom it enjoys in the judgment of taste and subjects it to a law that is not its own. In a judgment of taste (concerning beauty), the imagination plays, as it were, with sensuous representations and is free in its own field or element. The sublime, however, is a very serious matter for the imagination insofar as reason imposes on it the task to transcend the borders of the sensible and to represent something that cannot be represented at all (V, , ). As an attitude of the mind, sublimity has both intellectual and sensuous aspects. The sensuous aspect, or feeling, is characterized by Kant as a negative pleasure, a feeling of smallness, which is not threatening but purposeful in regard of what reason demands. Therefore, Kant typifies the purposiveness of this negative feeling as a kind of subjective finality. The negative aspect of the aesthetic judgment does not consist only in the fact that we become aware that all empirical reality, including us and nature as a whole, is small compared with the absolutely great, since that may be also a purely intellectual judgment. The negative feeling is the effect of the demand of reason to transcend sensuous perception and the conceptual schemes of the understanding. The demand evokes resistance because the imagination loses its grip on its own sensuous field on the one hand and fails to fulfill the demand of reason on the other. The aesthetic judgment of sublimity does not involve a definite object or its concept, but the subjective play of the mental powers, which also shows, even in the contrast between imagination and reason, some purposiveness occasioning pleasure. Through this purposiveness there is a kind of harmony in the feeling of sublimity notwithstanding all contrast and disturbance (V, ). Thus, there is also congeniality between the judgments of taste and sublimity. The feeling of the sublime, however, is Kantian way. Two important arguments are that art is always connected with intentions and that even the representation of the sublime in art must be beautiful.

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



inspired by the discrepancy between the power of the imagination and the demands of reason addressing either our cognitive capacity or our faculty of desire. But the awareness of these demands must remain vague and undetermined, otherwise they would result in intellectual reasoning or moral judgments. In purely aesthetic judgments we are not clearly aware of the distinction between the genuine and the inappropriate kinds of sublimity. . Respect for the Moral Law and Awe for the Sublime Awe for the sublime is a complex mixture of negative and positive feelings caused by a movement of the mind between not clearly determined representations of greatness and power on the one hand and of inability and smallness on the other. These feelings are purely aesthetic—even if their deeper cause is some awareness of our moral vocation—in so far as we do not connect them with moral imperatives or a notion of goodness. The moral feeling of respect for the law is the effect of practical moral knowledge. It is a feeling concerning a specific and determined concept and not an aesthetic judgment concerning the subjective finality of our mental capacities. Therefore, this feeling of respect is called an intellectual feeling. It is intellectual in respect of its object but as a feeling it is, of course, still an aesthetic phenomenon. Thus, the feeling of respect is even more complex than awe for the sublime and cannot be called purely aesthetic. Comparing our feelings of sublimity with the moral feeling of respect for the law, Kant mostly refers to points of similarity. Moral ideas are the hidden source of the sublime and even themselves sublime, but we must not identify them. Kant uses only one word for respect and awe: Achtung. I am more interested, here, in points of difference and will use different words: is respect for the law the same kind of feeling as the awe for what is judged to be sublime? According to Kant, the only object of Achtung (respect) is the moral law. All respect for a person is in essence respect for the law which moral persons give themselves autonomously. And all moral interest consists in nothing else than in respect for the law.22 Therefore, the adequate translation of Achtung within these contexts is respect or reverence. In the Crique of Practical Reason, Kant said: 22

Immanuel Kant, Akademie Ausgabe IV, pp. n, , .



herman van erp Respect applies always to persons only—not to things. The latter may arouse inclination, and if they are animals (e.g., horses, dogs, etc.), even love or fear, like the sea, a volcano, a beast of prey; but never respect. Something that comes nearer to this feeling is admiration, and this, as an affection, astonishment, can apply to things also, e.g., lofty mountains, the magnitude, number, and distance of the heavenly bodies, the strength and swiftness of many animals, etc. But all this is not respect.23

Within the context of the sublime, Kant himself seems less stringent in using the word Achtung. For example, the pleasure we feel for the sublime contains a feeling of Bewunderung oder Achtung (V, ); we always connect a kind of Achtung with the representation of something that is great in itself (V, ); power over nature causes Achtung in us (V, ); because of nature’s immeasurableness we look at it with Achtung (V, ). But we saw that Kant would say that the use of the word Achtung in such cases is due to a kind of ‘Subreption’. In those cases it may be better to translate it by the word awe. Therefore, I prefer to say that the pleasure connected with the sublime is a kind of awe for mere greatness and power. The proper object of respect is the power of reason within us. The fact that reason is also the cause of the feeling of sublimity remains hidden for this feeling since it does not come to clear conceptual judgments (V, , ). Here it is a good place to ask why especially the moral ideas of practical reason are the (hidden) cause of the feeling of sublimity. The relationship between morality and sublimity seems more plausible for the dynamic than for the mathematical sublime. But Kant does not answer the question explicitly. First he says that he will postpone the answer until the deduction of the aesthetic judgments (V, ). But arrived at that point, he states that the deduction of the judgment of the sublime, i.e. the legitimation of the claim of its validity, is already implicated in the exposition of this kind of judgment (V, ). Only for the judgment of taste a deduction is needed; in regard of a deduction of the sublimity of nature, Kant even asserts that it should not be given because it is not a subject of genuine sublimity (V, ). 23 Immanuel Kant, Akademie Ausgabe V, p. : ‘Achtung geht jederzeit nur auf Personen, niemals auf Sachen. Die letztere können Neigung und, wenn es Thiere sind (z. B. Pferde, Hunde etc.), sogar Liebe, oder auch Furcht, wie das Meer, ein Vulcan, ein Raubthier, niemals aber Achtung in uns erwecken. Etwas, was diesem Gefühl schon näher tritt, ist Bewunderung, und diese als Affect, das Erstaunen, kann auch auf Sachen gehen, z. B. himmelhohe Berge, die Größe, Menge und Weite der Weltkörper, die Stärke und Geschwindigkeit mancher Thiere u. s. w. Aber alles dieses ist nicht Achtung.’

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



I think that Kant’s hidden argumentation is as follows. It is only thanks to his or her moral consciousness that the human person has the right to consider himself or herself elevated above nature. Thus, the validity of the judgment concerning man’s greatness as a rational being is based upon a moral insight; it must not and cannot be legitimated or proved in another way. In the same way as our autonomy and freedom to act cannot be proved but are established as Factum der Vernunft in the categorical imperative, it is impossible to give a deduction of the genuine sublimity the moral person feels, which elevates him or her above the power of nature. The feeling of this sublimity can only be legitimated insofar as we can understand it as an expression or awareness of that Factum. So, Kant’s assertion that this moral awareness is the only genuine subject of sublimity is not based on psychological or semantic analysis but on a practical moral insight. Therefore, the sublimity of moral feelings is for Kant not a matter of harmony between (human or other) nature and moral law, which would give them a kind of beauty. There is a distance and discrepancy between morality and nature; nature understood in a broad sense as including our predilection for following the natural inclinations of desire and fear. That distance is the most important reason why our moral feeling or respect for the law looks like the feeling of sublimity. But this resemblance does not mean that purely aesthetic feelings bridge the gap between nature and morality since, according to Kant, feelings as such cannot be a drive for moral action. The moral law demands a form of respect which is without any ambiguity occasioned by the law itself and should not be in any sense the result of fear or trembling, nor of admiration or other aesthetic forms of awe. Particularly, the moral law demands an intellectual feeling of respect which is different from enthusiasm, fanaticism, and hero-worship (V, –). In the moral feeling it is clear what the object of respect has to be and that this object (the moral law) does not borrow its sublimity from anything else than itself. Respect for the law is the direct effect of the supersensible causality of reason and so it has a purely intellectual source. Religious and other feelings may be connected with it but must be clearly distinguished from the unambiguous moral feeling, otherwise the door is opened for imagination and fanaticism, through which the worth of the moral feeling is nullified.24

24

Immanuel Kant, Akademie Ausgabe VI, pp. , .



herman van erp

Moral respect is not a purely aesthetic judgment since it is a priori connected with a concept of the good and the intellectual interest to realize it. Respect for the law is accompanied by a kind of intellectual pleasure and desire which is characteristic of the positive way in which the idea of the good determines our faculty of desire. Aesthetically, this delight has nevertheless a negative character in relation to the senses. The fact that, aesthetically, the moral good is accompanied by a negative delight is for Kant an important reason why it must be judged as sublime rather than as beautiful; the sublime is a negative but better representation of morality than the beautiful (V, ). The negative aspect not only consists in the aesthetic judgment concerning an empirical experience. A normative consideration plays a role in it: we ought to fulfill our duty regardless of our inclinations and often even against them. According to Kant, it is only the unconditional ‘you ought’, which gives objective reality or validity to the ideas of reason and preserves us from Schwärmerei and the pretention to have theoretical knowledge of the supersensible. Thus, the awareness of the power of the moral law, which elevates us above nature, is the genuine sublime. But this feeling of sublimity must not be the motive for our will to act morally. In such a contamination of morality and aesthetics both lose their pure character. That would not be a problem for the aesthetic judgment since there is no necessity why we should restrict our awe for sublimity to purely aesthetic judgments. But our moral attitude is easily corrupted by such a mixture of feelings. The moral law is sublime since it obliges totally on itself. The thesis that we feel obliged because of its sublimity means a reversion of the relationship and is a reduction of the moral feeling to an aesthetical judgment. . Sense of Duty and the Sublime: The Controversy between Schiller and Kant Both respect for the law and feeling of the sublime are accompanied by the awareness of the smallness of the sensible nature in comparison with absolute greatness. To show that common sense agrees with this notion of morality as a sublime power Kant and Schiller refer to the same kind of examples of persons who, although the fulfilling of their moral duty asks for heavy sacrifices and can bring them serious misfortune, nevertheless maintain their moral dignity by doing what they have to do. The moral quality of an action becomes clearer if it is difficult and painful than if it is done easily and combined with pleasure. The beauty of moral actions

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



and virtue is connected with a kind of ease and casualness, which, also for Schiller, do not present the moral worth so purely and clearly as in those examples: This discovery of the absolute moral capacity which is not bound to any natural condition endows the melancholy feeling by which we are seized at the spectacle of such a man with the unique and ineffable charm which no pleasure of sense, however refined it might be, can offer in competition with the sublime. Thus the sublime affords us an egress from the sensuous world in which the beautiful would gladly hold us forever captive.25

In the case of the moral law, victory over nature is accompanied by a concept of necessity: respect for the law implies being willing to act out of a sense of duty, an intellectual interest in realizing what is ordained by the law. For Kant, law, duty, and freedom are conceptually united in the idea of moral autonomy. Schiller, however, has sincere problems with this identification: ‘All other things “must”; man is the being that wills’.26 It is peculiar that Schiller, who thinks so much in the line of Kant about sublimity on the one hand, has resisted so heavily his conception of duty on the other: In Kant’s moral philosophy the idea of duty is proposed with a harshness which will scare off all the Graces and could easily tempt a feeble mind to seek for moral perfection in the paths of a sombre and monastic asceticism.27

The words of this criticism are famous, but less often we see a reference to their context in which Schiller asserts: ‘it is not from the graceful expression of the intention or the action that we may judge of their moral merit’.28 He acknowledges that he agrees with ‘the rigorists’ in this point of view. According to him, Kant has explicated the matter completely rightly, but in the presentation (Darstellung) he followed too much a subjective maxim.29 The sorrows regarding the historical and social situation in which he lived would have incited him to take such a 25

Friedrich Schiller, a. Friedrich Schiller, a, at the beginning of the essay. 27 ‘In der Kantischen Moralphilosophie ist die Idee der Pflicht mit einer Härte vorgetragen, die alle Grazien davon zurückschreckt und einen schwachen Verstand leicht versuchen könnte, auf dem Wege einer finstern und mönchischen Ascetik die moralische Vollkommenheit zu suchen’. F. Schiller, Über Anmut und Würde, p. . 28 Friedrich Schiller, Über Anmut und Würde, p. : ‘aus dem schönen Vortrag einer Gesinnung oder Handlung wird man nie ihren moralischen Werth erfahren’. 29 Darstellung as matter of aesthetic presentation refers to the work of an artist. Schiller’s criticism can be understood, therefore, as the reproach that Kant was lacking feeling and insight regarding the positive role art can have for moral education. 26



herman van erp

rigorous position against the uncritically materialist tendencies in moral theory on the one hand, and on the other the abstract ideas of idealists who wanted to improve the world without scruples about the means they claimed to be necessary. Peculiar is also that Schiller in his criticism totally neglects Kantian remarks that can be understood as a response in advance to that kind of criticism. For example, Kant asserts in his CPJ which was highly esteemed by Schiller: The fear that, if we divest this representation [of the moral law] of everything that can commend it to the senses, it will thereupon be attended only with a cold and lifeless approbation and not with any moving force or emotion, is wholly unwarranted.30

According to Kant, the danger is not in the fact that the law would not have enough motivating power in itself but in the unrestrained imagination, which, in its enthusiasm and without the strong directives of the law, will adopt an unbridled shape and is heavily inclined toward delusion and fanaticism. Because of that danger, political leaders have allowed voluntarily that religion could prevent their subjects to think for themselves and take their own responsibility by telling those subjects childish, but fear-inspiring, stories (V, –). Schiller tried to detach the idea of freedom and the supersensible moral law from its enforcing character, from the necessity of a ‘you must’. According to him, law and politics are instances created for a rational oppression of natural inclinations instead of for their cultivation through moral education. He could have found an affirmation of this view in Kant’s political writings, in which Kant emphasizes that even a people of devils can be brought to act conforming to the principles of justice if the law is enforced strongly enough. But for Kant this enforced behaviour is merely a case of legality, not of morality. Schiller’s criticism totally neglects this distinction between legality and morality which is fundamental to Kantian ethics.31 This is also clear in the way he criticizes the Kantian concept of Achtung as different from Hochachtung. According to him, respect or esteem (Achtung) for the law is a form of coercion. Respect or high regard (Hochachtung) is much more free and only directed to moral persons and their actions.32 What Schiller 30 ‘Es ist eine ganz irrige Besorgniß, daß, wenn man sie alles dessen beraubt, was sie den Sinnen empfehlen kann, sie alsdann keine andere als kalte, leblose Billigung und keine bewegende Kraft oder Rührung bei sich führen würde’ (V, ). 31 Cf. Monique Castillo, , pp. –. 32 Cf: ‘»Das Gefühl der Unangemessenheit zu Erreichung einer Idee, die für uns Gesetz

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



here tries to divide into two different feelings is, for Kant, united in the one moral feeling of respect. An ethic which only emphasizes duty in contrast to the natural inclinations is barbaric and repressive, according to Schiller. He underlines the liberating disinterestedness of the aesthetic judgment in opposition to reason’s interest to impose its law. Aesthetic education has as its goal the harmony between nature and reason and is the first step towards a more proper and beautiful morality, in which the aspect of sublimity, however, is not lacking since beauty remains superficial without suffering and sublimity: Only if the sublime is wedded to the beautiful and our sensitivity for both has been cultivated in equal measure are we perfect citizens of nature without thereby becoming her slaves and without squandering our citizenship in the intelligible world.33

For Schiller, beauty and sublimity must be tightly connected. Within the Kantian view of the relationship between feeling and morality, the distinction between beauty and sublimity is more fundamental. Kant gave the following response to Schiller’s criticism in the second edition of his book on religion (): I freely grant that by very reason of the dignity of the idea of duty I am unable to associate grace with it. For the idea of duty involves absolute necessity, to which grace stands in direct contradiction. The majesty of the moral law (as of the law on Sinai) instills awe (not dread, which repels, nor yet charm, which invites familiarity); and in this instance, since the ruler resides within us, this respect, as of a subject toward his ruler, awakens a sense of the sublimity of our own destiny which enraptures us more than any beauty.34

ist, heißt Achtung.« (Kants Krit. der Urtheilskraft.) Daher ist Achtung keine angenehme, eher drückende Empfindung. Sie ist ein Gefühl des Abstandes des empirischen Willens von dem reinen.—Es kann daher auch nicht befremdlich sein, daß ich die sinnliche Natur zum Subjekt der Achtung mache, obgleich diese nur auf reine Vernunft geht, denn die Unangemessenheit zu Erreichung des Gesetzes kann nur in der Sinnlichkeit liegen. Hochachtung hingegen geht schon auf die wirkliche Erfüllung des Gesetzes und wird nicht für das Gesetz, sondern für die Person, die demselben gemäß handelt, empfunden. Daher hat sie etwas Ergötzendes, weil die Erfüllung des Gesetzes Vernunftwesen erfreuen muß. Achtung ist Zwang, Hochachtung schon ein freieres Gefühl’ (Über Anmut und Würde, p. ). 33 Friedrich Schiller, a, just before the end. 34 Immanuel Kant, Akademie Ausgabe VI p. n: ‘Ich gestehe gern: daß ich dem Pflichtbegriffe gerade um seiner Würde willen keine Anmuth beigesellen kann. Denn er enthält unbedingte Nöthigung, womit Anmuth in geradem Widerspruch steht. Die Majestät des Gesetzes (gleich dem auf Sinai) flößt Ehrfurcht ein (nicht Scheu, welche



herman van erp

In the same work he also asserts that the admiration for the performance of one’s duty is misplaced and undermines the moral feeling because doing your duty is merely a thing that belongs to the normal moral order of daily life. ‘Soul elevating admiration’ befits only for the moral predisposition which is originally in us and through which we have a destination infinitely elevated above the fulfilling of our natural needs and desires. In the perspective of this destination, we would not be worthy to exist if in our being we resisted the moral laws of reason, and the fulfilling of our desires would then be worthless.35 We can interpret this text in such a way that it only rejects the disturbance of a harmony between nature and reason. In that case, there is not much difference between Kant and Schiller. Like Kant, Schiller rejects a nature which is operating savagely and obeys its own impulses without striving for higher ends. But, while Schiller thinks that reason in the same way must be arranged to ends which inherently belong to the natural order, Kant states in no uncertain terms that human nature must subject itself to the laws of reason. For him, admiration is reserved not for some harmonic balance between nature and reason, but only for the majesty of the law, the obeying of which can be the only guarantee for moral harmony and peace. Beauty counts for Schiller as a mediating third between the savageness of uncultivated natural inclinations on the one hand and the oppressing force of duty, law, and order on the other. He borrows from Kant the idea of a free play of human faculties within the judgment of taste. According to him, only the aesthetic education of humanity can result in a harmonious and moral world. This form of aestheticization does not imply that Schiller would say that moral choices must be determined by aesthetic judgments, but it means that he prefers, for aesthetic reasons, an idea of morality which emphasizes beauty and sublimity above a morality of duty. He does not attack Kantian ethics but tries to overcome its dualism of nature and reason by developing an aesthetic presentation of its moral content. In this regard his position is very different from Nietzsche’s criticism of Kantian ethics.

zurückstößt, auch nicht Reiz, der zur Vertraulichkeit einladet), welche Achtung des Untergebenen gegen seinen Gebieter, in diesem Fall aber, da dieser in uns selbst liegt, ein Gefühl des Erhabenen unserer eigenen Bestimmung erweckt, was uns mehr hinreißt als alles Schöne.’ 35 Immanuel Kant, Akademie Ausgabe VI, p. .

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



. Beauty and Sublimity as Symbols of the Moral Good A feeling for beauty makes us, also according to Kant, receptive to moral feelings, but this psychological process presupposes the consciousness of moral duty. Therefore, Kant believes that the process is rather in the reverse direction, ‘that the development of moral ideas and the cultivation of moral feeling is the true propaedeutic for laying the foundations for good taste’ (V, , last sentence of the first part of the CPJ). Earlier, in § , ‘Vom intellectuellen Interesse am Schönen’, he had already brought forward that . . . the mind cannot reflect on the beauty of nature without at the same time finding its interest engaged. But this interest is akin to the moral. One, then, who takes such an interest in the beautiful in nature can only do so in so far as he has previously set his interest deep in the foundations of the morally good. On these grounds we have reason for presuming the presence of at least the germ of a good moral disposition in the case of a man to whom the beauty of nature is a matter of immediate interest.36

Taken by themselves, beauty as an aesthetical quality and perfection as an intellectual one are totally independent of each other and both have nothing to win by the other. But the faculty of imagination as a whole benefits when a judgment of taste and an intellectual judgment are in harmony (V, ). The pleasure connected with the subjective finality is then apparently greater. That will also be the case if we consider beauty as a symbol for the moral good, at least if we take the harmony between beauty and morality as a relevant point for our judgment of taste. But, in that case the judgment is no longer an example of a ‘free and pure aesthetic judgment of taste’ (V, ). Connecting beauty with perfection or moral criteria makes that the aesthetic judgment loses its aesthetic purity in the same way as when beauty is combined with charm and emotional touch (V, , ,  ff.). In § , at the end of his critique of the aesthetic judgment, Kant pays attention to beauty as a symbol for morality. The direct (not based on arguments), disinterested, free, and universal character of the judgment of taste makes beauty suitable to function as a symbol for the way 36 ‘folglich kann das Gemüth über die Schönheit der Natur nicht nachdenken, ohne sich dabei zugleich interessiert zu finden. Dieses Interesse aber ist der Verwandtschaft nach moralisch; und der, welcher es am Schönen der Natur nimmt, kann es nur sofern an demselben nehmen, als er vorher schon sein Interesse am Sittlich = Guten wohlgegründet hat. Wen also die Schönheit der Natur unmittelbar interessiert, bei dem hat man Ursache, wenigstens eine Anlage zu guter moralischen Gesinnung zu vermuthen’ (V, pp. –).



herman van erp

the moral good, too, may be the cause of pleasure notwithstanding its demandingness and without us being moved by desire or affection (ohne Sinnenreiz). A comparable exposition concerning the symbolism of the sublime is lacking. Nevertheless, it is very improbable that the sublime cannot function as a symbol of the good as well. We can refer to the briefly mentioned likeness between the feeling of the sublime and moral respect for the law and for persons as ends in themselves. Since this relationship is playing everywhere in the background in the exposition of the sublime, the symbolic function of the sublime for morality appears so evident that a special section about that issue would be superfluous. This is the more apparent since most reasons why beauty can function as such a symbol are also valid for the sublime. At the end of the analytic of beauty, Kant distinguishes three ways in which things can please us: as beautiful, as pleasant/agreeable and as good. In beauty, it is the feeling concerning perceived objects which pleases us directly and subjectively, without any interest in their existence which would bring us in a motion of desire. Pleasure in the meaning of having pleasant or agreeable feelings is a positive sensation caused by the presence of physical things; therefore, this kind of pleasure is connected with an empirical, sensuous interest in the existence of the things causing these feelings. Something pleases us as good through the concept we have of its qualities; judging a thing to be good implies an interest in its existence, too, namely the will to realize or save it. Pleasure as such is an aesthetic quality, but the pleasure connected with realizing the good cannot be called purely aesthetic as it is caused by intellectual concepts (V, –). The notion of interest plays a central role in this triple distinction of pleasure. The pleasure in a judgment of beauty is disinterested in contrast to both other pleasures, which are connected with either a sensuous or an intellectual interest. The negative pleasure or delight connected with the sublime has, according to Kant, the same properties as the feeling of beauty: it is disinterested, universal, subjectively purposeful, and implies a form of necessity (V, ). Those properties are derived from the four different logical modes of judgment. The main difference between the beautiful and the sublime is that the subjective purposiveness of beauty has the character of a free play of the faculties while the sublime results in awe. Only after having completed the exposition of the sublime, does Kant speak about sublimity as a fourth kind of pleasure (V, ). These different kinds of pleasure are also differentiated according to the four modes of judgment: quantity (in number and intensity) is the most determin-

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



ing factor for pleasant feelings, while beauty is a qualitative aspect of an object; in the sublime, the relation between the sensible and the supersensible is at the core of the feeling; and feelings about the good are connected with the modality of necessity. Thus, next to the formal similarity of the aesthetic judgments of taste and sublimity in respect of interest, a distinction is made in the way they are related to their sensible objects. The judgment of taste is directed to the qualities of the object itself insofar as these are purposeful for the play between understanding and imagination. The judgment of sublimity, on the contrary, concerns the discrepancy between the power of imagination and rational ideas, and takes us away from the object toward the supersensible, which can be represented neither by the imagination nor by concepts. In passages dedicated to the deduction of the judgment of taste, Kant asserts that the idea of a supersensible substrate of nature, of nature inside and outside of us, lies at the basis of this kind of judgment (V, , ). The judgment of taste is based upon an ‘undetermined concept, to say, a concept of the supersensible substrate of the appearances’ (V, ). But in §  Kant says: Now, I say, the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good, and only in this light (a point of view natural to everyone, and one which everyone exacts from others as a duty) does it give us pleasure with an attendant claim to the agreement of everyone else, whereupon the mind becomes conscious of a certain ennoblement and elevation above mere sensibility to pleasure from impressions of sense, and also appraises the worth of others on the score of a like maxim of their judgment.37

Crowther concludes from this text that the validity of the judgment of taste apparently is not based on the notion of the supersensible substrate but on the moral consciousness that people have in common. For him, this would be the indication of an inconsistency within Kant’s deduction of the judgment of taste, unless this §  is not an addition but the proper completion of the deduction.38In that case there would not be much difference in comparison with the deduction of the judgment of sublimity, which—as we saw—was not given explicitly by Kant. I think 37 ‘Nun sage ich: das Schöne ist das Symbol des Sittlich = Guten; und auch nur in dieser Rücksicht (einer Beziehung, die jedermann natürlich ist, und die auch jedermann andern als Pflicht zumuthet) gefällt es mit einem Anspruche auf jedes andern Beistimmung, wobei sich das Gemüth zugleich einer gewissen Veredlung und Erhebung über die bloße Empfänglichkeit einer Lust durch Sinneneindrücke bewußt ist und anderer Werth auch nach einer ähnlichen Maxime ihrer Urtheilskraft schätzt’ (V, ). 38 Paul Crowther, , pp.  ff.



herman van erp

this conclusion is not necessary for two reasons. Both concern the fact that in the quotation above Kant does not speak about a pure judgment of taste. First, the judgment of taste contains, as we saw, a hidden reference to the supersensible without having it determined in a moral sense. Although theoretical reason cannot determine this substrate, reason has nevertheless an interest in doing so. Even then the supersensible remains undetermined in the purely aesthetic judgment, which finds a reference in itself to something in the subject itself and outside it, and which is not nature, nor yet freedom, but still is connected with the ground of the latter, i.e., the supersensible.39

Only practical reason can determine it and can confirm its objective reality by the moral imperative. The knowledge that the supersensible ideas have reality for us is not relevant for the pure judgment of beauty, but is an additional intellectual interest. Judgments concerning the analogy between moral ideas and beauty’s independence of interests are themselves not aesthetic. Where this analogy plays a role within the judgment about beauty the purely aesthetical character of a judgment of taste is lost. Secondly, Crowther neglects the last half of the passage quoted above. Kant speaks about an approval or agreement (Beistimmung) of others which supplies some feeling of nobleness and sublimity to the judgment of beauty and connects it with the judgment concerning the value of other things. Thus, this agreement is about more than the commonality and universal character of taste and its origin in common sense; it also contains the idea that the capacity to experience and create beauty is something sublime. Therefore, I think that here the connection between judgments of beauty and morality is mediated by an idea of sublimity. Only on these terms can aesthetic feelings of good taste genuinely elevate our mind above the sensible reality and endow it with nobility. . Concluding Remark The discrepancy between natural inclinations and the moral law is an essential aspect of our moral consciousness itself and not a historically contingent or cultural phenomenon which could be passed over through 39 ‘sieht sich [. . .] auf etwas im Subjecte selbst und ausser ihm, was nicht Natur, auch nicht Freiheit, doch aber mit dem Grunde der letzteren, nämlich dem Übersinnlichen verknüpft ist, bezogen’ (V, ).

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



an aesthetic education of mankind, as Schiller hoped for. Schiller thought that the balance between the beauty and the sublime can overcome Kantian dualism. According to Kant, however, recognition of this dualism is the implication of an adequate conception of moral duty. The dualism cannot be conquered on a purely aesthetic level. I think we can say, within the intention of Kant, that it is only possible to overcome the dualism of nature and freedom through moral action, in which freedom proves its real power through the effect it brings about in nature. For being capable to act rightly in a moral sense we do not need to know how causality through freedom is possible. We know that we can give wild nature a more civilized shape in accordance with our moral ends. The representation of nature as an admirable whole may help us in working toward these ends even against our primary and rude natural inclinations, but it is based on teleological and not on purely aesthetic judgments. Kant elaborates this concept in the second part of his CPJ. That teleological idea can inspire us and give us hope of moral progress in the history of humankind. The moral-teleological idea of eternal peace must not merely be called beautiful but is also sublime as we consider the difficulty, the pain, and even the wars that will be unavoidable in order to realize it. But, as aesthetic representations in a more or less pure form, aesthetic ideas both of the beautiful and the sublime remain abstract and undetermined concepts, which can move our mind but do not oblige us to anything. In the last section of the Introduction, Kant raises the question of a bridge between nature and freedom. He says, indeed, that the faculty of judgment makes possible the transition from the realm of the concept of nature toward the realm of the concept of freedom (V, ). Beauty, sublimity and purposiveness make the supersensible substrate ‘behind’ nature determinable for our intellectual faculties; they let us see nature in a shape that conforms to the laws of freedom. The faculty of judgment offers so to speak the material for the bridge. But only practical reason can determine nature objectively in a sense which elevates it above natura phenomenon, by imposing and realizing its own moral ends. We cannot know how reason works, but we know the effects of its causality on our actions. So, building the bridge must and can only come from action determined by moral principles. Beauty and sublimity remain free-floating feelings without the pillars of morality.



herman van erp . Summary

Two main points of difference between Kant’s aesthetic theory of sublimity and many other approaches of the sublime are firstly, that Kant makes a distinction between what he calls the genuinely sublime and the sublime in a broader but improper sense and secondly, that he seems to make a tight connection between this genuine sublime and moral ideas. To clear up these points, I compare Kant’s theory of the sublime with Burke’s and Schiller’s, which were both known to him and to which he also dedicated some short remarks. The feeling of sublimity as a purely aesthetic feeling is different from the respect for the moral law. Therefore, I prefer to distinguish these feelings by the different names of awe and respect. Their resemblance and relationship ask for explication, but particularly the difference between them must be elaborated more clearly than Kant did himself. My thesis is that, although moral consciousness is, according to Kant, the transcendental precondition of the validity of judgments concerning sublimity and the criterion for what can be considered as genuine sublime, we are, within purely aesthetic judgments, not clearly aware of this distinction between genuine and improper forms of sublimity. When this distinction becomes a determining element in our judgments of the sublime, these judgments lose their purely aesthetic character. That is also the case with judgments of taste, if beauty is functioning as a symbol for morality. Our moral consciousness is authorized, on transcendental grounds and within borders determined by reason, to enlist the help of the imagination to represent moral ends and thus to sustain the will. In this function, however, aesthetic judgments are no longer pure but connected with teleological and moral concepts. As a conclusion I bring forward that thinking further in the line of Kant’s CPJ, we must not consider purely aesthetic judgments as capable of bridging the gap between the realms of nature and freedom. The bridge must and can only come from moral action. As aesthetic representations in a more or less pure form, aesthetic ideas of both the beautiful as well as the sublime remain abstract and undetermined concepts, which can move our mind but do not oblige us to do anything.

kant on the sublimity of moral consciousness



References Abaci, Uygar, ‘Kant’s Justified Dismissal of Artistic Sublimity’, in: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume , Issue , Summer , pp. –. Burke, Edmund, Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful, . (integral text on: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/burke/ edmund/sublime/introduction.html). Castillo, Monique, La responsabilité des modernes. Essay sur l’ universalisme kantien, Paris . Crowther, Paul, The Kantian Sublime. From Morality to Art, Oxford (Clarendon) . Hegel, G.W.F., Phänomenlogie des Geistes, VI C a (Werke , Frankfurt (Suhrkamp) ). Kant, Immanuel, Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. II. ———, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. IV. ———, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. V. ———, Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. V. ———, Die Religion, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. VI. Sambonmatsu, John, ‘The Holocaust Sublime: Singularity, Representation, and the Violence of Everyday Life’, in: American Journal of Economics and Sociology vol.  (). Schiller, Friedrich, Über das Erhabene (a); English Translation: On the Sublime (http://www.studiocleo.com/librarie/schiller/essay.html). ———, Über das Pathetische (b); English Translation: The Pathetic, in The Project Gutenburg EBook of the Aesthetical Essays, by Frederich Schiller (http://www.gutenberg.org/files//-h/-h.htmH__). ———, Über Anmut und Würde, in Schillers Sämtliche Werke, Bd. , Leipzig . Shaw, Philip, The Sublime, London/New York .

KANT’S AESTHETICS OF MORALS

Birgit Recki Kant explicitly talks about an “aesthetics of morals” in the Metaphysics of Moral’s theory of virtue. By this he means the role of feelings in morality. Kant refers to “moral feeling, conscience, love of one’s neighbour, and respect for oneself (self-esteem)” (Metaphysik der Sitten, Tugendlehre, : ).1 So the issue is the emotional elements of moral consciousness. However, Kant is not interested in just any feelings—regardless of the problems of how much tension with reason they can endure, or how they might affect a person in her moral actions and judgments—but only in feelings with regard to their function as a moral motivation. This systematic interest can be illustrated particularly well with the feeling he calls “the moral feeling”. In contrast to, for example, our contemporary Ernst Tugendhat, who investigates shame and outrage as the main moral feelings in his Phenomenology of Morals, Kant reserves the term “the moral feeling” exclusively for the feeling of respect for the law. He already mentions it in the course of his critique of reason at the end of the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, and in the Critique of Practical Reason. He explicitly analyses it as the only conceivable motive of pure practical reason. And this terminological decision includes a systematic claim that he has been working on for a long time: only a motive for morality of this kind could be recognized as an aspect of pure practical reason, and its origin again is reason. So we can see: in his moral critiques, Kant is still interested in the role of feelings, just like in –, when he used to be a moral sensualist. It will be shown that the answer to the question about a foundation— a rationalism that is not a cognitivism—does not mean that there is no room for feelings in reason. His efforts to strip feelings in morality of any suspicions of heteronomy, changeability, elusiveness and unreliability lead Kant to a conception of feelings as a form of reflection. By this, the feeling does not lose the character of an emotion and of sensual sensation.

1

Page number of the Akademie-Ausgabe, Bd. VI; The Metaphysics of Moral, Doctrine of Virtue, Gregor, M. (ed.), .



birgit recki

Its origin, however, is located in reason. Kant talks about a feeling caused by reason, or a “feeling that a rational concept creates unaided”.2 In the Moral Mrongovius from , the claim was still: “When I judge by reason that the action is morally good, still a lot is missing that I do this action of which I have so judged. But if this judgment moves me as to do this action, it is the moral feeling. No one can and will accept that reason should have a driving force. Surely reason may judge, but to give this judgment a moving force so that it will be a motive to make the will perform an action—to understand this is the philosopher’s stone.”3 Also in , in the first critical text about morality, nothing has changed concerning this point: “If a sensuously affected rational being is to will an action that reason alone prescribes as what he ought to do, reason must of course be able to instil a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction in the fulfilment of duty, and hence must have a causal power to affect sensibility in accordance with its own principles.”4 In both quotes, with the concepts of a driving force and motive, and, later, causal power to affect sensibility, a problem is addressed that we have become used to calling the motivational problem. These passages make it clear that an action will only reliably happen if the rational judgment is complemented by a feeling. And only by addressing the motivational problem, the concept of practical reason is fully laid out. The transition from a mere effort of reasoning to an action, as the proper practical execution, is only achieved by motivation. It also becomes clear that Kant wants to solve the motivational problem by postulating a feeling that moves us to action. So even after conceptually getting over the moral sensualism that Kant seriously considered in his search for the principle of morality until the mid-s—due to his dissatisfaction with the enlightenment ethics—, he still thinks there is a systematic space for feelings in morality. Feeling is not suitable as a foundation for morality, but as a driving force it has to make sure that we will also carry out the action which reason has judged to be good. Already in the Moral Mrongovius we can read at the beginning of the section cited before: “The moral feeling is a capacity to be affected by a moral judgment.” This is confirmed in the Groundwork, just like the unsolvable problem articulated in the metaphor of the “philosopher’s stone”. “But it is wholly impossible to conceive a priori how a mere thought with noth2 3 4

Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (GMS), Akademie-Ausgabe Bd. IV, . Moral Mrongovius, Akademie-Ausgabe Bd. /II, . GMS, IV, .

kant’s aesthetics of morals



ing sensuous in it produces a sensation of pleasure or unpleasure.”5 Why does it have to be the mere thought that causes said sensation of pleasure or unpleasure, which would be suitable as a motivation? Because only this ensures that the moral autonomy, the autonomy of reason, is not nullified by a heteronomy of non-rational sensuality. If one wants to stick to the claim that reason is the principle of morality, there must be no incentives for morality except reason itself. The driving force, the motive, the motivation—they themselves must stem from reason. Hence there needs to be a convincing argument that reason itself constitutes this motivation. A mere judgment, a mere thought, cannot provide the necessary motivation, Kant says. Three years later, in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant claims to have found the “philosopher’s stone”. The chapter Of the Motives of Pure Practical Reason provides an analysis of respect for the law, which is meant to make two things clear: respect for the law is the moral feeling, the missing link to motivating actions that we were looking for. And it possesses the causal power (of reason) to affect sensibility in accordance with its own principles: reason motivates by a feeling that is “created unaided”. In other words, we can understand the occurrence and form of this feeling a priori. We can imagine how a mere thought, which contains nothing sensual, can bring about a sensation of pleasure or unpleasure, by which it provides the driving force to act. Only now the condition of the possibility is given “to let the laws get into a person’s will and to stress that they are to be acted on.”6 So how does Kant proceed in his analysis? In his description of this feeling as the motive of pure practical reason, a first level of purely formal characterization can be discerned. It is meant to substantiate the a priori character that a theory of reason requires, and on which Kant adds the transcendental activity of reason at work by the mechanical model of pressure and back-pressure that he illustrates with the picture of “removing the counterpoise”. First, and purely formally, he stresses the “negative effect” of the moral law on sensuality: “For all inclination and every sensible impulse is founded on feeling, and the negative effect produced on feeling (by the check on the inclinations) is itself feeling.”7 Such effects are due to the moral law’s categorical claim to bring the inclinations under a generalizable maxim. By this restriction of possible 5 6 7

GMS, IV, . GMS, IV, . KpV, V,  f.



birgit recki

determinants that might complicate the influence of the moral law on the maxims of acting, the influence can at the same time proceed: “For by the fact that the conception of the moral law deprives self-love of its influence, and self-conceit of its illusion, it lessens the obstacle to pure practical reason and produces the conception of the superiority of its objective law to the impulses of the sensibility; and thus, by removing the counterpoise, it gives relatively greater weight to the law in the judgment of reason (in the case of a will affected by the aforesaid impulses).”8 With regard to such a dialectic of reason’s pure self-reference, Kant can say that respect for the law is an aspect of moral consciousness, i.e. a necessary one: it is “morality itself, subjectively considered as a motive.”9 These elementary and abstract stipulations constitute the intelligible structure of the theory. If this was all, we would find it difficult to accept that we are in fact talking about a feeling here. But on a second level, Kant tries to illustrate the effect of this feeling in a convincing way. He uses a description of the psychology of power. What we have here is a phenomenology of inner power structure. By acknowledging the moral law, “our pathologically affected self ”, which makes its demands due to “our nature as sensible beings”, “as if it constituted our entire self ”,10 becomes constrained. The permissive attitude towards one’s own inclinations is restricted “to limit it to the condition of agreement with this law”.11 Our self-conceit is “indefinitely check(ed)”.12 By restricting our inclinations, the moral law causes a feeling of “unpleasantness”,13 of “pain”,14 in other words, a distinct “impression of displeasure”.15 We become humbled “in our self-consciousness”,16 which at the same time automatically turns into a feeling of respect for what caused it, due to a law of acknowledging what is stronger. But this respect is at the same time a “positive feeling” as a “humiliation on the sensible side is an elevation of the moral, i.e., practical, respect for the law itself on the intellectual side”,17 in which the self in its supersensible existence participates. The

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

KpV, V,  f. KpV, V, . KpV, V, . KpV, V, . KpV, V, . KpV, V, . KpV, V, . KpV, V, . KpV, V, . KpV, V, .

kant’s aesthetics of morals



humiliation of our self-love18 is accompanied by an elevation of selfesteem by pure reason’s activity—by the law entering the maxims. By the feeling of respect, the law restricts the pathological self and separates the real self. Due to the ambivalence between sensuality and reason the subject is caught in, what is felt by respect is neither pure pleasure nor pure displeasure, but a dynamic of pleasure through unpleasure which comes about by the elevation through submission. By thinking of the greatness and the demands of the law, the subject feels weak and strong at the same time. It feels small, void, unworthy even, in not complying with the law’s demands. But it also feels great and powerful because of its own ability to submit all of its pettiness as an empirical, private person— i.e., the individual inclinations—under the higher aspect of the law, and to comply with the law’s rationality by using its own reason. What is described here, is a pleasure through displeasure, and if you know Kant’s aesthetics, you will be reminded of something. As it turns out, the notion of this feeling of respect is not only the “philosopher’s stone” when it comes to explaining the motivation for moral behaviour, but also the explanation for something else. Developing the notion of a “feeling caused by reason”, which Kant deemed necessary in the interest of morality, also has a direct relevance for his systematic appreciation of those feelings occurring in the aesthetic attitude. Just like he was suspicious of the notion of a moral feeling since the second half of the s, he also claimed in the Critique of Pure Reason that it was impossible to come up with a general principle of reason for the aesthetic. Since —still working on the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason—he held on to the claim that aesthetic feelings could not be captured in a theory within a critique of reason. As a forty year-old elegant magister, in accordance with the spirit of the era and with a distinctive sense for the phenomena, he turned his attention to aesthetic feelings. At this point, he considered “subjecting the criticism of the beautiful to principles of reason, and so of elevating its rules into a science” as “vain”, because the sources of these rules are “merely empirical”.19 So this is the same argument about the merely empirical character of the feeling that Kant used to dismiss feelings as the basis of moral actions. Taste, too, as a feeling, seems condemned to being of mere psychological interest. 18

KpV, V, . Kritik der reinen Vernunft (. Auflage ), Akademie-Ausgabe Bd. III,  f. / B  f. Anm. 19



birgit recki

Due to his analysis of respect for the law, in which Kant qualified the moral feeling as an emotional and, at the same time, rational motive for rational actions, the theoretical situation is all of a sudden entirely different. Suddenly, Kant has a feeling caused by reason at his disposal, which gives him the nice opportunity to also apply the idea elsewhere. The first part of the Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ)—the Analytic of the Beautiful—will show that Kant makes accepting the aesthetic feeling into a critique of reason dependent on its a priori and hence epistemic constitution: what is decisive is the answer to the “question of the relative priority in a judgment of taste of the feeling of pleasure and the estimating of the object”,20 which Kant provides in §  of the CPJ—by analysing a feeling of pleasure caused by reflecting the judgment. This is supposed to show: in experiencing the beautiful, too, forces are at work that cannot be explained empirically, but are themselves at work at the origin of the experience. In the aesthetic judgment as the free play of cognitive powers, understanding (the capacity for concepts) and imagination (the capacity for intuitions) interact. The effect of this is the feeling of pleasure that Kant calls delight. Kant uses the title of an “aesthetic reflecting judgment” for the interaction of these cognitive powers. By this, he basically refers to what his contemporaries called taste. Kant, however, analyses two feelings with regard to their a priori character, following the model of the feeling of respect: the feeling of the beautiful and the feeling of the sublime. Kant describes the feeling of beauty as disinterested, i.e. it is not driven by any desire and is thus pure delight in an object. The only thing that can be said about this object is that it somehow appeals to our power of representation. This “somehow” can fundamentally not be put down to properties, since the aesthetic judgment—in which this feeling arises—is not a cognitive judgment and “beauty is not a concept of the object”.21 Beauty is not a predicate, but a reflective concept. Facing an object—or as Kant says: facing the “representation of an imagination” that makes us think deeply “yet without the possibility of any definite ( . . . ) concept being adequate to it”—this feeling arises, as the effect of reflection. Kant calls this reflection the free play of the cognitive faculties, which is in principle infinite, because it is not directed towards a distinct aim. It is precisely this undetermined, playful way of dealing with the object that causes the feeling of pleasure. The playful attitude 20 KU, V,  ff. English translation The Critique of the Power of Judgment, translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews, (Cambridge University Press), . 21 KU, V, .

kant’s aesthetics of morals



towards the object, not restricted by any end, makes us realize the finality, with which our cognitive faculties work together—but here, without the end of cognition. Being aware of this “finality apart from an end” constitutes aesthetic pleasure. Concerning the effect of a feeling of pleasure that comes from reflection, Kant explicitly talks about “pleasure in mere reflection”.22 And he talks—which many readers have not noticed— explicitly about the subject’s “feeling of life”.23 The aesthetic reflection, the free play of cognitive faculties, brings about a feeling in which the subject becomes aware of its own vitality. This feeling of life is at the same time a feeling of harmony. Not only is it an internal harmony of the purposeful interaction of our cognitive faculties. Since we have this experience in relation to an object—without being able to discern its properties—it is also a feeling of harmony with the external conditions: looking at the beautiful, with the feeling that this look can cause in us, we automatically have the intuition that the objects are approaching us—they seem to be made to be perceived by us. Kant puts it more precisely: the beautiful—due to which the free play of cognitive faculties takes place and which causes this feeling of pleasure— seems as if we ourselves had created it as the whole point of perception. “The beautiful things prove that man fits into the world.” When seeing them, we experience a correspondence in the feeling of the beautiful: an appropriate sensual and intellectual constitution in relation to how the external world is. The most important result of Kant’s analysis of the beautiful, however, might be a speculation we can find only towards the end of the CPJ, in § . Beauty as a symbol of morality—with this insight, the thinker whose aim it was to show in his analysis of the aesthetic judgment that the aesthetic is autonomous, surprises us. As it turns out, the formula about the beautiful as the symbol of morality does not reduce the aesthetic to the claims of morality at all. Morality, for Kant, is the freedom of the will to give itself the law of action, and symbolising is nothing more than reflection based on analogy. So beauty does not consist in an object, a substance, or a property, but in a pleasant reflection, and by this—in other words—we carry out a reflection based on analogy about the character of freedom. It is the character of free reflection itself, through which this connection with freedom takes place. This way, the central idea of reason—of which Kant had to admit in his practical 22 23

KU, V, . KU, V, .



birgit recki

philosophy that it cannot be proven or realised through experience— becomes a subject of representation, after all. This representation does not happen due to any single object or image, but due to the feeling itself. In it, beauty is the symbol of morality, the emotional freedom experienced with it referring to the idea of freedom.24 In principle, the same can be said for the feeling of the sublime. In the feeling of the sublime, according to Kant’s analysis, we do not experience pure pleasure, but a mixed feeling. Unlike beauty, the sublime does not approach us. For our imagination—and hence, due to the interaction in the free schematizing of aesthetic reflection—and our understanding, the sublime is somehow overwhelming. The object is too grand to be represented in an act of intuition (the mathematically sublime), or it is of such threatening power and sway that we cannot endure perceiving it calmly (the dynamic sublime). Kant describes the feeling of the sublime as a classical case of fascination, as an alternation between attraction and rejection. The feeling consists in precisely this contrast both of emotive stirrings and the dialectics between them. As a theory of reason, Kant reconstructs these contradictory dynamics as the failure of imagination and understanding, a vibration that is nullified by the contrasting swing of our mind, because reason as the capacity to draw conclusions—i.e. reason as the capacity to provide totality to thought—at the same time “jumps in”. Unlike in the relationship to beauty, there is no playful reflection here between imagination and understanding, but an antagonistic reflection between imagination and reason that connects the unresolved impression with its totalising ideas. Facing an enormous size—for example, the starry sky—we refer with the representation to the idea of the infinitely large, something so much more powerful than we are, which makes us aware of our own frailty, like the immense ocean stirred up by a thunderstorm, to the idea of our supersensible freedom. This way, we are torn between shuddering and happiness, between consternation and assurance, since we become aware of a “power of resistance of quite another kind”. Of this antagonistic movement of realising the supersensible aspects of our being, caused by threats and fear, Kant explicitly says: we have the “feeling of our possessing a pure and self-sufficient reason”.25 What we experience here is similar to what we experience in the feeling of 24 Recki, B., Ästhetik der Sitten, , pp. –; ‘Kommentar zur Kritik der Urtheilskraft, §§ –’, in: Immanuel Kant—Kritik der Urtheilskraft, hg. von Otfried Höffe, , pp. –. 25 KU, V, .

kant’s aesthetics of morals



reverence for the law—just in aesthetic distance and because of a sensual impression: a dynamic of pleasure through displeasure that takes place because of an elevation through submission. Like in the feeling of beauty, we become aware of our freedom, despite all the specific differences in the medium of this feeling. It is basically the same freedom that was peculiar about the feeling of beauty, which we find in the feeling of the sublime. But in one case we become aware of it as the universal practical medium for understanding the world; in the other, as that of an antagonistic dealing with the world. When objects seem to show us, in experiencing the sublime, that we do not fit into the world, we become aware of the fact that we do have the capacity to make us fit, if necessary. Here, where the world does not seem to approach us in attractive forms, but rather seems hostile, because we become aware of the downside of harmony in the antagonistic character of our relation to the world, the subject is full of an “intellectual feeling”. Through it, it also becomes aware of its ability to resist. Between the Motives of Pure Practical Reason and the Analytic of the Sublime, we can thus find more than just a one-directional influence. Instead, there is a systematic interconnectedness on several levels: First, the analysis of the moral feeling gives Kant the crucial idea about the general a priori character of aesthetic feelings. It also becomes clear that, according to Kant’s analysis, the feeling of respect and the feeling of the sublime are both characterized by the contradictory dynamics of pleasure through displeasure. The analytic of the sublime—showing the interplay or conflict between imagination and reason—also manages (and this is an aspect that I can only mention briefly here, without elaborating) to illustrate the dynamics of the feeling of respect for the law in more detail. Because now, we can also assume an analogous conflict between imagination and reason for the moral feeling, just as Kant has attributed it to the sublime. After all, the feeling of the sublime as the feeling of our possessing a pure and self-sufficient reason is centred around the same reason that, through the moral law, infuses the moral respect within us. References Gregor, Mary (ed.), The Metaphysics of Moral, Doctrine of Right, Cambridge University Press, . Kant, Immanuel, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (GMS), Akademie Ausgabe IV. ———, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (KpV), Akademie Ausgabe V.



birgit recki

———, Kritik der Urtheilskraft (KU), Akademie Ausgabe V. ———, Moral Mongrovius. Akademie Ausgabe /II. Recki, B., Ästhetik der Sitten, Frankfurt am Main (V. Klostermann) . ———, ‘Kommentar zur Kritik der Urtheilskraft, §§ –’, in: Immanuel Kant— Kritik der Urtheilskraft, hg. von Otfried Höffe (Reihe Klassiker auslegen), Berlin (Akademie Verlag) .

THE DYNAMIC SUBLIME AS THE PIVOTING POINT BETWEEN NATURE AND FREEDOM IN KANT

Donald Loose ‘The sublime consists merely in the relation in which the sensible in the representation of nature is judged as suitable for a possible supersensible use of it’ (Kritik der Urteilskraft–CPJ–:).1 Kant’s analysis of the sublime, and the dynamic sublime in particular, can be considered as the pivoting point between nature and freedom. My explanation aims at correcting the classic view of Kantian dualism in general and readjusting the characterization of the dynamic sublime as mere conflict and resistance to the supremacy of nature or as indication of the collapse of the mental faculties. Contrary to Lyotard,2 ultimately we cannot take the sublime as the opposition and contradiction of reason and sensibility. Even more than as pivot, one can view the sublime as transition (Übergang) and even as point of interaction of nature and freedom, of mechanics and morality. In that sense my analysis dissociates itself from that of P. Crowther3 and the Anglo-Saxon tradition in general4 that wants to reduce Kant’s doctrine of the sublime to a currently acceptable aesthetics, and for that reason eases it away from the architectonics of freedom and the metaphysical-moral context in which it functions. We can interpret §  and  and the subsequent general remark as the pivot of nature and freedom and as such as the turning point of the entire CPJ. Terms like opposition and resistance against the natural inclination are of course characteristic for Kant’s philosophy of freedom. Hence it 1 Page number of the Akademieausgabe. English translation by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews, . 2 J.F. Lyotard, , p. . 3 P. Crowther, . 4 See for example Paul Guyer’s original analyses in Kant and the Claims of Taste, Harvard University Press,  (reprinted Cambridge University Press, ). This reductionistic interpretation has been corrected in Kant and the Experience of Freedom, Cambridge University Press,  and ‘The Symbols of Freedom in Kant’s Aesthetics’ in H. Parret (Ed.), Kants Ästhetik, Berlin, W. de Gruyter, , pp. –. A notable exception is John R. Goodreau, The Role of the Sublime in Kant’s Moral Metaphysics, The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, Washington, .



donald loose

does not surprise that we recognize this aspect of the sublime in Kant’s analysis of free will, the organization of civil society and its conflicts, the development of culture in general and the construction of a legal system as alternative for the violence of the natural state. However, the interaction between nature and freedom, as it occurs at the boundary of aesthetic representation in the sublime, is also a link between the enclosed mechanics of nature and a teleological view of nature, and between the natural development of society and a history of freedom. This subject is dealt with explicitly in §  and  of the CPJ. If the dynamic sublime is indeed the pivoting point of nature and freedom, this entails the human ability to point out the sublime conflict, understood as mediation of nature and freedom, in nature itself as indication that nature may be a possible ally of freedom. Reversely, we should still be able to recognize the sublime conflict with nature in freedom itself and its highest realization as well. The resistance of the categorical imperative against the natural incentive does not only constitute the possible realization of freedom. Realized freedom ultimately remains marked by the sublime task to continue to resist the permanent resistance to freedom. This becomes apparent in Kant’s assessment of war, rightful rebellion against unlawful power, the foundation of public law and preeminently: the analysis of radical evil. In that sense we can rightly characterize the sublime as the definition of the supersensible that preserves finiteness.5 The sublime offers a view of the intelligible although it explicitly profiles it as not reducible to nature and nature does not elevate itself to the supersensible. It may be the case that the opposition between nature and reason cannot be sublated (aufgehoben) as it is in Hegel because a dialectic transition from the imagination to reason is impossible. The idea of an Unbedingtes in der Welt may be completely alien to Kantian aesthetics, nonetheless one claims too much when one, as Foessel, denies a possible mediation through symbolization of the sensible to reason.6 The symbolic representation is for Kant precisely an—indirect to be sure—representation (Darstellung) of the unrepresentable, that still offers more than the merely negative representation (Bloss negative Darstellung, CPJ, : ). Ultimately the symbolic representation even is an all-integrating interpretative rereading in a reflecting

5 “eine die Endlichkeit wahrende Bestimmung des Ubersinnlichen” Michaël Foessel, , p. . 6 M. Foessel, , p. .

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



judgment. The oppositional logic of the mechanics of nature as a whole is thus understood as purposive in the perspective of human freedom.7 First I will show how the analysis of the sublime forms the pivot in CPJ. In a subsequent section, , I will sketch nature as a recalcitrant ally of freedom, and in section  the interaction of freedom with nature as its lasting ally at the level of freedom itself. Finally, in section , I will explain how symbolic representation constitutes the climax of the mediation between nature and freedom. . The Pivot in CPJ I view the analytics of the sublime as the pivot in the diptych of the analytic of the aesthetic power of judgment and the critique of the teleological power of judgment. The central idea is that of purposiveness, on the one hand in its subjective form—the subjective purposiveness for the subject itself in the formal representation of an object—and the representation of an objective purposiveness of nature in a subjective reflecting judgment on the other. The sublime is initially the failure of the aesthetic subjective purposiveness of the formal representation as it is enjoyed in beauty. However, the experience of this aesthetic purposelessness in the formal representation of nature brings forth the consciousness of a purposiveness of this purposelessness: it forces the transition of the beautiful to the idea of freedom and thus proves its higher form of purposiveness. Nonetheless also this purposiveness is still merely aesthetic and as such no indication of the possible objective purposiveness of nature itself. The sublime thus distinguishes itself from both the subjective purposiveness that is represented as formal object in the beauty of nature and from the subjectively posed objective purposiveness of nature. This double limitation characterizes the sublime as the mediating third. It concerns a subjective purposiveness as in the aesthetics of the beautiful, but not in the harmonious natural way as experienced in the beauty of nature. The reflecting character is inevitable here because nature is initially experienced in its purposelessness. A similar experience occurs in the second panel of the CPJ. Also in the reflectingly judged objective purposiveness of nature, this apparently objective purposiveness is ultimately relative and purposeless. Its relativity allows any end to be taken 7

See F. Marty, ; A. Renaut, .



donald loose

as means for another end. Only from morality and the posing of the human being as final end (Endzweck), a certain purposiveness is possible for nature as a whole. And here as well, the intrinsic purposiveness of organic natural elements, where all is harmonious means and end at the same time—just as it is the case in the aesthetic harmony of the intellectual faculties with respect to the beautiful—has to be gone beyond because this self-enclosed representation of internal natural purposiveness cannot generate a final end or final purposiveness. In the sublime we precisely understand a primary purposelessness as ultimately purposive and it thus drives a wedge between the quiet contemplation of the beautiful in aesthetics and the final end of nature, which can only be the human being as freedom. This final end is mediated by the constitutive experience of the aesthetically sublime that shatters the illusion of an intrinsic objective purposiveness of nature as a self-enclosed harmonious whole. .. The Sublime is beyond the Beautiful The subjective purposiveness of the beauty of nature is in the fact that nature discloses a technique of nature for the aesthetic judgment of taste, i.e. a mechanics that seems to be steered by purposiveness. Nature thus not only discloses itself as causally deterministic and mechanically explicable but also as the adequate object for our aesthetic judgment of taste (§ ). Thus it forms a first suggestion of freedom. This experience of nature, as it is expressed in an aesthetic judgment of taste, mediates for the intellectual power of judgment in order to be solely interested in the forms of practical maxims, which can take the form of a universal law, and find a certain enjoyment in the moral feeling. But it also interests reason that the ideas (for which it produces an immediate interest in the moral feeling) also have objective reality, i.e., that nature should at least show some trace or give a sign that it contains in itself some sort of ground for assuming a lawful correspondence of its products with our satisfaction that is independent of all interest. Reason must take an interest in every manifestation in nature of such a correspondence (: ). In this case, the aesthetically experienced subjective purposiveness of nature at the service of the power of representation, which in the free relation of imagination and the categories of understanding is cultivated as general (communis), evokes a generally recognized feeling of well-being. This suggests a relation between our moral feeling and the practical law on the one hand and the aesthetic judgment of taste and the accompanying universal validity on the other (: ). The immediate pleasure in

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



the beauty of nature presumes a certain freedom of thinking. However, although independent of pleasure in a delight merely of the senses, it is the enjoyment of play rather than in the freedom involved in the lawful praxis. This is the true nature of human morality in which reason must exercise dominion over sensibility. This only occurs in the sublime (: ). One might think that it is rather the beautiful that qualifies as transition from aesthetics and its subjective purposiveness to the objective teleology of nature, since the beautiful is characterized by a harmony of understanding and the power of imagination, just like the internal teleology of nature is characterized by the fact that all parts are harmoniously interconnected and everything is simultaneously means and end. Beauty of nature discloses a technique of nature—its internal purposiveness— that presents it as a system according to laws. Understanding is unable to offer the principle, but it implies a principle of purposiveness for our power of judgment concerning phenomena that should not be considered merely purposeless consequence of the mechanics of nature but rather analogous to art. However, precisely the accompanying pleasure does not impose a transition to the domain of reason. The sublime is its exact reverse. Precisely the character of nature, purposeless at first sight, as experienced in the sublime, forbids the sublime to be experienced as a satisfying object of nature itself, as we do experience in the analogy of the harmony of the beauty of nature and the accompanying harmony of our faculties. The sublime is to make palpable in ourselves a purposiveness that is entirely independent of nature. “In that which we are accustomed to call sublime in nature there is nothing that leads to particular objective principles and forms of nature corresponding to these that it is mostly rather in its chaos or in its wildest and most unruly disorder and devastation, if only it allows a glimpse of magnitude and might, that it excites the ideas of the sublime” (: ). What we call sublime in nature contains nothing that leads to special objective principles and the corresponding forms in nature. It is rather chaos, formlessness and the devastating power of nature that elicits feelings of sublimity. With the sublime we distance ourselves one step further from nature towards freedom. From an aesthetical point of view, the concept of the sublime and understood as ‘the sublime in nature’ is far from being as important and rich in consequences as the concept of beauty in nature. In general, it indicates nothing purposive in nature itself, but only in the possible use of its intuitions to make palpable in ourselves a purposiveness that is



donald loose

entirely independent of nature. For the beautiful in nature we must seek a ground outside ourselves, but for the sublime merely one inside ourselves. Kant concludes §  with what he calls “a very necessary introductory remark (vorläufige Bemerkung)”: the ideas of the sublime must be entirely distinguished from the idea of the purposiveness of nature itself. From the aesthetic point of view and the aesthetic judging of the purposiveness in nature, the theory of the sublime is indeed an appendix. However, this is not an argument in favor of its relative insignificance. It rather points at its central position as transition from aesthetics to teleology. It does not represent a particular form in nature, “but only a purposive use that the imagination makes of its representation”. Precisely this further development of the aesthetic representation of the sublime offers the link with the purposiveness of nature also only to be thought by human beings themselves for the benefit of their freedom. The sublime forces us to make the transition to what is also the ultimate argument in the teleology of nature: ultimately it is about an external purposiveness of nature as a whole for humans. .. The Sublime is not yet a Judgment Concerning the Teleology of Nature In § , Kant thus emphasizes the remarkable thing about a feeling of aesthetic pleasure at a representation; that it rather draws attention to its inadequacy and thus to its subjective purposelessness from the aesthetical perspective. A possible further development of such a representation should not be confused with the aesthetic judgment in its pure form. We must not confuse the aesthetic judgment with any teleological judgment of practical reason. “A pure judgment on the sublime, however, must have no end of the object as its determining ground if it is to be aesthetic and not mixed up with any judgment of the understanding or of reason” (: ). Therefore, we must not seek the sublime as purely aesthetical experience in a work of art since in it a humanly designed end determines the form in a technically pragmatic manner and hence practical reason in the broad sense of the word is already at issue, as a result of which the aesthetic judgment of taste is no longer purely aesthetical.8 And we must not seek the sublime as such in natural things whose concept already brings with it a determinate end. Hence not in an objective teleology of nature as such can the sublime be found, but precisely the absolutely objective 8

Therefore the interpretation of the sublime in works of art is not Kant’s primary concern in contrast with later commentaries.

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



purposelessness allows a subjective purely aesthetical experience of purposiveness of that purposelessness. In the general remark we are thus cautioned to not ground the pure aesthetic judgment concerning the sublimity of the starry heavens on concepts of worlds that we judge purposive because they might be inhabited by rational beings, taking what we view as bright points as extremely purposive sources of energy. The pure aesthetic judgment concerning the sublime must be free of any determinate concept of an end because in that case it should be interpreted as an objective teleological reflecting judgment. We must experience the starry heavens as we see them: as a broad, all-embracing vault. That is an experience that raises the question about the possibility of a purposelessness as yet experienced as purposive. Through the different steps concerning a possible objective purposiveness of nature, one ultimately arrives at human freedom as morally unique final end. One can understand the entire complex of the analytic, the dialectic and the methodology of the teleological power of judgment as an argumentation ultimately to understand human beings as external to all of nature (as natural being it is the only being of freedom).9 We can summarize the sublime’s mediating position between the aesthetics of the beautiful and the objective purposiveness of nature in CPJ as follows: it is a feeling of pleasure in the purposelessness of nature that turns out to be purposive for the culture of freedom. The third Critique is thus the mediation between the deterministic mechanical concept of nature of theoretical reason and the autonomy of practical reason. The pure aesthetic judgment of taste concerning the beautiful subjectively recognizes an analogy of its own free power of representation in the harmony of nature understood as art. There nature already subjectively appears as occasioning more than the mechanical scientific explanation. It suggests freedom with regard to nature. In the sublime this not only suggests freedom with regard to nature outside of us, but also with regard to nature inside of us, or put differently: with regard to the freedom in human nature. The violence of nature, not only outside of us but also inside, appeals to the supremacy of freedom and moral duty with respect to natural urges and the natural fear for the power of nature. The dominion of the moral law emerges as the sublime task of human beings and the supremacy of their freedom.

9

Cf. R. Brandt, , p. .



donald loose

.. The Sublime as Conflict and Mediation between Nature and Freedom In the judging of the beautiful, the power of imagination and the understanding bring about a subjective purposiveness of our mental powers because of their harmony (zusammenstimmen). In the judging of the sublime, the power of imagination and the understanding bring about the same as conflict. This elicits the feeling that we possess a purely independent reason. In the judging of something as sublime, the power of judgment is “related to reason, in order to correspond (übereinzustimmen) subjectively with its ideas (though which is undetermined), i.e. in order to produce a disposition of the mind (Gemütsstimmung) which is in conformity with them (derjenigen gemäß) and compatible (verträglich) with that which the influence of determinate (practical) ideas on feeling would produce” (: ). This disposition of the mind is respect, which is a feeling of displeasure from the inadequacy of the greatest sensible faculty in comparison with the ideas of reason, insofar as striving for them is nevertheless a law for us (: ). In the dynamic sublime we therefore speak of the supremacy of reason since it not only compensates the impotence of the imagination as in the mathematical sublime, but can also defeat the resistance of and the conflict with something that has power itself. That is why nature first has to appear as frightening in order to experience the delight that it can be contradicted by a higher faculty. With the consciousness of our physical impotence, the power to view ourselves as independent of nature as a moral person reveals itself. Nature is called sublime because it elevates the power of imagination to the realization of the sublimity of our mind (Gemüth) and its destination beyond nature. Ultimately sublimity is something of our own mind, namely in as far as we can become conscious of the fact that we are superior to nature in ourselves and consequently to nature outside of us. The disposition of the mind for the sublime assumes an openness for the ideas of reason. Without the development of reason and its moral ideas, that which presents itself in the sublime as the force and immoderacy of nature would only be terrifying and horrible. The possible corresponding (Übereinstimmung) of the imagination of this immoderacy of nature with reason and its ideas presupposes that the imagination attributes to itself a further destination and assignment: ‘to treat nature as a schema for ideas’ (: ). Concepts can be schematized; ideas as such cannot. At least not in a direct or unmediated way. This schematization will thus be indirect—related to the unimaginable totality of nature—in

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



a symbolic representation (Darstellung), and this will constitute the final link between nature and freedom.10 This presupposes culture, not in the sense that it is a merely culturally conditioned and conventional feeling. This feeling rather belongs to human nature and its predisposition (Anlage) to the feeling for the ideas of practical reason, the moral. Culture develops the feeling and prepares a person for the ultimate moral perspective suggested by it. In § , Kant emphasizes the fact that the human person is the only being in the world with intellect and the power to set objectives entirely at its own discretion. In that sense the human being has the title ‘lord of nature’, according to Kant. The human being is this provided that he has the understanding and the will to relate himself to an end that is self-sufficient and independent of nature. He can therefore be final end or end in itself, and not again function as means for another end. We imagine this end in such a manner that in all kinds of ways nature is only useful and suitable for ends that the human person independently sets himself and for which nature is available as means of realization. In order to discover where we should situate the ultimate end of nature for human beings, we must rather find out what nature can do to prepare people for what they themselves must do to be final end. This final end we must separate from all ends of which the possibility to realize them rests on things that one can expect from nature itself. If we need to eliminate all ends that nature provides and the possibilities that it offers itself to realize these as possible candidates for the determination of the final end of human existence, then only the formal, subjective condition, namely the aptitude for setting himself ends at all (and independent from nature in his determination of ends) remains. This means that the leading principle for the determination of a possible ultimate end of nature is controlled by this formal final end: the free determination of will for the sake of human autonomous freedom, and not the other way around that the final end is produced by nature. Therefore, in general the human being will use nature according to the maxims of his free ends as means. He will view what thus can be considered nature’s own ultimate end as the means to effect the external final end. Developing the competence of a reasonable being, which is part of nature itself, in order to set oneself ends at all (and set them in freedom) is culture.

10

See my § .



donald loose

Also in this way the sublime constitutes the boundary between nature and freedom, namely as mediating the transition from nature to culture. Kant points out immediately that technical and pragmatic skills are indeed the most important subjective condition of aptitude for the promotion of certain ends oneself, but this does not suffice to determine the will objectively. In order to accomplish this, we must determine the choice of the ends according to the principles of the final end: the autonomous self-determination of the person as end in itself. Hence culture will initially be a culture of resistance and duty, of discipline that exists negatively in the sublime liberation from the despotism of nature in us (the natural desires that deprive us of true free choice). As it happens, the true free choice can only be the one that is not determined heteronomously by the natural drives in us but that harmonizes the drives with moral principles of autonomy in which I view myself as well as any other never only as means but always also as to be respected end in itself. Sublime is thus what through its resistance (Widerstand) to the interest of the senses and nature in us pleases immediately. The beautiful judges the sensible data as purposive for the benefit of contemplative intellect. The intellect enjoys without a specific end that could be determined in concepts, the freedom of imagination without end as subjectively purposive for the experience of freedom. The sublime is purposive on subjective grounds in opposition to sensible interests for the ends of practical reason. This feeling cultivates the moral feeling and respect for the dignity of human beings as ends in themselves. “One can describe the sublime thus: it is an object (of nature) the representation of which determines the mind to think of unattainability of nature as a presentation of ideas” (: ). The feeling that the power of imagination itself cannot reach the idea of nature—in its unimaginable mathematical greatness as well as in its dynamic force—and her striving towards it together constitute the expression of the subjective purposiveness of our mind when using the power of imagination for the benefit of its supersensible destination. That obliges us to subjectively think nature itself in its totality as presentation (Darstellung) of something supersensible without being able to bring about objectively this representation. We cannot give scientific proof of the objective purposiveness of nature in its totality for the possible realization of freedom. But we can view the entire mechanics of nature (its force and counterforce) as a representation of the ultimate relation of all of nature with freedom as a similar relation of force and counterforce. This mechanics is valid into

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



the highest level, the ultimate end of nature, culture, in the organization of justice and in criminal justice, understood as the hindrance of a hindrance to freedom, in the mutual balance of power between states in international relations. The initial unpurposiveness of nature and the state of nature at the national and international level is a testimony to a similar second level purposiveness of the first level unpurposiveness. It is precisely the apparent dominance of war and violence that, as a trick of nature, compel to organize the counterforce of the laws of freedom (nolentem trahunt; volentem ducunt). The first level mechanism of action and reaction in nature is a representation of the second level force and counterforce of ‘nature as a whole’ and the supremacy of freedom. . Nature as Recalcitrant Ally of Freedom: Feeling as a Subjective Ground for Freedom in Nature The sublime feeling, understood as conflict and mediation of nature and freedom at the same time, must point in nature itself the possible ally of freedom. The resistance from the categorical imperative and respect for the law against the natural drives turns out to make true the possible realization of freedom and to be the subjective ground of determination of morality. Duty in relation to the moral law is sublime (CPR : ) and the commandment itself in the Jewish book of the law is sublime (CPJ :). The categorical imperative originates as a form of law by isolating it from all determination as to content of the maxims. The self-critical reflection on the particularity in the incentive is the only way to attain a universalizable ground of determination of the will. Practical reason is confronted with a purposiveness of all kinds of pragmatic maxims, technical and hypothetic imperatives, with respect to which it is required to apply an a priori determined lawfulness. The intellectual or moral sensus communis is not an empirical or constructivistic generality, but the individual recognition of the necessity to think the own feeling of being oriented at a common cause as a faculty that also every other reasonable being is endowed with autonomously, and is therefore also to be respected in every other as an end in itself. The analysis of feeling is one of the rare indications to be found in Kant’s oeuvre allowing us to think the transcendental subject as a living and incarnated being.11 No matter how much Kant’s anthropological 11

François Calori, , p. .



donald loose

condition for the possibility for receptivity for the law is characterized by opposition and resistance to natural predispositions, the transcendental analysis of the subjective ground of determination of morality and the possible realization of freedom still raises the question concerning the natural conditions for the possibility of this resistance. Kant outlines these in the analysis of the feelings of pleasure and displeasure (Lust— Unlust) in § – of the nd book of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht).12 In §  Kant asserts: “To feel one’s life, to enjoy oneself (sich vergnügen), is nothing more than to feel oneself continuously driven to leave the present state, which must therefore be a pain that recurs just as often as the present.” What directly, through sense, urges me to leave my state (to go out of it) is disagreeable to me. It causes me pain; just as what drives me to maintain my state (to remain in it) is agreeable to me. I enjoy it. Enjoyment seems to be the promotion of life and the feeling of life. Pain is that of the hindrance of life. What else, however, but a quick death from joy would result from a continuous promotion of the vital force, which cannot be raised above a certain degree. Life and the feeling of life (Lebensgefühl) that consist in the perception of the vital force must thus be understood differently: it is a continuous play of the antagonism of pleasure and displeasure. Hence Kant defines the feeling of life in §  of the CPJ simply as the feeling of pleasure and displeasure. Enjoyment is ultimately nothing other than removal (Aufhebung) of pain. That we are first compelled to leave the present for the future, without any certainty into which other state we shall enter, only knowing that it is another one, is already the cause of our agreeable feeling. Therefore pain must always precede every enjoyment. Pain is the incentive for activity, and in this above all we feel our life. Without pain lifelessness (Leblosigkeit) would set in. Pain is then sublated into pleasure. Pleasure and displeasure, enjoyment and pain are not opposed merely as opposites (contradictorie, Gegenteil) but also as counterparts (Widerspiel, contrarie). As an incentive to activity, nature has put pain in the human being that cannot be escaped from, in order to always progress toward what is better (Anthrop. : ). Contentment during life is unattainable for the human being: neither from the moral point of view (being content with his good conduct) nor from the pragmatic point of view (being content with the sense of well-being). To be absolutely contented in life would

12

G. Zöller and R.B. Louden (eds.), .

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



be idle rest (tatlose Ruhe) and standstill of all incentives (Stillstand der Triebfedern), or dulling of sensations and the activity connected with them. Life would not even be experienced at all since Lebensgefühl is nothing other than the changes of pleasure and pain. However, such a state is no more compatible with the intellectual life of the human being than the stopping of the heart in the animal’s body, where death follows inevitably unless a new stimulus (through pain) is sent (Anthrop. : ). One can also relate the expression ‘what pleases’ and ‘displeases’ to the intellectual in which case these will not simple coincide with pleasure and pain. The intellectual sublation of the direct sensuous pleasure and of agreeable and disagreeable in enjoyment involves them in the dialectics of the pleasurable experience of the stimulus to leave a certain state, which in itself was a feeling of displeasure. Reversely, we understand the intellectual boredom of invariability and remaining in one and the same state, which is primarily recognized as pleasurable. These dialectics of the ultimately intellectually pleasant feeling, which presented itself in the natural order as unpleasant, frightening and horrible, constitutes the ambiguity that characterizes the intellectual feeling of sublimity. In CPJ §  the feeling of the sublime is characterized as “the feeling of displeasure from the inadequacy of the imagination in the aesthetic estimation of magnitude for the estimation by means of reason, and a pleasure that is thereby aroused at the same time from the correspondence of this very judgment of the inadequacy of the greatest sensible faculty in comparison with ideas of reason.” (: ). The sublime arouses, precisely as a result of the experience of the own power to develop a counterforce, a pleasurable feeling that is entirely a class of its own. The mind feels itself moved (bewegt) in the representation of the sublime in nature, while in the aesthetic judgment on the beautiful in nature it is in calm contemplation. This movement (especially in its inception) may be compared to a vibration (Erschütterung), a rapidly alternating repulsion from and attraction to one and the same object. In that sense, culture is the development of this creative antagonism of pleasure and displeasure. Nature appears in culture not only as the contradictory ally that by means of its antagonisms and forms of violence occasions resistance against these itself. Reversely, culture also appears as the resistance against nature at the same time as a nature promoting force and teleology of nature. The enhancement of our skills, the creativity that consists of dissatisfaction with the apparent circumstances of



donald loose

unchangeability, precisely leads to ever new and higher forms of enjoyment, even though there is no end to the challenge. That is why we should not seek the meaning of life in contentment or happiness as such. We judge enjoyment and pain by a higher satisfaction or dissatisfaction with ourselves (namely moral) in order to decide whether we ought to refuse natural feelings or give ourselves over to them. Life as such, with regard to our enjoyment of it, which depends on fortunate circumstances, has no intrinsic value of its own at all. Life has value only as regards the use it is put to, and the ends at which it is directed. It is not luck but only wisdom that can secure the value of life for the human being (Anthrop. : ). . The Contradiction of Nature as Lasting Ally of Freedom Nature in its inner contradictory violence is an ally for the culture of freedom as an idea of reason. This implies that we should also recognize the sublime conflict of freedom with nature in realized freedom and at the highest level of culture. Realized freedom ultimately remains characterized by the sublime task to resist the resistance to freedom. This is evident in Kant’s idea of public law, criminal law, war and the analysis of radical evil. The view that Kant develops in the Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim and in Towards Perpetual Peace constantly points at the mechanism of social conflicts and intrinsic oppositions as productive in itself for leaving the state of nature of social insociability and entering into a lawful state, that profiles itself as its legal variant. Here the exteriorization of the capacity of choice (Willkür) of one person can be organized in accordance with that of all others by means of a law. “The means nature employs in order to bring about the development of all its predispositions is their antagonism in society, insofar as the latter is in the end the cause of their lawful order. Here I understand by ‘antagonism’: the unsocial sociability of human beings, i. e. their propensity to enter into society, which however is combined with a thoroughgoing resistance that constantly threatens to break up this society” (Idea, iv; : ). The thesis exactly matches the outline in CPJ §  “The formal condition under which alone nature can attain its final aim is that constitution in the relation of human beings with one another in which the abuse of reciprocally conflicting freedom is opposed by lawful power in a whole, which is called civil society.” Right itself is in its entirety nothing other than the

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



translation of the mechanics of action and reaction according to a law of freedom and the ultimate end of nature (culture). The construction of the concept of right comes about through the analogy with the law of action and reaction implied in nature. The law of mutual coercion and to coexist with everyone’s freedom is the construction of the concept of right. That is the representation thereof in the a-priori intuition by analogy with representing the possibility of bodies moving freely under the law of the equality of action and reaction. It is this representation which gives intuition to the concept of right.13 “Thus, in analogy with the law of the equality of effect and counter-effect in the mutual attraction and repulsion of bodies I can also conceive of the community of the members of a commonwealth in accordance with rules of justice” (: ). International law shows a similar structure in its historical evolution. Such a cosmopolitan condition of public state security must not wholly be without danger in order that the powers of humanity do not fall asleep, but it is at least not without a principle of equality between its reciprocal effect and counter-effect (Idea :). A long peace causes the spirit of mere commerce to predominate, along with base selfishness, cowardice and weakness, and it usually debases the mentality of the populace (: ). In this context, even war is highly appreciated by Kant as a sublime experience. The aesthetic judgment will always think more of the general than the statesman. The military must not only show courage and withstand danger, he must act at the service of the virtues of peace such as mildness and compassion as well. He pre-eminently incarnates the contradiction of the sublime. War is an indication of the ambiguity of the sublime that turns itself towards the continuation of violence as well as the attempt to overcome it. In that sense, war indeed prepares peace because the rules of war ultimately sublate the aesthetic game of violence to the sublime task of eternal peace: “There is to be no war”. What can be more metaphysically sublimated than this very idea?14 The gradual abolishment of offensive war as a result of the propagation of republican (democratic) regimes can be the prospect. In this sense, only defensive war as resistance to the violence that still surfaces can be justified until in the end resistance can be managed entirely within the terms of law in such a way that law can be taken as the sublime resistance of freedom against violence and as what we may take as the continuation of war 13 14

Mary Gregor (ed.), . Introduction, § E, : . Mary Gregor (ed.), . : –.



donald loose

with different means. The peace that Kant has in mind is not the peace of the pacifist utopist. It is the civilized continuation of battle, a continuous progress of people toward improvement (Fortschritt zum Besseren), also in the cultural sense (especially with preservation of different religions and languages) and as the conflict (Streit) of the faculties at the university. Towards Perpetual Peace also preserves the chronological distance between duty and reality.15 That is why the law remains above all a means of resistance, also from the side of the citizens against the violence of tyrannies and corrupt states. No matter how much Kant warns for the violence of a revolution and forbids sedition or rebellion as a form of resistance against a legally installed regime, he still suggests the sometimes just character of resistance and opposition against an executive power that can claim no legal ground for itself. Resistance against a legal executive is a contradiction in terms16 because basically the power derives its power from the sovereignty (the united will of the people), as a result of which the resistance of the people becomes a resistance against itself and thus, for that matter, disables any possible decision of that battle because of the lack of a third judging authority. A so-called right to legal resistance against rightful government would be a right to resistance against the resistance against violence and leads to the downward spiral of the powers of evil which should be resisted with all possible means. Kant sees this happening in the execution of Louis XVI—a political sin that cannot be forgiven, a crime that remains forever and can never be expiated.17 However, besides the always possible resistance of the pen, Kant indeed suggests the lawful character of resistance against unlawful political powers.18 All this indicates that contradiction not only remains an ally of freedom, but that we can recognize the sublime conflict between freedom and natural violence up to the highest level of freedom and its public legal order. §  of the CPJ ultimately deals with the question how evil that happens to us not only as a result of the violence of nature but also by our own doing can be conquered by reason and progress toward the 15 To hope some day for the consummation of the political product, as it is envisaged here, is a sweet dream; but that it is being perpetually approached is not only thinkable, but, in as far as it is compatible with the moral law, an obligation. M.J. Gregor (ed.), . II, § , note. (: ). 16 Theory and Praxis. (:  and ); Doctrine of Right § , General Remark, D (: ). 17 Doctrine of Right, §  General Remark, A, note (:). 18 K.R. Westphal, in Journal of Philosophical Research, , pp. –.

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



better. “The evil (Übel) that is visited upon us partly by nature, partly by the intolerant selfishness of human beings, at the same time calls forth, strengthens, and steels the powers of the soul not to be subjected to those, and thus allows us to feel an aptitude for higher ends, which lies hidden in us.” Even if they might not make us morally better (nicht sittlich besser), they might at least make us better mannered for society (gesittet). In The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant refers to an ultimate wisdom from above (eine Weisheit von oben herab) to manage this conflict. Progress toward the better can only be expected from top to bottom and not from bottom to top (:). If the law as ordering of the external freedom among ourselves must find recognition by means of force, then education (Bildung) through the imparting of respect for the law and training must precede it, and then the culture of the sublime domination of freedom, understood as the domination of lawful willing over violence, must precede it. Then progress toward the better must be based on the hope that the moral predisposition in mankind is developed for which something like a change of heart, the putting on of the new man, called rebirth, a new creation and the need for a supernatural influence (übernatürlicher Einfluß) seems inevitable.19 In Religion, this sublime, never fully to be reached idea of an ethical community, is viewed as invisible church in which the members act wholly and merely out of duty and also make this duty the incentive to their actions. It is a community ruled by the duty of virtue (Tugendpflicht). The lawgiver of such a community must be a Lord and master for which role no member of the community is qualified. The sublime idea of the union of all human beings in the shared desire for a Kingdom of God (:) supposes a highest flawless lawgiver as lord and this excites the moral incentive. Meanwhile, in a dialogue with jurists, Kant indeed borrows of this the schematism of an impact of the higher on the lower. Even if the result of the progress cannot be sought empirically in moral progress, the dynamics of progress is not to be expected naturally and as a mechanics of the causa efficiens, but from the teleology of freedom: from top to bottom and not from bottom to top. However, in Religion Kant also confronts us with the analysis of radical evil and with the bewildering observation that freedom as freedom of choice (Willkür) has apparently always already rebelled against the will (Wille). With this, Kant finds himself in front of the ultimate abyss of

19

The Conflict of the Faculties, II. §  (: ); Religion (:  note).



donald loose

the everlasting ambiguity of the sublime and the unsolvable dilemma of not being able to sublate the conflict. If the choice for evil were a merely negative choice (Willkür) of an ultimately determined freedom of choice, then it is morally irrelevant instead of moral evil to be held accountable for. If it were to be accounted for by the free will (Wille), then freedom would be auto-destructive in the end and a contradiction in itself. Kant seeks a way out in an intelligible act (der intelligible Tat): a decision that is always already taken by free choice and the first act preceding all time, that has to be judged accountable, without a preceding cause that can serve as an explanation. How this always already established supremacy of the inclination over freedom, which at the same time has to be acknowledged as performed in freedom, can be resisted in freedom and how the predisposition to the good can be recovered from the propensity to evil must be the most sublime task that the human being is presented with. §  of the CPJ had already defined respect for the law as a feeling of inadequacy (Unangemessenheit) of the greatest sensible faculty compared to ideas of reason, insofar as striving for them is nevertheless a law for us. The remarkable ambiguity that is to be experienced in the sublime as simultaneously attractive and repulsive and the conquering of this ambiguity only lies in the fascination for the lawlikeness character (Gesetzmässigkeit) in the idea of a law, which is called in the CPR the typology of a law as practical variant of the schematization. ‘Our imagination, even in its greatest effort with regard to the comprehension of a given object in a whole of intuition (hence for the presentation of the idea of reason) that is demanded of it, demonstrates its limits and inadequacy, but at the same time its vocation for adequately realizing that idea as a law’ (: ). In the Religion, however, the inadequacy becomes radical and thus unconquerable for reason as such since it remains entangled in the ambiguity of the disposition to the good and the propensity to evil. According to J. Rogozinski,20 besides Kant’s characterization of the beautiful as symbol of the good, one can point at the sublime as the quasi-scheme of the supreme resistance of the law to radical evil. The general remark about radical evil at the end of the first part of the Religion, thus has as its theme: The restoration to its power (Wiederherstellung in ihre Kraft) of the original predisposition to the good. The consciousness of the always possible counterforce of the will on the freedom of choice has a necessarily inspir-

20

J. Rogozinski, , pp. –: .

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



ing effect on the mind. The feeling of sublimity of our moral vocation is in itself a means of awakening moral dispositions (Religion, : ). But is the restoration and resistance by oneself not contradicted by the fact that already from birth the human being is lost for all that is good? It is certainly the case that we should not want to understand the possibility of this restoration and should take it as empirically inscrutable (unerforschbar). But that is actually also the case with freedom itself. All that we represent as temporally given and changeable must be understood as a determined process according to causal natural laws, but is accompanied by the insight that we must still represent the opposite as possible under moral laws of autonomy and freedom at the same time. We are ultimately caught in this sublime discord. Even though the possible participation of a higher influence is now inevitable since the power of reason must be understood as always already controlled by the supremacy of the inclination; we still can and must not want to make ourselves a representation of this sublime supremacy. The supremacy of the good remains a representation of what is not representable. If we represent it at all, for example as heaven and hell, then its major philosophical meaning is that two domains of good and evil are concerned, divided by an unfathomably deep abyss, as a result of which the thought is avoided that a strong affinity would exist between the characteristics that qualify a person for the one domain or the other.21 Therefore the representation of heaven and hell has something horrifying about it because it leads us, as it were, to the edge of an abyss, and yet there is some kind of attraction here too; it is frighteningly sublime (Religion :  note; The End of all Things, : ). . Symbolic Representation The sublime thus ultimately remains the indication of an opposition that cannot be reconciled in the representation. It is rather the indication of the impossibility to cross from the world of understanding (Verstand) and imagination to the world of reason. Nonetheless, precisely this impossibility of a beautiful harmony (zusammenstimmen) is an indication of the possibility to correspond (übereinstimmen), namely that of the reflecting judgment that in the counter-indications of nature and the intellectual understanding of it sees the suggestion of a possible 21

A thesis of J. Lacan, , pp. –.



donald loose

realization by reason of that which is impossible for intellectual understanding (Verstand) and imagination. This possibility of reason is not only judged as not impossible for understanding but the world of understanding is judged by reason in a way understanding itself cannot bring about, namely as an indication for the possibility of the realization of the ends of reason. The reflecting judgment offers the ultimate possibility to relate the world of representation to the unrepresentable or, reversely, to relate the unrepresentable of the ideas of reason to sensibility. Kant calls it symbolic representation (symbolische Darstellung) in §  of the CPJ, with “beauty as a symbol of morality” as its title. This is an indirect representation of an idea of reason through the direct process of the schematization of a concept of understanding. Power of judgment understands the relation of the concept of the understanding to schematized intuition of it as analogous with the relation of the idea of reason to its corresponding reality. Not the representation of the schematized object itself is understood by reason in an analogous relation. Just the reflecting act—the mere rule of this reflecting procedure—of the reflecting judgment concerning the relation in both domains is used by the reflecting judgment as insight. If we understand the relation of a despotic executive as analogous with the mechanic mechanism of a handmill in the way that we understand the monarchical (representative) regime as the relation between the different organs of a living organism, then there is no similarity whatsoever between a mill and a political regime or between an organism and the function of the body politic in the things themselves, but only in the clarifying insight (for the reflecting judgment itself) in the procedure of the exercise of power with regard to those realities. Kant also applies this reasoning to religion and the represented ideas of reason. All representations of the idea of the divine are therefore symbolic.22 Thus the boundaries of analogous reasoning as already set in the Prolegomena §  are preserved: knowledge according to analogy is not, as it is usually described, an imperfect likeness between two things but a perfect likeness between two entirely dissimilar things. With this, Kant terminologically returns to the meaning of Aristotle’s kat’analogia, a fourfold analogy of proportionality, and dissociates himself entirely from the medieval analogy of attribution that constitutes an immediate efficient or teleological causality (the Aristotelian pros hen and aph’ énos, ab uno and

22

Prolegomena, §  (:–); Religion (:).

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



ad unum). Does this ultimately imply that dualism cannot be removed since such a relation of proportionality with one unknown element ultimately also prevents the relation itself and the bridge across the abyss of the separate worlds? Because, contrary to relations in mathematics (for example / = /x), we are unable to deduce the missing element here since in principal it remains unknowable for understanding and imagination and hence so does the relation. Nevertheless, analogy reasoning does indeed offer insight, but an insight in the understanding of our procedures of understanding and in the rule of reflecting upon an object of intuition that can be transposed to an idea of an entirely different nature for which no direct sensible intuition is adequate. The insight, however, does not concern that undemonstrable object—the analogatum itself—but our understanding of the reflected relation to it on the basis of our understanding of the relation in the primarily understandable relation (we understand the analogon—de relation—of the demonstrable analogata). The Copernican Revolution of transcendental philosophy and the inherent change of perspective indeed imply that all relations that we discover between the things are ultimately constructs of understanding and as such always an expression of relations in our mind.23 However, we still have not reached the limits of the faculty of judgment as such. If we take seriously what is specific in the reflecting character of the judgment, where reasoning from the concrete to the universal is concerned and where, contrary to the determining judgment, this universal is not given, then we should not allow ourselves to be misled by the examples that Kant himself gives in the most elaborated §  in the CPJ concerning symbolic representation.24 If we really were to limit ourselves to the parallel analogy of the efficiency of a mechanic and an organic cause, ultimately we would only have correlated two determining judgments and thereby only emphasized the defectiveness of theoretical knowledge by analogy. Kant, however, explicitly states that in the symbolic representation a further reflection with regard to an object of intuition is concerned. In the analysis of the examples of the handmill and organic life, the application of the concept to the object of the sensible intuition is concerned, and then secondly the application of the mere rule of reflection on that intuition (die bloße regel der Reflexion über jene Anschauung) to an entirely 23 24

A.M. Pieper, , pp. –: . See F. Marty, .



donald loose

different object, of which the first is only the symbol. The working of a handmill or an organic body illustrates the working of a despotic or democratic political regime. In the subsequent explanation, the argument is broadened to the general procedure of the transposition of the reflection on one object of intuition to another quite different concept, to which perhaps no intuition can ever directly correspond (Übertragung der Reflexion über einen Gegenstand der Anschauung auf einen ganz anderen Begriff, dem vielleicht nie eine Anschauung direkt korrespondieren kann. : –). This means that, departing from a concrete symbol and from the general symbolism of beauty as a symbol of morality, we have switched to the reflection on the reflecting judgment as such. Any schematism whatsoever can not only be understood as an analogy in relations of other demonstrable intuitions (a handmill and a political regime), but it can also and above all be seen as the basic level of intuition, with regard to which reason can subsequently always develop a reflecting judgment that, on a completely different level, looks for the universal rule of any concrete schematism. Thus we recognize in the freedom of the application of the faculties of intellectual knowledge in the aesthetic experience the freedom of our moral autonomy, which is of an entirely different nature. The ideas of reason are thus reflectively understood in an indirect representation. This is true not only for the beautiful but also for the sublime (: ). That in the sublime, contrary to the beautiful, the moral or the suprasensible is immediately given from the start, should not serve as an argument against the possible symbolization of it.25 In the sublime freedom is indirectly given as idea, and that is not directly demonstrable in a schematism for the intuitive kind of representation. Reversely, the sublime in the pure aesthetic judgment that is not mixed up with any judgment of the understanding or of reason must not have a concept of an end of the object as its determining ground (: ). Precisely the transposition of an undetermined, and according to intuition undeterminable, all-embracing concept of lawfulness to an idea of practical reason can only come about in the reflecting judgment by means of an indirect representation of freedom according to the typos of lawfulness as such. We understand the relation of a universal law in the mechanism of action and reaction in nature on the basis of a concrete law of nature, and we then recognize the supremacy of the lawfulness of freedom over the force of nature as 25

B. Recki, , p.  note , denies the symbolisation of the sublime in a discussion with P. Guyer, , p.  and H. Parret (ed.),, pp. –.

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



a whole, based on our insight in that demonstrable natural balance of power at the service of reason, which then judges the purposiveness of nature as a whole for freedom. Every schematism can be symbolized. We even cannot reduce the symbol and the indirect representation in general to the aesthetic judgment. We can even state that what interests Kant most here in the aesthetic reflecting judgment concerning beauty is first of all the negative moment that makes a determining judgment about beauty impossible. It thus opens the way for a yet unknown general concept, which only then makes possible the perspective of another—reflecting—judgment, which holds out the prospect of an idea of reason. Kant explicitly states that we do not intend to formulate an aesthetic judgment as an objectively valid judgment in the determining generally valid way such as ‘roses are beautiful’ but only in the singular version ‘this rose is beautiful’, which we must understand as ‘this rose is a thing of beauty’. And with this the subsumption of the particular under the general is never conceived as an exemplar of a universally given concept (beautiful), but through the mathematic sublime it becomes the representation of an all-encompassing totality, in which a schematism has meaning, holding out the prospect of yet to be conceived in a further reflecting way. Besides, through the dynamic sublime the change of level from pure theoretical reason to practical reason is emphasized. The reflection on an intuition of any kind of totality of nature or its force holds the prospect of the final supremacy of freedom, which had already been recognized in the beautiful, and for which no empirical verification is available. Hence we should not understand the determining judgment with regard to the schematism and the reflecting judgment concerning it as parallels at the same level. The universal as it functions in the first form is not the same as the way in which the reflecting judgment functions. In the first case, there is a categorical a priori given universal concept that can be schematized; in the second, such a thing is not given but is always still sought and has a regulative function for thinking.26 Hence Kant’s doctrine of symbolism does not limit itself to the conclusion that every word derives its primary meaning from intuition (: –). Neither does it merely imply that every word can metaphorically be used as a symbol for an indemonstrable idea that cannot be directly represented in a schematism. If the indirect representation would thus limit itself, the

26

F. Marty, , p. .



donald loose

Kantian analogy would epistemologically remain trapped in the lacuna of the missing analogatum (the fourth term of proportionality) and the analogon of the proportion would be a mere internal thought maneuver. Kant rather states: the reflection on the intuition in a primary reflecting judgment implies a transposition (Übertragung) of the reflecting act. It looks via the reflection on a schematized concept for the general rule, which in that schematized concept is understood intuitively and with regard to a demonstrable concept. This procedure can be developed in the perspective of an all-encompassing rule (mathematic sublime), larger than which nothing can be thought. This possibility is given in every symbolism concerning any schematism. In this sense, reason is given as the ultimate dimension in the sensible as such, but it is given in an indirect manner through the symbolization of the sensible. With the reflection on the dynamic sublime, the metaphysics of freedom is indeed implicitly given in the knowledge of nature, of which the human being itself is an element, but as a symbolizing being he is also aware of the task to recognize the supremacy of his freedom as opposed to the play of the forces of nature as a whole. In fact, Kant had already announced this project in the CPrR with the typology of a moral law as a form of symbolization of the lawfulness of a law of nature. We can thus indeed develop a twofold reflecting judgment concerning nature in relation to the idea of freedom of reason and therefore with respect to the teleology of nature.27 The analogy does not only concern the analogous relation of the purposiveness of nature with regard to an ultimate end of nature itself and with regard to the realization of freedom as the final end of nature. In this interpretation, there are only two reflecting judgments that are symbolized analogously and stand side by side. The one reflecting judgment concerning the demonstrable schematization in the representation of a process according to natural laws is, however, symbolized in turn in a second reflecting judgment concerning the idea of freedom, which is of an entirely different order. The two reflecting judgments are hierarchically ordered as a result of which the first judgment also changes in statute. It is reinterpreted as a relevant judgment for practical reason. In the scientific knowledge of nature the ultimate end of nature can be understood according to a schematization of the mechanics of action and reaction and the human being can pragmatically and technically be understood as the ultimate

27

F. Marty, , p.  ff.

the dynamic sublime as the pivoting point



element of a chain of living organisms who through his culture is able to withstand the physical force of nature. The means that nature itself uses for this purpose is the mechanical antagonism that extends into the unsocial sociabillity of culture but ultimately results in a legal order of power and resistance to the power of violence. This process, however, can be understood in its entirety as the representation of a schematism that in the second reflecting judgment can be understood as a schematism of the purposiveness of nature as a whole for the human person as final end. In that case the end is human autonomy in freedom whereby the ultimate end of nature as discipline (Zucht) and the coercive character of justice (Zwang) is raised in freedom in an ethics of duties of virtue (Tugendpflicht) and ultimately in a kingdom of God of morally intended citizens. This is a rereading of the mechanics as purposive itself for freedom. Not only the conflict in nature is concerned here, nor the sublime conflict of nature and freedom, but the sublation of the logic of nature in that of freedom. This process Kant himself has described in the general remark on §  as the representation of nature which determines the mind to think of the unattainability of nature (mathematically or dynamically) as a representation of ideas (: ). He ultimately refers to two texts as the expression of—perhaps—the most sublime of Western culture: on the one hand the Jewish Book of the Law and its commandment “Thou shalt not make any graven image” (: ), and the inscription over the temple of Isis (Mother Nature), whose veil no mortal has removed to discover the suprasensible (:  note), on the other. Both these negations in both worlds taken separately—there is no image of the invisible and no invisibility that shows itself through the veil in the visible—suggest in the positive sense that the sublime can only be thought of as the pivot of freedom and nature: the invisible of the visible or the freedom of the natural being that the human person is. That is why two things continue to fill the human mind with awe and respect: the starry heavens above me and the moral law inside of me. References Brandt, R., Immanuel Kant—Was bleibt?, Hamburg (F. Meiner) . Calori, François, ‘Vie et sentiment chez Kant’, in L’ Année : Kant. Critique de la Faculté de Juger, Paris (Vrin) . Crowther, P., The Kantian Sublime. From Morality to Art, Oxford (Clarendon) .



donald loose

Foessel, Michaël, ‘Analytik des Erhabenen’, in: O. Höffe, Kritik der Urteilskraft, Klassieker Auslegen, Berlin (Akademie Verlag) . Goodreau, John R., The Role of the Sublime in Kant’s Moral Metaphysics, Washington (The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy) . Gregor, Mary (ed.), The Conflict of the Faculties, Lincoln and London (University of Nebraska Press) . ———, The Metaphysics of Moral, Doctrine of Right, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) . Guyer, Paul, Matthews, Eric (translators), The Critique of the Power of Judgment, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) . Guyer, Paul, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, (Cambridge University Press) . ———, Kant and the Claims of Taste, Harvard University Press,  (reprinted Cambridge University Press, ). ———, ‘The Symbols of Freedom in Kant’s Aesthetics’ in H. Parret (ed.), Kants Ästhetik, Berlin (W. de Gruyter) . Lacan, J., ‘Kant avec Sade’, Ecrits, Paris (Seuil) . Lyotard, J.F., Leçons sur l’ Analytique du Sublime, Paris (Galilée) . Marty, F., La naissance de la métaphysique chez Kant. Un étude sur la notion kantienne d’ analogie, Paris (Beauchesne) . Pieper, A.M., ‘Kant und die Methode der Analogie’, in G. Schönrich and Y. Kato, Kant in der Diskussion der Moderne, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) . Recki, B., Ästhetik der Sitten, Frankfurt am Main (V. Klostermann) . Renaut, A., Kant Aujourd’ hui, Paris (Aubier). Rogozinski, Jacob, ‘A la limite de l’ Ungeheuer. Sublime et monstrueux dans la Troisième Critique’ in H. Parret (ed.), Kants Ästhetik, Berlin (W. de Gruyter) . Westphal, Kenneth, ‘Kant on the State, Law and Disobedience to Authority in the Alleged ‘Anti-Revolutionary’ Writings’, in Journal of Philosophical Research, . Zöller, G., Louden, R.B. (eds.), ‘Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view’ in Kant, Anthropology, History and Education, Cambridge University Press, .

SUBLIMITY, FREEDOM, AND NECESSITY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT

Arthur Kok Introduction This paper challenges the belief that freedom and necessity have a contradicting or even opposing reality. Not only will I argue that freedom and necessity can be unified, but also that freedom is the sole possible ground for necessity, and vice versa. In other words, freedom and necessity are absolutely one. The first part of the argumentation lies in an assessment of what the appropriate definitions of ‘freedom’ and ‘necessity’ are, using Kant’s notions of freedom and transcendental necessity. Thereafter, I will argue that the quintessence of transcendental philosophy is that necessity and freedom are unified as the Noumenon, and that the Noumenon is neither qua form nor qua concept comprehensible. I will investigate this Kantian idea of the Noumenon from a theoretical and practical standpoint and come to the conclusion that the comprehension of necessity and freedom, which is the same as transcendental self-consciousness, depends on the dynamical-sublime articulation of the Noumenon. In the course of this paper, I will critically discuss some aspects of Kant that I think are unsatisfactory. At the end, I will propose how to go beyond Kant by explicitly connecting the possibility of metaphysics with the possible threatening of human autonomy. . Definitions .. Freedom I begin with a Kantian notion of freedom: Freedom is the possibility to be the cause of an object or a chain of objects. When we abstract from this or that particular object or chain of objects, freedom means to be the cause of an effect, which can be called an object. Objective reality is only possible through a relation to objects. The effect as an object means that freedom as a subject relates to objective reality as its cause. From a



arthur kok

common viewpoint, taking myself as the subject and freedom as free will, I do not consider myself to be the cause of objective reality as a whole, but rather to interact with it. I thus relate myself to objective reality from two distinguishable standpoints: ) objective reality exists independently from my actions; ) objective reality is the result of my actions.1 In other words, I commonly believe that there are objects, which are the result of my actions, and that there are objects, which have causes that are not my actions. However, from a theoretical viewpoint, the freedom of the will is problematic. Namely, it is impossible to give examples from experience that can determine whether objects are the result of my actions or have other causes. No object of experience comprises with certainty what has caused it. Whereas the distinction between my actions and other causes cannot be experienced, I must investigate the possible causes of an effect or object. In the definition of freedom as the possibility to be the cause of an object, the cause must be a free subject. A free subject is a subject that determines itself, and is not determined by external causes. According to Kant, the subject of will is not necessarily free, but has two possible grounds of determination: animal choice (arbitrium brutum) and free choice (arbitrium liberum).2 The free will must have free choice, because

1 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. IV, (English transl.: M.J. Gregor, ) :–: “One resource, however, still remains us, namely to inquire whether we do not take a different standpoint when by means of freedom we think ourselves as causes efficient a priori than when we represent ourselves in terms of our actions as effects that we see before our eyes. No subtle reflection is required to make the following remark, and one may assume that the commonest understanding can make it, though in its own way, by an obscure discrimination of judgment which it calls feeling.” [BA : “Eine Auskunft bleibt uns aber noch übrig, nämlich zu suchen: ob wir, wenn wir uns durch Freiheit als a priori wirkende Ursachen denken, nicht einen anderen Standpunkt einnehmen, als wenn wir uns selbst nach unseren Handlungen als Wirkungen, die wir vor unseren Augen sehen, uns vorstellen. Es ist eine Bemerkung, welche anzustellen einen kein subtiles Nachdenken erfordert wird, sondern von der man annehmen kann, dass sie wohl der gemeinste Verstand, obzwar nach seiner Art durch eine dunkele Unterscheidung der Urteilskraft, die er Gefühl nennt, machen mag.”] 2 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, (English transl.: P. Guyer and A.W. Wood, ) B : “A faculty of choice, that is, is merely animal (abritrium brutum) which cannot be determined other than through sensible impulses, i.e., pathologically. However, one which can be determined independently of sensory impulses, thus through motives that can only be represented by reason, is called free choice (arbitrium liberlum), and everthing that is connected with this, whether as ground or consequence, is called practical.” [“Eine Willkür nämlich ist bloß tierisch (arbitrium brutum), die nicht anders als durch sinnliche Antriebe, d. i. pathologisch bestimmt werden kann. Diejenige aber, welche unabhängig von sinnlichen Antrieben, mithin durch Bewegursachen, welche nur von der Vernunft

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



if the will’s ground of determination is animal choice, it is determined by external (namely, sensuous) causes.3 The will has to actualize its free choice by excluding animal choice. The will’s free choice may be a subjective condition of the free will, but its actualization cannot be a matter of choice. In any case, choice is contingent, whereas the actualized free choice is a necessary condition for free will. It is impossible to prove this necessity in any way other than a purely analytical one. There is no example from experience of a will that is entirely determined by either free choice or animal choice; nor can we deny the choice not to choose free choice.4 Therefore, the actuality of free choice is at most a logical necessity. The free will must be understood as a free subject, which is the subjective ground of objective reality. The logical necessity of this subject does not rule out possible other causes of objects. These externally caused objects are possible workings on the will, which are actualized when the will is determined by animal choice. The free subject must be independent from these influences, i.e., it must be self-determined. Kant maintains that this logical necessity can never be perceived because perceptible objects of experience are a priori conditioned by externality. Also, nonperceptible objects of experience (like thoughts, beliefs, ideas, etc.) could be random associations, i.e., psychological rather than logical, inferred from perceptions without any necessity. This poses an epistemological problem: I cannot know whether I am the cause of an object, or whether some other cause caused me to cause the object. As a result, I do not know if my actions are truly my actions; thus, the existence of free will becomes problematic. Kant grounds freedom in the logical necessity of a self-determining subject. What is the objective reality of this subject? An objective reality that corresponds to the free subject is not given. For Kant, the opposite is given, namely, a reality that is only objective because it is also a vorgestellt werden, bestimmt werden kann, heißt die freie Willkür (arbitrium liberum), und alles, was mit dieser, es sei als Grund oder Folge, zusammenhängt, wird Praktisch genannt.”] 3 Please note that this is not what Kant understands by natural will. The natural will is not purely determined by animal choice, but by maxims. Such will is natural because its maxims still contain empirical incentives that have a sensible origin. The natural will does not have the sensible incentives as its cause, but as a distinct source of input for the constitution of its maxims. It already organizes incentives under a law form, synthesizing them, but this is not the yet the pure law form of freedom. 4 This is the problem of radical evil. In this paper I will not go into this problem, but Kant deals with it in Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft.



arthur kok

sensible reality. Therefore, the possibility of an objective reality of the free subject depends entirely on the inner necessity of the free subject. This inner necessity has to be proven as the necessary unity or identity of the free subject. However, a purely subjective necessity is impossible. The possibility of objective reality thus has to be necessary in itself. The solution to this problem demands carefully scrutinizing the relation between necessity and objectivity, to which the next section provides an introduction. .. Necessity I take two important definitions of necessity in the tradition of early modern philosophy as my starting point: Descartes and Hume. Then, I consider Kant’s definition, which synthesizes rationalism and empiricism’s definitions of necessity. Thereafter, I give a general outline of my criticism of Kant, and clarify my idea of how to overcome this criticism. The criticism, as well as my answer to it, will be examined in the rest of the paper. For Descartes, only ideas that are present in our consciousness with clarity and distinctiveness are necessary. The first of these ideas, and thus the principle of all philosophy, is the inner certainty of self-consciousness (cogito).5 What is meant by clarity and distinctiveness? Cartesian doubt rules out logical and mathematical evidences as well as sensible evidences as sources of necessity. But when the consciousness takes itself as its content, i.e., unifies the act of thinking and the object of thought, it indubitably affirms its existence. Descartes’ principle of philosophy therefore is the identity of self-consciousness with itself, i.e., a pure self-relation. Descartes’ definition of necessity is the pure identity realized as pure selfrelation. Descartes develops his argument of consciousness’ self-certainty through abstraction and negation from all externality. Therefore, his notion of necessity as pure self-relation is to be understood as the purely rational or inner certainty of the self-consciousness. Furthermore, there is Hume’s psychological notion of necessity. Hume upholds the evidence of the senses and denies that there is any evidence in reasoning. The senses, however, do not necessarily adequately resemble the sensed object. Therefore, necessity concerning the origin of the sen5 Descartes, Les méditations métaphysiques, in: Descartes, , –: “De sorte qu’ apres y auoir bien pensé, & auoir soigneusement examiné toutes choses, enfin il faut conclure, & tenir pour constant que cette proposition: Ie suis, i’ existe, est necessairement vraye, toutes les fois que ie la prononce, ou que ie la conçoy en mon esprit.”

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



suous representations is impossible. Also, all reasoning consists in conjoining separate parts. The results of reasoning are not evident because necessary conjoining, i.e., connection or causality, is impossible. Instead, the conjoining is a psychological act, which we are aware of as feeling.6 As a result, Hume denies that the Cartesian self-consciousness is certain. Nonetheless, Hume denies that Cartesian doubt can be maintained beyond the point that the evidence of feelings is doubted.7 He argues that it would be practically impossible to remain entirely skeptical. Therefore, in Hume’s skeptical philosophy, necessary knowledge is absolutely impossible, but there is some practical evidence that is purely experiential. The scientific acquisition of knowledge is an ongoing enquiry, primarily serving common practical life. The task of skeptical philosophy in this enquiry is to dismantle supposedly causal relations as mere acts of associative conjoining for practical purposes. Kant attempted to systematically synthesize rationalism and empiricism’s definitions of necessity while, at the same time, develop an entirely new notion of necessity. Kant distinguishes multiple sorts of necessity, but philosophical necessity or absolute certainty is defined as necessity a priori, which is transcendental. The only entity that can be called necessary is pure reason. Kant considers his definition of necessity as a revolution in philosophy8 because he no longer defines necessity a priori as objective necessity, but as the condition of possibility of objectivity, i.e., as objective validity (objektive Gültigkeit). Objective validity or theoretical reason is only the negative articulation of necessity a priori, whereas

6 Hume, , Section VII, –: “One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely, without any meaning, when employed either in philosopical reasoning or common life. [. . .] But when one particular species of event has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another, we make no longer any scruple of foretelling one upon the appearance of the other, and of employing that reasoning, which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. We then call the one object, Cause; the other, Effect. We suppose that there is some connexion between them; some power in the one, by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity. . . . This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connexion.” 7 Hume, , Section XII, : “The Cartesian Doubt, therefore, were it ever possible to be attained by any human creature (as it plainly is not) would be entirely incurable; and no reasoning could us bring to a state of assurance and conviction upon any subject.” 8 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B xiii ff.



arthur kok

practical reason is a positive articulation. For Kant, practical reason is moral freedom: the pure identity of freedom with itself, or freedom qua freedom. Pure reason, therefore, is the unity of freedom and necessity. Kant’s distinction between theoretical and practical reason is helpful, but Kant does not conceptualize the unity of theoretical and practical reason as they should be unified, namely, under the primacy of practical reason. Theoretical reason indeed constitutes the conditions of the consciousness of moral freedom, but practical reason also conditions the possibility of theoretical reason. Kant, however, wrongly grants theoretical reason relative independence from practical reason with regard to both sources of knowledge: the understanding (Verstand) and the intuition (Anschauung). As a result, Kant fails to acknowledge that freedom qua freedom is the same as necessity qua necessity. I do not accept the existence of theoretical necessity independently from practical necessity. Therefore, objective validity is also an inadequate articulation of necessity (and, hence, of pure reason). However, the flaws in Kant’s definition of necessity as reason must be overcome because—mediated by his explicit criticism on Hume— Kant implicitly makes a very important argument against Descartes: namely, that self-certainty cannot be articulated in terms of a pure selfrelation.9 This implies that self-certainty has another meaning for Kant. In his works on practical reason,10 Kant makes clear what this other meaning is: autonomy. If autonomy is not a pure self-relation, then what is it? To better understand the theoretical meaning of autonomy, I will have to search for indications in Kant’s key theoretical work, the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, which will lead to an original interpretation of Kant.

9 Please note that the positive meaning of Descartes’ cogito, namely to express the unity of being and concept, is not explored by Kant. For example Hegel criticizes Kant for having a deficient understanding of being as mere positivity. This paper argues only indirectly that any positive expression of the unity of being and concept is an inadequate expression of necessity. Hegel’s standpoint that being already incorporates negativity certainly introduces an original perspective to the discussion on Descartes’ cogito. Nonetheless I believe that we can bring this up for discussion only after we have comprehended Kant’s criticism of philosophical attempts to think the necessary unity of being and concept as a self-relation. (Hegel, Werke, Bd. , –; cf. Kant, Akad.Ausg. III, B  ff.) 10 Most notably, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft and Kritik der Urteilskraft.

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



. General Outline The general purport of my interpretation can be elucidated when I focus on the role of the intuitive intellect or intellectual intuition in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Kant compares our (human) capacities of understanding and intuition to, respectively, (non-human) intuitive intellect or intellectual intuition.11 Through this comparison, Kant effectively shows the limits of these human capacities. Remarkably, Kant claims that the exposition of their limits, however, precisely is the transcendental standpoint. In the key moment of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft,—the deduction of original-synthetic unity of the apperception12—Kant draws a comparison between the human understanding and an intuitive intellect.13 It is possible that this comparison is not trivial but necessary for the possibility of the deduction. The ‘I’ or subject is transcendental insofar as the ‘I’ is aware of the mere possibility of a pure intellect, and therefore can limit the distinction between intuition and understanding. This implies that the genuine distinction, which characterizes Kant’s dualism, is not between intuition and understanding, but between the being-distinct and the not-being-distinct of intuition and understanding. It is obvious that

11 The ‘intellectual intuition’ and the ‘intuitive intellect’ refer to the same entity: the immediate unity (i.e., unity in being) of Intuition and Understanding. In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant uses the ‘intellectual intuition’ to determine the nature of sensibility: “Consciousness of itself (apperception) is the simple representation of the I, and if all of the manifold in the subject were given self-actively through that alone, then the inner intuition would be intellectual. In human beings this consciousness requires inner perception of the manifold that is antecedently given in the subject, and the manner in which this is given in the mind without spontaneity must be called sensibility on account of this difference.” (Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B ) [“Das Bewußtsein seiner selbst (Apperzeption) ist die einfache Vorstellung des Ich, und, wenn dadurch allein alles Mannigfaltige im Subjekt selbsttätig gegeben wäre, so würde die innere Anschauung intellektuell sein. Im Menschen erfordert dieses Bewußtsein innere Wahrnehmung von dem Mannigfaltigen, was im Subjekte vorher gegeben wird, und die Art, wie dieses ohne Spontaneität im Gemüte gegeben wird, muß, um dieses Unterschiedes willen, Sinnlichkeit heißen.”] In the Transcendental Analytics, Kant uses the ‘intuitive intellect’ to show what the ‘thinking’ in the ‘I think’ means: “An understanding, in which through self-consciousness all of the manifold would at the same time be given, would intuit; ours can only think and must seek the intuition in the senses.” (Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B ) [“Ein Verstand, in welchem durch das Selbstbewußtsein zugleich alles Mannigfaltigen gegeben würde, würde anschauen; der unsere kann nur denken und muß in den Sinnen die Anschauung suchen.”] 12 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations . . .” [“Das: Ich denke, muß alle meine Vorstellungen begleiten können . . .”]. 13 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B ; cf. footnote .



arthur kok

the meaning of this comparison has important consequences for the way in which the transcendental deduction establishes necessity, even if they have been overlooked by Kant. I believe that Kant’s critical philosophy is, willingly or unwillingly, characterized by this contradistinction. Thus, his dualism can be described (surely enough) as the duality between the divine order and the human order. Kant did not simply replenish the most fundamental distinctions between Noumenon and phenomenon, reason and nature, and autonomy and heteronomy with some religious thoughts on the divine being. Rather, things are the other way around: the contradistinction between the divine and the human order appears constitutive for the other distinctions. However, I do not wish to support a theological interpretation of Kant. It would be inappropriate to interpret his comparisons of human capacities to divine ones as an implicit possible knowledge of God. Instead, these comparisons relate to a possible being that could not be thought of otherwise than as a divine being. The truly divine entity in Kant’s philosophy, however, is not God as a Deity, but God as the ideal cause of a moral person’s earned happiness. In this sense, divinity serves morality, and ‘God’ is absolutely one with the moral person’s autonomy. To assess my interpretation, I must investigate Kant’s claim about the synthetic nature of necessity. What, precisely, is synthesized? In my interpretation the contradistinction is between the reasonable subject (autonomy) and the empirical subject (individuality). The possibility of an existing moral person (an autonomous individual) depends on the possible synthesis of autonomy and individuality. This possible synthesis then grounds the necessity of freedom, but also explicates the necessity qua necessity, namely, as freedom qua freedom. The synthesis of the contradistinction is the pure identity of the individual, but cannot be understood as the pure self-relation of the individual. Rather, the pure identity of the individual absolutely transcends any possible self-relation of the subject. As a result, the transcendental unity of freedom and necessity is not pure self-relation, but can only be described in metaphysical terms, even when these terms are problematic: pure freedom and pure necessity are immediate identifications. When Kant’s philosophy is considered to be the generator of these insights, it becomes possible to read his transcendental philosophy as a radical new way to think freedom and necessity.

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



. Evidence and Necessity .. Methodological Consideration An object of consciousness has objective validity if it has necessary reality. I take it as a logical fact that an object, which is real, does not have to be necessarily real, but an object, which is necessary, does have to be real. The objective validity of objects, therefore, has to be safeguarded by analytical propositions a priori. Analytical propositions a priori are propositions whose truth implies necessity. On the one hand, analytical truths refer to the principle of law, which is the law of contradiction. The principle of law stipulates that all objects of the senses (intuitions) as well as thoughts (associations) cannot contradict each other. According to this principle, we must negate the (impertinent) inequality of, for example, ‘A = ¬A’. The necessity of A requires the equality of A with itself. Kant, however, says that such tautological propositions do not prove the reality of objects. For example, to say that unicorns have one horn is evidential, but does not prove the reality of unicorns. In the case of unicorns we can only conceive their possible reality. However, when reality is not implicated at all in the analytical proposition, we must conclude that the explicative proposition or tautology ‘unicorns have one horn’ is not a good example of an analytical proposition a priori. The a priori character of analytical propositions cannot be derived from the evidence of the principle of law. Therefore, on the other hand, analytical propositions a priori refer to a possible ground of necessity of evidential propositions. This ground is the necessary reality of the object of an evidential proposition. To be a genuine analytical proposition a priori, the proposition’s evidence must imply necessity and, therefore, reality. Kant understands analytical propositions a priori already in the right direction when he (implicitly) points out that the proposition’s relation to objects grounds its aprioristic character.14 However, Kant did not understand his own notion of a priori

14 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “I do not need to go outside the concept that I combine with the word “body” in order to find that extension is connected with it, but rather I need only to analyze that concept, i.e., become conscious of the manifold that I always think in it, in order to encounter this predicate therein; it is therefore an analytic judgment.” [“Denn ich darf nicht über den Begriff, den ich mit dem Körper verbinde, hinausgehen, um die Ausdehnung, als mit demselben verknüpft, zu finden, sondern jenen Begriff nur zergliedern, d. i. des Mannigfaltigen, welches ich jederzeit in ihm denke, mir nur bewußt werden, um dieses Prädikat darin anzutreffen; es ist also ein analytisches



arthur kok

because he does not clearly distinguish evidence and necessity. In doing so, Kant weakens his account of necessity, and takes the sting out of his potentially cogent critique that evidential knowledge is not necessary knowledge. A further sharpening of Kant’s notion of a priori is needed to lay bare the ground of necessity of analytical propositions a priori. Kant says that the principle of the analytical use of the faculty of understanding comprises a relation to objects.15 This relation is to be understood as the identification of an object as object. An analytical proposition is the application of the law of contradiction that makes all other judgments about the object possible. Indeed, an object can only be identified when it has identity with itself. On the one hand, this proposition is only a more abstract variation on ‘unicorns have one horn.’ However, on the other hand, this abstraction does not say something about this or that object, but about the structure of objectivity. Therefore, the identification of an object can rightfully be called a transcendental and necessary use of the law of contradiction. In other words, the law of contradiction has explicatory power because it is evident; but only the correspondence of the explicatory unity with the identity of the object is a ground for necessity. As a result, regardless of what Kant says, analytical propositions are only genuinely a priori insofar as they necessarily implicate reality. Analytical proposition a priori must possess a relation to objects. Kant maintains that analytical propositions a priori do not imply reality because we cannot conclude reality from the identification of an object. The object must also be intuited (angeschaut werden). However, if it is impossible to conclude reality, then it is impossible to conclude necessity of any kind on the basis of analytical propositions.

Urteil.”] It is clear that Kant treats a concept in conjunction with matter. This is exemplary for Kant’s treatment of analytical propositions. The point is that a proposition is analytical when conjunction does not add anything to the concept. 15 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B –: “For, if the judgment is analytic, whether it be negative or affirmative, its truth must always be able to be cognized sufficiently in accordance with the principle of contradiction. For the contrary of that which as a concept already lies and is though in the cognition of the object is always correctly denied, while the concept itself must necessarily be affirmed of it, since its opposite would conctradict the object.” [“Denn, wenn das Urteil analytisch ist, es mag nun verneinend oder bejahend sein, so muß dessen Wahrheit jederzeit nach dem Satze des Widerspruchs hinreichend können erkannt werden. Denn von dem, was in der Erkenntnis des Objekts schon als Begriff liegt und gedacht wird, wird das Widerspiel jederzeit richtig verneint, der Begriff selber aber notwendig von ihm bejaht werden müssen, darum, weil das Gegenteil desselben dem Objekte widersprechen würde.”]

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



Necessity in analytical propositions must depend on a more original necessary reality, which remains implicit in analytical propositions. .. What is the Transcendental Meaning of ‘Relation to Objects’? The only meaningful way to speak about necessity through the use of the law of contradiction is as identity. Also, the analytical propositions a priori do not produce necessity, but affirm a necessity, which is a priori to this affirmation. In other words, analytical propositions a priori presuppose a necessary reality. Kant, however, was right to say that we do not have any intuitions of such necessary reality. In fact, our intuitions are empirical, i.e., contingent. Therefore, I have to explain how necessary reality is to be distinguished from contingent reality. To do so, I will critically interpret Kant’s aesthetic doctrine of inner sense and outer sense in this section. Then, I will focus on the inner sense as the a priori form of all possible objectivity, including objects of thought.16 This disproves that the original-synthetic structure of apperception is the form of consciousness. The form of consciousness is entirely determined by the inner sense; the transcendental deduction is only meant to discover the necessity of the synthesis. My interpretation does not intend to be an adequate account of Kant’s views about the sensible sources of the subject. I believe that Kant’s views concerning the origins of these sources are naïvely empirical. Kant’s naïve empiricism shows in his definition of sensible intuition (sinnliche Anschauung) as a distinct source of knowledge. This definition is contradictory because although Kant conceives the distinction as a unity (namely, the source), sensible intuition contains in itself a distinction between sensibility and intuition. Sensibility necessarily distinguishes between a sense-subject and a sensed object; intuition, however, is the immediate relation to objects, negating the difference between object and subject. Therefore, I will not focus on the sensible intuitions as a distinct source, but on the role of the pre-conceptual structure of sensible intuition in transcendental philosophy. For Kant, the pre-conceptual structure of intuitions is determined by the inner and outer sense, which shape the appearances in, respectively, 16 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “Time is nothing other than the form of inner sense, i.e., of the intuition of our self and our inner state.” [“Die Zeit ist nichts anderes, als die Form des innern Sinnes, d. i. des Anschauens unserer selbst und unsers innern Zustandes.”] This ‘innerer Zustand’ also includes all thoughts, which hence formally stand under the condition of inner sense.



arthur kok

time and space. Time and space are the a priori conditions of experience because they determine the form of experience necessarily before any experience is possible. However, time and space are not necessarily a priori, but only structure experience subjectively. The empirical character of experience, therefore, is always also subjective. As a result, Kant’s empiricism is a subjective empiricism rather than an objective empiricism.17 Hence, only the empirical subject is conditioned a priori by the inner and outer sense. The necessity of these conditions, therefore, is limited to the empirical subject. Also, the a priori conditions of time and space only concern the form of experience. Whereas there is no object without experience, form is the limited necessity of objects. In fact, the transcendental argument in the Transcendental Aesthetic is not needed to determine whether these forms of time and space are a priori, but whether they are necessarily a priori. The quintessential insight of Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic is that there is a fundamental distinction between the form and necessity of objects. The form of experience conditions the possibility of objectivity. Inner and outer sense are the formal conditions of objectivity, and thus the form of objectivity. For Kant, outer sense or the form of space only conditions objects with externality, but inner sense conditions all objects of experience. Thus, inner sense also conditions objects of thought, which means that even the representations of pure concepts (like the table of categories) are conditioned, qua form, by the inner sense. However, insofar as objectivity is subjectively conditioned by the inner sense, 17 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B –: “Now that which, as representation, can precede any act of thinking something is intuition, which, since it does not represent anything except insofar as something is posited in the mind, can be nothing other than the way in which the mind is affected by its own activity, namely this position of the representation, thus the way it is affected through itself, i.e., it is an inner sense as far as regards its form.” [“Nun ist das, was, als Vorstellung, vor aller Handlung, irgend etwas zu denken, vorhergehen kann, die Anschauung, und, wenn sie nichts als Verhältnisse enthält, die Form der Anschauung, welche, da sie nichts vorstellt, außer so fern etwas im Gemüte gesetzt wird, nichts anders sein kann, als die Art, wie das Gemüt durch eigene Tätigkeit, nämlich dieses Setzen ihrer Vorstellung, mithin durch sich selbst affiziert wird, d. i. ein innerer Sinn seiner Form nach.”] Kant maintains that a human being’s sensible nature consists of a twofold affection. Firstly, there is the affection that comes from an unknown outside (aliud-affect). Secondly, without the interference of other capacities, the aliudaffect causes the self-affection of the affected subject. This affected subject is the sensible mind (das Gemüt), and it exists only as reactive self-affection in response to the aliudaffect. This ungrounded reference to an unknown outside determines not the object, but the subject as empirical. Cf. Moors, Martin, “Gestalten van het ik bij Kant,” in Problematische Subjectiviteit. Kant, Hegel en Schelling over het Ik, ed. Ludwig Heyde (Tilburg University Press, ).

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



it is not necessary. The form of objectivity contradicts the possibility of objective reality. For the possibility of objective reality, the form of objectivity must be absolutely negated. In other words, the form’s inner determination is to be limited necessity; therefore, to assess its necessity, its limitation must be abrogated. Towards the end of the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant implements an absolute negation when he considers that in the light of ‘die Vernunft an sich selbst’ (reason in itself), the subjective character of sensibility does not have to be taken into account.18 For Kant, this means that reason in itself regards the subject’s relation to objects as if it were the relation to the things in themselves (Dinge an sich). In other words, only reason in itself has the appropriate perspective to judge an object’s necessity. This consideration may be truly called a transcendental argument because the formal perspective on objectivity, which, in fact, is a subjective perspective, is judged in the light of a possible necessity. However, in the light of this transcendental judgment, form is not judged positively as a limited necessity, but negatively as limited necessity, i.e., as contradictorily distinct from necessity. In other words, the distinction between necessity and form has to be understood as a contradistinction. A contradistinction means that the concepts of the distinction, in this case form and necessity, contradict each other. In other words, as soon as the question of necessity is put forward, all consideration about the form becomes futile. The necessary relation to objects (i.e., the relation to things in themselves) explicitly does not consider the form, i.e., it negates the formal relation to objects. This negation keeps the distinction between form and necessity free from contradiction in a negative way: any consideration about the form will contradict the necessity of the object. This also seems to be the one meaningful interpretation of Kant’s distinction between empirical reality and transcendental ideality of inner and outer sense.19 That the sensible form of consciousness a priori 18 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B –: “Our expositions accordingly teach the reality (i.e., objective validity) of space in regard to everything that can come before us externally as an oject, but at the same time the ideality of spaec in regard to things when they are considered in themselves through reason, i.e., without taking account of the constitution of our sensiblity.” [“Unsere Erörterungen lehren demnach die Realität (d. i. die objektive Gültigkeit) des Raumes in Ansehung alles dessen, was äußerlich als Gegenstand uns vorkommen kann, aber zugleich die Idealität des Raumes in Ansehung der Dinge, wenn sie durch die Vernunft an sich selbst erwogen werden, d. i. ohne Rücksicht auf die Beschaffenheit unserer Sinnlichkeit zu nehmen.”] 19 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “We therefore assert the empirical reality of space (with respect to all possible outer experience), though to be sure at the same time its



arthur kok

conditions all possible objects of experience, including thoughts, means that empirical reality is the formal condition of objectivity. Whereas objectivity is a condition for the reality of objects, the transcendental argument, which explicitly does not consider the form of objectivity, is that the necessity of objectivity cannot be thought of as the reality of objects. Therefore, Kant speaks about a transcendental ideality. This poses a problem. Necessity implicates reality. How is this possible if reason in itself does not consider the reality of objects? This problem is solvable when I say that the negation of the reality of objects is the way in which necessity implicates reality. Then, we have to understand reason in itself as the activity of negating empirical reality. This active negation is not a Cartesian skeptical doubt denying the certainty of empirical objects; rather, it is a judgment concerning the necessity of empirical reality. Thus, reason in itself not only judges empirical reality negatively, but also positively. It judges it negatively insofar as reason judges the form of objectivity as limiting necessity. It also judges it positively when reason in itself demonstrates that the form of objectivity is necessarily a priori as limited necessity. This reason in itself, therefore, comprehends the form of objectivity. Comprehension, however, is not formal but conceptual. From this interpretative standpoint, the Transcendental Analytic in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft is about the concept of the form of objectivity. To phrase the problem more clearly: the form of the objective reality of experience that is conditioned by the inner sense can be called the faculty of intuition; the concept of the objective reality of experience, which is never intuited but comprehends the intuitions, can be called the faculty of understanding. The objective reality of experience, which relates form and concept, is the synthesis of the faculty of intuition and the faculty of understanding. The synthetic character of experience in the Kantian sense is best understood as connected manifoldness. The pure intuition is the purely given, not deducible, manifold of representations and the understanding unifies these representations.20 The nature of this unification is connectivtranscendental ideality, i.e., that it is nothing as soon as we leave out the condition of the possibility of all experience, and take it as something that grounds the things in themselves.” [“Wir behaupten also die empirische Realität des Raumes (in Ansehung aller möglichen äußeren Erfahrung), ob zwar die transzendentale Idealität desselben, d. i. daß er nichts sei, so bald wir die Bedingung der Möglichkeit aller Erfahrung weglassen, und ihn als etwas, was den Dingen an sich selbst zum Grunde liegen, annehmen.”] 20 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “That representation that can be given prior to all thinking is called intuition. Thus all manifold of intuition has a necessary relation to the

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



ity. For Kant, manifoldness without connection has the pre-conceptual structure of time and space, i.e., objectively, it is mere form. However, from the standpoint of necessity, this formally objective structure of the manifold of representations is only a subjective condition of experience. To realize the condition of objectivity, implicated in formal objectivity, an additional act is demanded: this act is the objective condition of experience. This act is an act of synthesis, which conjoins the formally objective structure of the manifold with the general validity of the pure concepts of understanding. For Kant, this synthesis is generally-valid, when the act of the understanding is an original and spontaneous, i.e., pure, activity of the understanding. Therefore, concepts are generally-valid when they are pure. The general validity of the synthesis between concept and form, i.e., objective reality, however, also depends on a relation to objects, which in this case has to be a priori. Nevertheless, even as a spontaneous act of synthesis, the pure concepts are merely subjectively generally-valid. Objectively, the general validity of concepts is only expressed within the limits of conjoining a given manifold of representations. This limitation, however, has a subjective ground, namely, sensibility, and is only objective to the extent that sensible intuition does not exclude other possible intuitions. In other words, necessary objective reality is only possible to the extent that an intuition is possible, which is not subjectively conditioned. The transcendental standpoint (of reason in itself ) acknowledges, at the same time, that necessity is conditioned by such intuition and judges such intuition to be factually impossible. Therefore, necessity a priori (and, hence, the necessity of experience) can only be articulated negatively. Objects of experience demand sensible intuition and can never be

I think in the same subject in which this manifold is to be encountered. But this representation is an act of spontaneity, i.e., it cannot be regareded as belonging to sensibility. I call it the pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from the empirical one, or also the original apperception, since it is that self-consciousness which, because it produces the representation I think, which must be able to accompany all others and which in all consciousness is one and the same, cannot be accompanied by any further representation.” [“Diejenige Vorstellung, die vor allem Denken gegeben sein kann, heißt Anschauung. Also hat alles Mannigfaltige der Anschauung eine notwendige Beziehung auf das: Ich denke, in demselben Subjekt, darin dieses Mannigfaltige angetroffen wird. Diese Vorstellung aber ist ein Aktus der Spontaneität, d. i. sie kann nicht als zur Sinnlichkeit gehörig angesehen werden. Ich nenne sie die reine Apperzeption, um sie von der empirischen zu unterscheiden, oder auch die ursprüngliche Apperzeption, weil sie dasjenige Selbstbewußtsein ist, was, indem es die Vorstellung Ich denke hervorbringt, die alle anderen muß begleiten können, und in allem Bewußtsein ein und dasselbe ist, von keiner weiter begleitet werden kann.”]



arthur kok

necessary. But the subjective possibility of experience can be necessary, namely, when it is identified as limited necessity. As a result, to subordinate objects of experience to the pure concepts (i.e., to subject experience to laws) is the necessary condition of the possibility of experience. Although this subordination does not tell us what the objects are in themselves (only an intuition could do that), it is necessary because the subordination is accompanied by the idea of what the objects are in themselves. Therefore, the transcendental ‘I’ is merely the idea of the possible necessity of the empirical subject. This idea is the idea of the unity in the synthesis of the manifold of representations, i.e., consciousness. All experience presupposes consciousness but only indirectly as a condition of possibility. In other words, consciousness is still a negative articulation of necessity. However, en passant, Kant does give a positive articulation of necessity. Namely, he leaves open the possibility of intuitive intellect, for which the distinction between understanding and intuition is meaningless.21 Remarkably, Kant gives exactly the same definition when he gives a positive signification of the Noumenon, only this time, for a human perspective.22 For us, it means that the possibility of a necessary objective reality, i.e., a Noumenon, depends on the possibility to abstract from our intuitions. Nonetheless, regardless of whether Kant was aware of this, of course, a necessary objective reality is only possible for an intuitive intellect. Also, the possibility of a necessary objective reality implicates the possibility to negate the contradistinction between form and necessity. The transcendental standpoint can only be extended under the condition of 21 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “An understanding, in which through self-consciousness all of the manifold would at the same time be given, would intuit; ours can only think and must seek the intuition in the senses.” [“Ein Verstand, in welchem durch das Selbstbewußtsein zugleich alles Mannigfaltige gegeben würde, würde anschauen; der unsere kann nur denken und muß in den Sinnen die Anschauung suchen.”] 22 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “If by a noumenon we understand a thing insofar as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, because we abstract from the manner of our intuition of it, then it is a noumenon in the negative sense. But if we understand by that an object of a non-sensible intuition, then we assume a special kind of intuition, namely intellectual intuition, which, however, is not our own, and the possibility of which we cannot understand, and this would be the noumenon in a positive sense.” [“Wenn wir unter Noumenon ein Ding verstehen, so fern es nicht Objekt unserer sinnlichen Anschauung ist, indem wir von unserer Anschauungsart desselben abstrahieren; so ist dieses ein Noumenon im negativen Verstande. Verstehen wir aber darunter ein Objekt einer nichtsinnlichen Anschauung, so nehmen wir eine besondere Anschauungsart an, nämlich die intellektuelle, die aber nicht die unsrige ist, von welcher wir auch die Möglichkeit nicht einsehen können, und das wäre das Noumenon in positiver Bedeutung.”]

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



the negation of the contradistinction. However, this contradistinction a priori conditions the relation to objective reality. Therefore, the transcendental use of reason in relation to the reality of objects is fruitless. Nonetheless, whereas the use of pure concepts is explicitly not limited to sensible intuition, the transcendental judgment is meaningful when it relates to the logical possibility of an object.23 The ideal, unimaginable logical possibility is the Noumenon. This Noumenon is the necessary condition of possibility of experience.24 .. Mathematical and Dynamical Judgments How can we comprehend this possible positive articulation, i.e., this judgment, of the Noumenon in the light of the contradistinction between form and necessity? I believe that to broach this issue within the framework of Kant’s philosophy, we should introduce another distinction: namely, between mathematical and dynamical judgments.25 Mathematical judgments have apodictic evidence, which means that they have objective validity under the condition of the pure synthesis. Therefore, Kant says they are synthetic propositions a priori, but not necessarily a priori because they are a positive relation to intuitions. The intuitions add something to the pure concepts, namely, form. Dynamical judgments relate to ‘das Dasein einer Erscheinung überhaupt’26 (the existence of an 23 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “The concept of a noumenon, i.e., of a thing that is not to be thought of as an object of the senses but rather as a thing in itself (solely through a pure understanding), is not at all contradictory; for one cannot assert of sensibility that it is the only possible kind of intuition.” [“Der Begriff eines Noumenon, d. i. eines Dinges, welches gar nicht als Gegenstand der Sinne, sondern als ein Ding an sich selbst, (lediglich durch einen reinen Verstand) gedacht werden soll, ist gar nicht widersprechend; denn man kann von der Sinnlichkeit doch nicht behaupten, daß sie die einzige mögliche Art der Anschauung sei.”] 24 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “Now in this way our understanding acquires a negative expansion, i.e., it is not limited by sensebility, but rather limits it by calling things in themselves (not considered as appearances) noumena.” [“Unser Verstand bekommt nun auf diese Weise eine negative Erweiterung, d. i. er wird nicht durch die Sinnlichkeit eingeschränkt, sondern schränkt vielmehr dieselbe ein, dadurch, daß er Dinge an sich selbst (nicht als Erscheinungen betrachtet) Noumena nennt.”] 25 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “In the application of the pure concepts of understanding to possible experience the use of their synthesis is either mathematical or dynamical . . .” [“In der Anwendung der reinen Verstandesbegriffe auf mögliche Erfahrung ist der Gebrauch ihrer Synthesis entweder mathematisch, oder dynamisch . . .”] 26 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B : “. . . for it [i.e., the application of pure concepts of Understanding to possible experience] pertains partly merely to the intuition, partly to the existence of an appearance in general.” [“. . . denn sie geht teils bloß auf die Anschauung, teils auf das Dasein einer Erscheinung überhaupt.”]



arthur kok

appearance in general). Whereas appearance (Erscheinung) is the form of intuition, this means that the dynamical judgment is concerned with the reality of the form of intuitions. This reality of the appearance qua form is a priori, and thus refers to the thing in itself, i.e., the Noumenon. As a result, mathematical judgments relate a priori to intuition, but in dynamical judgments, they are merely mediated by intuition. Kant, therefore, says that mathematical judgments are direct and dynamical judgments indirect. However, the distinction between direct and indirect judgments is ambiguous. Dynamical judgments do relate a priori to the existence of appearances, but this necessity is ‘nicht enthalten’ (not comprised) within the judgment. Dynamical judgments, namely, are mediated by ‘dem empirischen Denken’27 (empirical thinking). As a result, dynamical judgments do not comprise their inherent necessity and, thus, are indirectly a priori. Of course, this is tenable if it was not for the fact that mathematical judgments do not comprise any necessity a priori (that is, only purely negatively), and, thus, are only direct in relation to a priori form. Apparently, Kant confuses evidence and necessity here. Of course, intuitions as well as concepts are evidential, but that does not mean that they are necessary. This confusion is against the very nature of transcendental philosophy: namely, from the standpoint of reason in itself, the explication of necessity is more direct than the necessity that remains an implicit condition (as is the case in mathematical judgments). As a matter of fact, from the standpoint of reason in itself, dynamical judgments are direct and analytical and mathematical judgments are indirect because dynamical judgments actually explicate their necessity as not comprised within the judgment, i.e., as indirect. The other judgments do not make explicit their necessity relation. Clearly, Kant does not distinguish properly between a priori forms (of intuition), and a priori necessity. As a result, it seems as if, for Kant, the empirical reality’s contingency never becomes a genuine problem for the possibility of objective 27 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. III, B –: “. . . the principles of the mathematical use will be uncondionally necessary, i.e., apodictic, while the principles of the dynamical use, to be sure, also carry with them the character of an a priori necessity, but only under the condition of empirical thinking in an experience, thus only mediately and indirectly; consequently these do not contain the immediate evidence that is characteristic of the former . . .” [“. . . die Grundsätze des mathematischen Gebrauchs werden unbedingt notwendig, d. i. apodiktisch lauten, die aber des dynamischen Gebrauchs werden zwar auch den Charakter einer Notwendigkeit a priori, aber nur unter der Bedingung des empirischen Denkens in einer Erfahrung, mithin nur mittelbar und indirekt bei sich führen, folglich diejenige unmittelbare Evidenz nicht enthalten . . ., die jenen eigen ist.”]

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



validity. Nevertheless, Kant is ambiguous because he also relativizes the a-prioriness of form as subjective in the light of a higher transcendental necessity, which is objective. Wrongly, however, he distinguishes mathematical and dynamical judgments, respectively, as direct and indirect from a subjective-empirical standpoint rather than from a transcendental standpoint. My criticism of Kant opens up a particular interest in the Kritik der Urteilskraft because this work offers an elaborate study of what Kant calls indirect judgments. In the Kritik der Urteilskraft, Kant distinguishes between determining and reflecting judgments.28 Determining judgments subsume particular things under pure, i.e., generally-valid, concepts. These judgments have objective general validity because they consider the thing insofar as it exists under laws. Under this condition they produce knowledge of nature in the sense of a mechanics of nature. This condition, however, also implies that this knowledge in no case extends to nature in itself. Reflecting judgments put particular things under a generality that is not given, i.e., that is neither formal nor conceptual. For Kant, this means that generality in these cases is indirect, but only because this generality is not evidential. Positively, the intended generality of reflective judgments is dynamical-generality. To consider nature as dynamical-generality is the same as considering nature in itself. Therefore, nature is not evidential generality, as is the case with pure concepts, but logical generality, i.e., nature qua Noumenon. This is only possible from the position of reason in itself. Thus, the possibility of reflecting judgments depends on the positive articulation of the Noumenon, i.e., an explicated logical possibility of the faculty of Understanding. This conditional articulation of the Noumenon

28 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, (English transl.: P. Guyer and E. Matthews, ) :: “The power of judgment in general is the faculty for thinking of the particular as contained under the universal. If the universal (the rule, the principle, the law) is given, then the power of judgment, which subsumes the particular under (even when, as a transcendental power of judgment, it provides the conditions a priori in accordance with which alone anything can be subsumed under that universal), is determining. If, hower, only the particular is given, for wich the universal is to be found, then the power of judgment is merely reflecting.” [B xxv–xxvi: “Urteilskraft überhaupt ist das Vermögen, das Besondere als enthalten unter dem Allgemeinen zu denken. Ist das Allgemeine (die Regel, das Prinzip, das Gesetz) gegeben, so ist die Urteilskraft, welche das Besondere darunter subsumiert (auch, wenn sie, als transzendentale Urteilskraft, a priori die Bedingungen angibt, welchen gemäß allein unter jenem Allgemeinen subsumiert werden kann) bestimmend. Ist aber nur das Besondere gegeben, wozu sie das Allgemeine finden soll, so ist die Urteilskraft bloß reflektierend.”]



arthur kok

is realized in the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft as moral freedom. Kant explicates the dynamical-generality of moral freedom in the second book of the first section of the first part of the Kritik der Urteilskraft: the aesthetic judgment of the dynamical Sublime. Before we can treat the dynamical Sublime, we must consider its condition, namely, the possibility of noumenal freedom. The Kritik der reinen Vernunft explicates this possibility only negatively. The Kritik der Urteilskraft contains observations of nature that suppose an outlook on nature as noumenal, but is itself a purely theoretical investigation that cannot bring forth a positive articulation of the Noumenon. The Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten and the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft hold the key to understanding how an outlook on nature as noumenal might be possible. . Freedom As Necessity The transcendental condition of a possible reality, the negative possibility of a Noumenon, conditions the perspective on freedom in the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, but the perspective itself is not transcendental. The method of the work is legitimated by the transcendental philosophy of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, but its topic is inevitably impure. On the one hand, the topic of the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft includes a perspective of reason in itself, namely, pure practical reason. However, on the other hand, practical reason is only accurately defined as the freedom of the will, which also has empirical incentives. The free will is conditioned by the logical necessity of free choice, i.e., the transcendental possibility to negate sensibility in intuition. The critique of pure reason, therefore, is a negative criterion to judge a possible necessity in the relation between will and freedom. It is quintessential that the possible existence of pure reason’s determination of the will, i.e., noumenal freedom, has to be judged rather than justified: pure reason needs no justification, but is the criterion of justification.29 In other words, what is problematic is not reason’s determination of the will, i.e. free will, but its judging. Problematic has a specific meaning here, namely, that it is impossible to know the objective reality 29 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :–: “For, pure reason, once it is shown to exist, needs no critique. It is pure reason itself that contains the standard for the critical examination of every use of it.” [A : “Denn reine Vernunft, wenn allererst dargetan worden, daß es eine solche gebe, bedarf keine Kritik. Sie ist es, welche selbst die Richtschnur zur Kritik alles ihres Gebrauchs enthält.”]

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



of the free will. The objective reality of the free will is the will’s causal relation to the object. Therefore, the logical possibility of freedom serves as a criterion for the judging of the causality of the will.30 As I said, in relation to objects of experience, the will is not necessarily determined by free choice but can also be determined by animal choice.31 The possibility of a free or necessary will, therefore, is mediated by the dualistic nature of the will to be both reasonable and natural.32 At its heart, the dualistic nature of the will is a conflict between empirical incentives (i.e., inclinations) and reasonable ones, which can be formalized in an imperative, a rule for acting. In the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Kant outlines that acts of the will are accompanied by an idea of what ought to be done. This normative attitude relates to the ideality of reality. This ideality is necessary when the act of the will is indeed a causality of the will. Because causality is not empirical but categorical, a necessary imperative for acting must be categorical as well. The categorical imperative is obligatory for the will because it serves the practical interest to be free. In fact, freedom is obligated in the categorical imperative. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that freedom is an illusion. Only in relation to objects can the free will prove its noumenal necessity. The categorical imperative, therefore, solely formulates noumenal freedom as a law. To be necessary, this law must be the law of objects. However, whether the categorical imperative is, possibly, a law of objects can be proven neither by experience nor by a transcendental deduction. For Kant, the necessity of the categorical imperative lies immanently in

30 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “Now there enters here a concept of causality justified by the Critique of Pure Reason although not capable of being presented empirically, namely that of freedom; and if we can now discover grounds for proving that this property does in fact belong to the human will (and so to the will of all rational beings as well), then it will not only be shown that pure reason can be practical but that it alone, and not reason empircally limited, is unconditionally practical.” [A : “Nun tritt hier ein durch die Kritik der reinen Vernunft gerechtfertigter, obzwar keiner empirischen Darstellung fähiger Begriff der Kausalität, nämlich der der Freiheit, ein, und wenn wir anjetzt Gründe ausfindig machen können, zu beweisen, daß diese Eigenschaft dem menschlichen Willen (und auch dem Willen aller vernünftigen Wesen) in der Tat zukomme, so wird dadurch nicht allein dargetan, daß reine Vernunft praktisch sein könne, sondern daß sie allein, und nicht die empirisch-beschränkte, unbedingterweise praktisch sei.”] 31 Cf. .. 32 Please note that also the natural will is not immediately determined by empirical incentives, but already organizes them under a law form. Therefore, the natural will is directly determined by maxims, which are syntheses of incentives and laws. Nonetheless these maxims cannot be regarded as imperatives because the criterion of the synthesis is not the pure law form of freedom. Cf. footnote .



arthur kok

the moral character of the obligation. As a moral law we can judge its necessity; but only as a moral law does it offer a criterion for necessity. Morality, namely, is an intrinsic value: it obligates for the sake of morality. This makes the grounding of the necessity of freedom in morality a circular argument: freedom is necessary when freedom is the criterion for necessity.33 This circularity undermines every possibility to definitively ascertain that freedom is not an illusion. In the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Kant neither solves this problem nor does he intend to do so.34 However, Kant maintains the necessity of freedom to the fullest. In the last sentence of this book, he points out that the necessity of freedom is incomprehensible (unbegreiflich); however, his point is that the incomprehensibility can be comprehended.35 Possibly, the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft was written to explicate the comprehension of the incomprehensibility of moral free33 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. IV, :–: “With the idea of freedom the concept of autonomy is now inseparably combined, and with the concept of autonomy the universal principle of morality, which in idea is the ground of all actions of rational beings, just as the law of nature is the ground of all appearances. The suspicion that we raised above is now removed, the suspicion that a hidden circle was contained in our inference from freedom to autonomy and from the latter to the moral law—namely that we perhaps took as a ground the idea of freedom only for the sake of the moral law, so that we could afterwards infer the latter in turn from freedom, and that we were thus unable to furnish any ground at all for the moral law . . .” [BA –: “Mit der Idee der Freiheit ist nun der Begriff der Autonomie unzentrennlich verbunden, mit diesem aber das allgemeine Prinzip der Sittlichkeit, welches in der Idee allen Handlungen vernünftiger Wesen eben so zum Grunde liegt, als Naturgesetz allen Erscheinungen. Nun ist der Verdacht, den wir oben rege machten, gehoben, als wäre ein geheimer Zirkel in unserem Schlusse aus der Freiheit auf die Autonomie und aus dieser aufs sittliche Gesetz enthalten, daß wir nämlich vielleicht die Idee der Freiheit nur um des sittlichen Gesetzes willen zum Grunde legten, um dieses nachher aus der Freiheit wiederum zu schließen, mithin von jenem gar keinen Grund angeben könnten . . .”] 34 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. IV, :: “The present groundwork is, however, nothing more than the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality, which constitutes by itself a business that in its purpose is complete and to be kept apart from every other moral investigation.” [BA xv: “Gegenwärtige Grundlegung ist aber nichts mehr, als die Aufsuchung und Festsetzung des obersten Prinzips der Moralität, welche allein ein, in seiner Absicht, ganzes und von aller anderen sittlichen Untersuchung abzusonderndes Geschäfte ausmacht.”] 35 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. IV, :: “And thus we do not indeed comprehend that practical unconditional necessity of the moral imperative, but we nevertheless comprehend its incomprehensibility; and this is all that can fairly be required of a philosophy that strives in its principles to the very boundary of human reason.” [BA : “Und so begreifen wir zwar nicht die praktische unbedingte Notwendigkeit des moralischen Imperativs, wir begreifen aber doch seine Unbegreiflichkeit, welches alles ist, was billigermaßen von einer Philosophie, die bis zur Grenze der menschlichen Vernunft in Prinzipien strebt, gefordert werden kann.”]

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



dom.36 In the key analysis of the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Kant aims to prove that the necessity to assume freedom for the sake of morality is an incomprehensible fact of reason (Faktum der Vernunft).37 Necessity (in the sense of a Noumenon) would not at all be possible without this assumption. In the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Kant ascribes apodictic evidence to the moral law.38 The apodictic evidence of the moral law, however, cannot be conditioned by a real synthesis to sensible intuition. Strictly speaking, apodictic evidence articulates a relation to form. The apodictic evidence of the moral law thus means that the moral law implicates form immanently. The transcendental unity of apperception in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft is the Noumenon, but articulated negatively as an act of conjunction. In the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Kant says that the act of causality is an act of higher spontaneity than the act of conjunction.39 The reality of the conjunction depends on sensible 36 The fact that the last chapter of the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten is actually called ‘Übergang von der Metaphysik der Sitten zur Kritik der reinen praktischen Vernunft’ supports this interpretation. Nonetheless, the interpretation is questionable because Kant never wrote a ‘Kritik der reinen praktischen Vernunft’, but only a ‘Kritik der praktischen Vernunft’. 37 Namely: ‘On the deduction of the principles of pure practical reason’ [‘Von der Deduktion der Grundsätze der reinen praktischen Vernunft’] (Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, : ff.; A  ff.). 38 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “Moreover the moral law is given, as it were, as a pure fact of reason of which we are a priori conscious and which is apodictically certain, though it be granted no example of exact observance of it can be found in experience.” [A : “Auch ist das moralische Gesetz gleichsam als ein Faktum der reinen Vernunft, dessen wir uns a priori bewußt sind und welches apodiktisch gewiß ist, gegeben, gesetzt, daß man auch in der Erfahrung kein Beispiel, da es genau befolgt wäre, auftreiben konnte.”] 39 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. IV, “Now, a human being really finds in himself a capacity by which he distinguishes himself from all other things, even from himself insofar as he is affected by objects, and that is reason. This, as a pure self-activity, is raised even above the understanding by this: that though the latter is also self-activity . . ., yet it can produce from its activity no other concepts than those which serve merely to bring sensible representations under rules . . .; but reason, on the contrary, shows in what we call “ideas” a spontaneity so pure that it thereby goes far beyond anything that sensibility can ever afford it . . .” [BA –: “Nun findet der Mensch in sich wirklich ein Vermögen, dadurch er sich von allen andern Dingen, ja von sich selbst, so fern er durch Gegenstände affiziert wird, unterscheidet, und das ist die Vernunft. Diese, als reine Selbsttätigkeit, ist sogar darin noch über den Verstand erhoben: dass, obgleich dieser auch Selbsttätigkeit ist . . ., er dennoch aus seiner Tätigkeit keine andere Begriffe hervorbringen kann als die, so bloß dazu dienen, um die sinnlichen Vorstellungen unter Regeln zu bringen . . ., da hingegen die Vernunft unter dem Namen der Ideen eine so reine Spontaneität zeigt, dass sie da durch weit über alles, was ihr Sinnlichkeit nur liefern kann, hinausgeht . . .”].



arthur kok

intuition, but the possible reality of the causality depends on a logicallypossible reasonable intuition. As a result, the possible reality of the higher spontaneity is not characterized by a contradistinction. In the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, the distinction between form and necessity is a contradistinction that characterizes the reality of the object. Whereas the reality of the object is characterized by the contradistinction, the ideality of the object (i.e., the object in the light of the causality of reason) contradicts its reality. In relation to the reality of objects, this means that the causality of reason must negate all possible sensibility and, hence, knowledge of the object. The transition from a phenomenal to a noumenal object, as Kant describes it in the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, can be described as negating the contradistinction in the object.40 The causality of reason describes the ideal state of the will. In this state the will is pure will. The will can only be the cause of an object if it is reasonable will. However, in reality, the will is not reasonable. The will, to be really reasonable, must have an inner desire to be reasonable. This desire can be demonstrated because the reality of the will depends on whether it can be the cause of an object. Therefore, it is impossible for the will not to desire freedom without denunciating its possible existence. To exist, the will must deny that free will can be denied. This is both comprehensible and necessary. Therefore, the Noumenon can be comprehended through the necessary denial of its possible refutation. Kant calls this the fact of reason.41 The comprehension of the Noumenon 40 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. IV, :: “Hence it is an indispensable task of speculative philosophy at least to show that its illusion about the contradiction rests on our thinking of the human being in a different sense and relation when we call him free and when we hold him, as a part of nature, to be subject to its laws, and to show that both not only can very well coexist but also must be thought as necessarily united in the same subject . . .” [BA –: “Daher ist es die unnachlaßliche Aufgabe der spekulativen Philosophie: wenigstens zu zeigen, daß ihre Täuschung wegen des Widerspruchs darin beruhe, daß wir den Menschen in einem anderen Sinne und Verhältnisse denken, wenn wir ihn frei nennen, als wenn wir ihn, als Stück der Natur, dieser ihren Gesetzen für unterworfen halten, und daß beide nicht allein gar wohl beisammen stehen können, sondern auch, als notwendig vereinigt, in demselben Subjekt gedacht werden müssen . . .”]. 41 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “Consciousness of this fundamental law may be called a fact of reason because one cannot reason it out from antecedent data of reason, for example, from consciousness of freedom (since this is not antecendently given to us) and because it instead forces itself upon us of itself as a synthetic a priori proposition that is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical, although it would be analytic if the freedom of the will were presupposed; but for this, as a positive concept, an intellectual intuition would be required, which certainly cannot be assumed here. [. . .] The fact mentioned above is undeniable.” [A : “Man kann das Bewußtsein dieses Grundgesetzes ein Faktum der Vernunft nennen, weil man es nicht aus vorhergehenden

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



as indubitable is still the positive articulation of the Noumenon only qua form. The immanent content of the Noumenon is only negatively articulated. As a result, the fact of reason is not a dynamical judgment and, thus, inadequate as a positive articulation of the Noumenon. . Sublimity For Kant, the Sublime is a possible positive articulation of the Noumenon. I have discussed mathematical and dynamical judgments as well as determining and reflecting judgments. Also, I have explicated the form of the Noumenon as contradictory to the form of sensible intuition. In the next section, I will investigate the possibility of a dynamical judgment as the reflective affirmation of the possible unity of form and necessity. To do so, I will analyze a possible transition from sensible objects to noumenal objects to make explicit a possible positive articulation of the Noumenon. .. The Aesthetic Judgment of the Mathematical Sublime In the aesthetic judgment of the mathematical Sublime the subject judges that a particular object cannot be subsumed under concepts. However, the pre-conceptual structuring of the intuitions by outer and inner sense, i.e., the form, remains. The aesthetic judgment of the mathematical Sublime does not determine the object but judges the necessity of its form. The determining judgment is the positive articulation of the object, but presupposes its sensible form, and thus is contradictory to its necessary form. Considered, however, as necessary form, the object is considered as a possible positive articulation of the Noumenon. Nevertheless, the object is intuited and hence sensible. The aesthetic judgment of the mathematical Sublime thus considers the object indirectly as in itself distinct from itself. The empirical synthesis (of the concept and the form) of the object is its extension (Umfang); its determination takes place through measurement. The intellectual synthesis of the necessity and the form of the object is Datis der Vernunft, z.B. dem Bewußtsein der Freiheit (denn dieses ist uns nicht vorher gegeben), herausvernünfteln kann, sondern weil es sich für sich selbst uns aufdringt als synthetischer Satz a priori, der auf keiner, weder reinen noch empirischen Anschauung gegründet ist, ob er gleich analytisch sein würde, wenn man die Freiheit des Willens voraussetzte, wozu aber, als positivem Begriffe, eine intellektuelle Anschauung erfordert werden würde, die man hier gar nicht annehmen darf. [. . .] Das vorher genannte Faktum ist unleugbar.”]



arthur kok

its magnitude (Größe). Magnitude is beyond all measure, and is not measured but estimated (Größeschatzung). Kant uses the example of looking at a pyramid. A pyramid is not in itself mathematically-sublime, but from certain positions (not too far away and not too nearby) the pyramid appears to be immeasurable. Such an object is something absolutely magnified, which is the object’s reasonable determination.42 Kant refers to this determination as the quality of the Sublime. On the one hand, this quality is a feeling, i.e., produced by the power of imagination. It is conditioned by the senses and hence subjective. On the other hand, it is a reasonable feeling. This means that the quality is necessary subjectivity. The subjective awareness of something necessary positivizes the negative possibility of a reasonable intuition, independent from sensibility.43 However, the autonomous existence of an absolute magnified object contradicts the sensible form of the object. As a result, the subject necessarily dissociates from the object. In terms of feeling, the possible empirical satisfaction of the subject’s desire is contradicted and the subject feels displeasure. In other words, the subject feels the limitation of his power of sensibility. Therefore, positively, the feeling of displeasure has a quality that transcends the senses.44 Because of the contradiction, this disso42 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “Now the greatest effort of the imagination in the presentation of the unity for the estimation of magnitude is a relation something absolutely great, and consequently also a relation to the law of reason to adopt this alone as the supreme measure of magnitude.” [B : “Nun ist die größte Bestrebung der Einbildungskraft in Darstellung der Einheit für die Größenschätzung eine Beziehung auf etwas Absolut-großes, folglich auch eine Beziehung auf das Gesetz der Vernunft, dieses allein zum obersten Maße der Größen anzunehmen.”] 43 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “For just as imagination and understanding produces subjective purposiveness of the powers of the mind in the judging of the beautiful through their unison, so do imagination and reason produce subjective puposiveness through their conflict: namely, a feeling that we have pure self-sufficient reason, or a faculty for estimating magnitude, whose preeminence cannot be made intuitable through anything except the inadequacy of the faculty which is itself unbounded in the presentation of magnitudes (of sensible objects).” [B : “Denn, so wie Einbildungskraft und Verstand in der Beurteilung des Schönen durch ihre Einhelligkeit, so bringen Einbildungskraft und Vernunft hier, durch ihren Widerstreit, subjektive Zweckmäßigkeit der Gemütskräfte hervor: nämlich ein Gefühl, daß wir reine selbständige Vernunft haben, oder ein Vermögen der Größenschätzung, dessen Vorzüglichkeit durch nichts anschaulich gemacht werden kann, als durch die Unzulänglichkeit desjenigen Vermögens, welches in Darstellung der Größen (sinnlicher Gegenstände) selbst unbegrenzt ist.”] 44 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “The quality of the feeling of the sublime is that it is a feeling of the displeasure concerning the aesthetic faculty of judging an object that is yet at the same time represented as purposive, which is possible because the subject’s own incapacity reveals the concsciousness of an unlimited capacity of the same

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



ciation is not indifferent, but violent, towards sensibility.45 Because the noumenal quality of the object implicates a form that contradicts the form of the object’s reality, Kant describes this specific feeling of displeasure as an ‘abyss’ for the subject.46 The noumenal quality, however, is also the necessary inner desire of the will and, therefore, the sensible dissatisfaction makes possible a higher satisfaction. The object of this purely intellectual satisfaction is the noumenal existence of the object, which, however, contradicts the objective synthetic reality of the object. This impossible demand towards the aesthetic power to comprehend the infiniteness of magnitude makes the subject aware of its boundaries, but also makes the subject aware of a possible enlargement of the powers of the subject. The power to estimate points forward to the power to comprehend magnitude purely intellectually. Such intellectual comprehension would be a positive articulation of the Noumenon. However, the aesthetic judgment of the mathematical Sublime is only a negative articulation of the intellectual comprehension, namely, as violence against the inner sense.47 subject, and the mind can aesthetically judge the latter only through the former.” [B : “Die Qualität des Gefühls des Erhabenen ist: daß sie ein Gefühl der Unlust über das ästhetische Beurteilungsvermögen an einem Gegenstande ist, die darin doch zugleich als zweckmäßig vorgestellt wird; welches dadurch möglich ist, daß das eigne Unvermögen das Bewußtsein eines unbeschränkten Vermögens desselben Subjekts entdeckt, und das Gemüt das letztere nur durch das erstere ästhetisch beurteilen kann.”] 45 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “It is thus . . . a subjective moverment of the imagination, by which it does voilence to the inner sense, which must be all the more marked the greater the quantum is which the imagination comprehends in one intuition.” [B –: “Sie ist also . . . eine subjektive Bewegung der Einbildungskraft, wodurch sie dem innern Sinne Gewalt antut, die desto merklicher sein muß, je größer das Quantum ist, welches die Einbildungskraft in eine Anschauung zusammenfasst.”] 46 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “What is excessive for the imagination (to which it is driven in the apprehension of the intuition) is as it were an abyss, in which it fears to lose itself, yet for reason’s idea of supersensible to produce such an effort of the imagination is not excessive but lawful, hence it is precisely as attractive as it was repulsive for mere sensiblity.” [B –: “Das überschwengliche für die Einbildungskraft (bis zu welchem sie in der Auffassung der Anschauung getrieben wird) ist gleichsam ein Abgrund, worin sie sich selbst zu verlieren fürchtet; aber doch auch für die Idee der Vernunft vom Übersinnlichen nicht überschwenglich, sondern gesetzmäßig, eine solche Bestrebung der Einbildungskraft hervorzubringen: mithin in eben dem Maße wiederum anziehend, als es für die bloße Sinnlichkeit abstoßend war.”] 47 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “Now if a magnitude almost reaches the outermost limit of our faculty of comprehension in one intuition, . . . then we feel ourselves in the our mind aesthetically confined within borders; but . . . the displeasure . . . is yet represented as purposive for the ideas of reason and their awakening.” [B –: “Wenn nun eine Größe beinahe das Äußerste unseres Vermögens der Zusammenfassung in eine Anschauung erreicht, . . . so fühlen wir uns im Gemüt als ästhetisch in Grenzen



arthur kok

.. The Dynamical Sublime: Morality The aesthetic judgment of the dynamical Sublime is the positive articulation of the intellectual comprehension. Negatively, the subject exercises a power against the senses. This power counteracts the positivity of intuitions. The dynamical Sublime is a possible positive working of this negative force, i.e., the objective articulation of the desire to counteract sensible intuitions. Such articulation is the Noumenon in a positive meaning. The intelligible comprehension is the subject’s noumenal determination, i.e., the subject’s identity with itself. The transcendental use of reason explicates that the Noumenon immanently contradicts the form of objective reality. The practical use of reason explicates that the Noumenon is reasonable will or autonomy. Therefore, the dynamically-sublime articulation of the Noumenon relates positively to the necessary reality of the subject, but negatively to its objective reality. The subject of the dynamical Sublime is independent from inner sense and, by definition, a moral subject. In the aesthetic judgment of the mathematical Sublime, reason occurs as violence against the inner sense. The violence against the inner sense, however, could never be objective, i.e., real, if it was purely intellectual. The dynamically-sublime articulation of the Noumenon is not an intellectual act (i.e., no deduction), but it is a feeling. Violence that can be felt has to be natural, and the powerlessness of the inner sense must be physical. Kant says that nature is dynamically-sublime as ‘a power that has no dominion over us.’48 Positively, this judgment about nature determines that nature is a power. Negatively, nature as a power does not cause the determination of the subject. The experience of the inner sense’s powerlessness in the face of nature also makes us aware of a power to judge and, hence, to limit the power of nature.49 The feeling that nature eingeschlossen; aber die Unlust wird doch . . . für Vernunftideen und deren Erweckung als zweckmäßig vorgestellt.”] This representation is “an intellectual comprehension” [“eine . . . intellektuelle Zusammenfassung”]. 48 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, : “Nature considered in aesthetic judgment as a power that has no dominion over us is dynamically sublime.” [B : “Die Natur, im ästhetischen Urteile als Macht, die über uns keine Gewalt hat, betrachtet, ist dynamisch-erhaben.”] 49 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :–: “. . . likewise the irresistibility of its power [of nature, ak] certainly makes us, considered as natural beings, recognize our physical powerlessness, but that same time it reveals a capacity for judging ourselves as independent of it and a superiority over nature on which is grounded a self-preservation of quite another kind than that which can be threatenend and endangered by nature outside us, whereby the humanity in our person remains unmeaned even though the human being must submit to that dominion.” [B –: “. . . so gibt auch die Unwiderstehlichkeit

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



is dynamically-sublime, therefore, necessarily mediates the violence that reason exercises on the inner sense. The natural violence against the inner sense is displeasure. To reasonably counteract the natural violence against the inner sense, the subject must endure displeasure. Kant exemplifies the endurance of displeasure with the image of a fearless warrior, a being who defies fear.50 Because the warrior does not seek to avoid displeasure, although he could, he must take pleasure in displeasure. Since displeasure is dissociative, to take pleasure in displeasure means to conjoin not associatively but logically. A logical conjoining, i.e., conjunction, is purely reasonable. That means that the warrior is fearless because he has a sense of duty.51 The subject has an intuition for the warrior’s pleasure, but whether the warrior actually has a sense of duty remains undetermined. Nevertheless, the possible judging of the subject that the warrior acts from a sense of duty and, thus, is an object of respect, has to be an act of a possible power of reason. The subject judges not the warrior’s fearlessness, but the possible underlying

ihrer Macht [der Natur, ak] uns, als Naturwesen betrachtet, zwar unsere physische Ohnmacht zu erkennen, aber entdeckt zugleich ein Vermögen, uns als von ihr unabhängig zu beurteilen, und eine Überlegenheit über die Natur, worauf sich eine Selbsterhaltung von ganz andrer Art gründet, als diejenige ist, die von der Natur außer uns angefochten und in Gefahr gebracht werden kann, wobei die Menschheit in unserer Person unerniedrigt bleibt, obgleich der Mensch jener Gewalt unterliegen müßte.”] 50 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “For what is it that is an object of the greatest admiration even to the savage? Someone who is not frightened, who has no fear, thus does not shrink before danger but energetically sets to work with full deliberation. And even in the most civilized cicrumstances this exceptionally high esteem for the warrior remains, only now it is also demanded that he at the same time display all the virtues of peace, gentleness, compassion and even proper care for his own person, precisely because in this way the incoercibility of his mind by danger can be recognized.” [B –: “Denn was ist das, was selbst dem Wilden ein Gegenstand der größten Bewunderung ist? Auch im allergesittetsten Zustande bleibt diese vorzügliche Hochachtung für den Krieger; nur daß man noch dazu verlangt, daß er zugleich alle Tugenden des Friedens, Sanftmut, Mitleid, und selbst geziemende Sorgfalt für seine eigne Person beweise: eben darum, weil daran die Unbezwinglichkeit seines Gemüts durch Gefahr erkannt wird. Daher mag man noch so viel in der Vergleichung des Staatsmanns mit dem Feldherrn über die Vorzüglichkeit der Achtung, die einer vor dem andern verdient, streiten; das ästhetische Urteil entscheidet für den letztern.”] 51 This is not the first time Kant makes a connection between morality and displeasure. In the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (BA  ff.), Kant says that the feeling of displeasure is needed to expose the disharmony between our feelings and our moral duties. For example, empathy is not a moral feeling because acting on empathy does not necessarily involve moral judgment. Displeasure, however, is not intrinsically good: all possible moral acts are conditioned by an absolute distinction between empirical incentives and reasonable lawgiving, which can only be felt as displeasure.



arthur kok

sense of duty, as an object of respect. In other words, in judging the warrior as dynamically-sublime, the subject respects the moral law. The necessarily indirect working of reason as a power is felt and, therefore, has the form of inner sense. Reason in itself, however, has an incomprehensible, but logically possible, form that contradicts the form of inner sense. Also, a feeling is intuitive and thus, by definition, direct. The direct awareness of an indirect working is only possible if the subject (of inner sense and reason) is always already noumenal will. In other words, the form of inner sense must comprise its contradictory counterpart. To solve this paradox, we must assume that the aesthetic judgment of the dynamical Sublime presupposes a direct and indirect working of the power of reason on inner sense. Intuitively, as a feeling, reasonable freedom is a deterrent because it is displeasurable.52 Freedom only loses its deterrent character to a cultivated human being because he is no longer immersed in nature, but already values ethical ideas as authoritative.53 In a sense, culture is only possible when fear is overcome.54 However, culture is only the indirect working of reason because it presupposes, rather than 52 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “The disposition of the mind to the feeling of the sublime requires its receptivity to ideas; for it is precisely in the inadequacy of nature to the latter, thus only under the presupposition of them, and of the effort of the imagination to treat nature as a schema for them, trhat what is repellent for the sensibility, but which is at the same time attractive for it, consists, because it is a dominion that reason exercises over sensibility only in order to enlarge it in a way suitable for its own proper domain (the practical) and to allow it to look out upon the infinite, which for the sensibility is an abyss.” [B : “Die Stimmung des Gemüts zum Gefühl des Erhabenen erfordert eine Empfänglichkeit desselben für Ideen; denn eben in der Unangemessenheit der Natur zu den letztern, mithin nur unter der Voraussetzung derselben und der Anspannung der Einbildungskraft, die Natur als ein Schema für die letztern zu behandeln, besteht das Abschreckende für die Sinnlichkeit, welches doch zugleich anziehend ist: weil es eine Gewalt ist, welche die Vernunft auf jene ausübt, nur um sie ihrem eigentlichen Gebiete (dem praktischen) angemessen zu erweitern, und sie auf das Unendliche hinausgehen zu lassen, welches für jene ein Abgrund ist.”] 53 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “In fact, without the development of moral ideas, that which we, prepared by culture, call sublime will appear merely repellent to the unrefined person.” [B –: “In der Tat wird ohne Entwickelung sittlicher Ideen das, was wir, durch Kultur vorbereitet, erhaben nennen, dem rohen Menschen bloß abschreckend vorkommen.”] 54 Cf. Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “Someone who is genuinely afraid because he finds cause for that within himself, because he is conscious of having offended with his contemptible disposition a power whose will is irresistible and at the same time just, certainly does not find himself in the right frame of mind to marvel at the greatness of God, for which a mood of calm contemplation and an entirely free judgment is requisite.” [B : “Der Mensch, der sich wirklich fürchtet, weil er dazu in sich Ursache findet, indem er sich bewußt ist, mit seiner verwerflichen Gesinnung wider eine Macht zu verstoßen, deren Wille unwiderstehlich und zugleich gerecht ist, befindet sich gar nicht

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



causes, the subject’s overcoming of fear. Reason must appeal directly, i.e., even to the not yet cultivated mind,55 because the human savage can only immanently overcome its fear for freedom when he has a predisposition for feeling moral ideas.56 This predisposition is prior to all cultivation, and a human being must truly feel it. The respect that even the human savage will have for the dynamically-sublime nature is innate. As a result, the intellectual comprehension of the Noumenon is the direct conjoining of displeasure and noumenal freedom (that is direct), which is judged indirectly (after cultivation) as dynamically-sublime, i.e., as necessary. The conjoining of reason and intuition is initially subjectively felt. Thereafter, in the aesthetic judgment of the dynamical Sublime, the subjective feeling is attributed necessity. The necessity applies to the subjectively felt predisposition for a feeling for morality.57 This subjectively necessary presupposition is the modality of the Sublime. Kant regards this as a key moment in the Kritik der Urteilskraft: because of this feeling for moral ideas, there is a transition possible from empirical psychology to transcendental philosophy.58 Presumably, he makes this remark

in der Gemütsverfassung, um die göttliche Größe zu bewundern, wozu eine Stimmung zur ruhigen Kontemplation und ganz freies Urteil erforderlich ist.”] 55 Cf. footnote . 56 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “But just because the judgment on the sublime in nature requires culture (more so than on the beautiful), it is not therefore first generated by culture and so to speak intoduced into society merely as a matter of convention; rather it has its foundation in human nature, and indeed in that which can be required of everyone and demanded of him along with healthy understanding, namely in the predisposition to the feeling for (practical) ideas, i.e., to that which is moral.” [B –: “Darum aber, weil das Urteil über das Erhabene der Natur Kultur bedarf (mehr als das über das Schöne), ist es doch dadurch nicht eben von der Kultur zuerst erzeugt, und etwa bloß konventionsmäßig in der Gesellschaft eingeführt; sondern es hat seine Grundlage in der menschlichen Natur, und zwar demjenigen, was man mit dem gesunden Verstande zugleich jedermann ansinnen und von ihm fordern kann, nämlich in der Anlage zum Gefühl für (praktische) Ideen, d. i. zu dem moralischen.”] 57 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “. . . we require it [the necessity of the assent of the jugdment of other people concerning the sublime to our own, ak] only under a subjective presupposition (which, however, we believe ourselves to be justifed in demaning of everyone), namely that of the moral feeling in the human being, and so we also ascribe necessity to this aesthetic judgment.” [B : “. . . das zweite [die Notwendigkeit der Beistimmung des Urteils anderer vom Erhabenen zu dem unsrigen, ak] aber, [fordern wir] nur unter einer subjektiven Voraussetzung (die wir aber jedermann ansinnen zu dürfen uns berechtigt glauben), . . . nämlich der des moralischen Gefühls im Menschen, und [legen] hiemit auch diesem ästhetischen Urteile Notwendigkeit bei.”] 58 Kant, Akad.-Ausg. V, :: “In this modality of aesthetic judgments, namely their presumed necessity, lies a principal moment for the critique of the power of judgment. For it makes us cognizant of an a priori principle in them, and elevates them out of



arthur kok

because conjoining is either associative (psychological) or logical (transcendental). As I said, conjoining merely dissociative intuitions is logical and, therefore, noumenal. In the dynamically-sublime conjoining, there remains a disunity between the form of inner sense and the form of reason. According to the form of reason, the dynamical-sublime articulation of necessity (the intuition of morality) is the absolute unity of a human being’s moral predisposition and its moral cultivation. Within the boundaries of the form of inner sense, however, this absolute conjoining evidently falls apart into two irreconcilable moments: moral cultivation is in time, but a moral predisposition is timeless. As a result, firstly, the dynamical-sublime, i.e., positive, articulation of the Noumenon articulates, in fact, the contradistinction between necessary reality and objective reality, namely, the purely ideal unity of the Noumenon. Secondly, we can only become aware of our timeless moral predisposition in time, which makes our dynamical-sublime judgment (that presupposes cultivation) a reflecting judgment. However, Kant did not explicate under which conditions nature can become a power that threatens me. In the next section, I will outline that due to this inadequacy, Kant also does not adequately explicate which part of a subject must be unconditionally preserved against this threat. As a result, Kant overlooks that the contradistinction itself between objective and necessary reality, which, in the end, concerns the possibility of objective reality to contradict necessary reality, cannot be absolutely necessary. I will argue that Kant’s philosophy of the awareness of our timeless moral obligation in time (as duty) is conditioned by the unacceptability of the temporal character of our objective realization of our moral obligation.

empirical psychology, in which they would otherwise remain buried among the feelings of enjoyment and pain (only with the meaningless epithet of a more refined feeling), in order to place them and by their means the power of judgment in the class of those which have as their ground a priori principles, and as such to transpose them into transcendental philosophy.” [B –: “In dieser Modalität der ästhetischen Urteile, nämlich der angemaßten Notwendigkeit derselben, liegt ein Hauptmoment für die Kritik der Urteilskraft. Denn die macht eben an ihnen ein Prinzip a priori kenntlich, und erhebt sie aus der empirischen Psychologie, in welcher sie sonst unter den Gefühlen des Vergnügens und Schmerzens (nur mit dem nichtssagenden Beiwort eines feinern Gefühls) begraben bleiben würden, um sie, und vermittelst ihrer die Urteilskraft, in die Klasse derer zu stellen, welche Prinzipien a priori zum Grunde haben, als solche aber sie in die Transzendentalphilosophie hinüberzuziehen.”]

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



. Metaphysical Implication In general, Kant’s transcendental philosophy transforms metaphysics into a scientific discipline. With his Copernican turn, he reforms the classical object-oriented metaphysics into a subject-oriented one, and brings metaphysics into the modern era. Nonetheless, the topics of metaphysics remain completely unaltered: the free will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. Therefore, essentially, even after the Copernican turn, these topics are still the objects of metaphysics and the final end of all philosophical reflection. This section will outline the idea of a metaphysical implication, which has not been identified by Kant as such, but seems to underlie his philosophy as a whole. My intention is not to uncover some metaphysical presupposition of Kant, but rather to reflect further on the possibility of metaphysics after Kant, in the spirit (but not to the letter) of Kant. Transcendental philosophy is the negative articulation of the logical possibility to have knowledge about metaphysical objects. Indeed, this means that the Noumenon has to be beyond the limits of comprehension and unknowable. This reveals the absolute tentativeness of knowledge. To conclude from this that necessary knowledge is impossible radicalizes Kant’s critical philosophy. Kant only realizes this insight to the fullest in his practical philosophy as the comprehension of incomprehensibility; in his theoretical philosophy, however, he sometimes confuses necessity with evidence. As a result of this confusion, Kant wrongly suggests that things can be necessary without being real when, in fact, things that are not real can, at most, be evident. Despite this confusion, Kant correctly maintains the theoretical possibility of a positive articulation of the Noumenon, namely, the dynamically-sublime articulation of moral duty. In fact, the Noumenon is the intellectual archetype for the possibility of synthetic judgments a priori. Therefore, the possibility of the dynamical Sublime is also the condition of possibility for necessary (and not only evidential) knowledge. My criticism concerning the not-necessary character of evidences is important. It is in the interest of morality to make absolute the contradistinction between necessity and objectivity. The dynamically-sublime articulation of necessity is a reflecting judgment because it claims the absolute impossibility of the absolute perseverance of autonomy in the face of deprivation. Kant simply calls the nature of this deprivation fear, but does not explain it further. Human fear, however, has a double meaning. If this deprivation is exclusively physical, it will end in death.



arthur kok

However, total deprivation, i.e., the perseverance of the human as an autonomous being, is worse than physical death. In a way, death is natural and is not violence against someone’s autonomy per se. Murder, however, although resulting in physical death, can be explicitly directed towards a human being’s autonomy. Also, acts of human degradation are commonly considered to be both unnatural and inhuman. The possibility of such acts is facilitated by nature, namely, by the senses, and, therefore, objective reality makes it possible for me to question my autonomy. This possibility contradicts my noumenal freedom because it questions the unquestionable. Since this possibility characterizes empirical nature as such, it is possible that empirical nature wholly gets into this possibility’s power. In other words, nature becomes entirely demonic and must be negated altogether. As I said, such negation is only logically possible. The rule for this logical negation is: It is not impossible to contradict myself, but it is forbidden to contradict myself. If nature becomes demonic, every relation to nature, except a purely negative one, is a contradiction. This purely negative relation is only possible because we have the power of reason. Even more so, the positive articulation of this purely negative relation can be genuinely called metaphysical. The logical negation is never ontological because the individual performs the logical negation to himself. Human freedom realizes noumenal freedom indirectly through free choice. As an individual being I have free choice, but as an autonomous being I have noumenal freedom. The negation of free choice as a necessary means to realize freedom implies that I negate my individuality because only as a finite being with free choice am I an individual. However, even transcendentally, this is the denunciation of myself as a subject and, hence, of every possibility to realize my freedom. Nevertheless, this denunciation is still a positive articulation of noumenal freedom when it conjoins with the actual impossibility to realize freedom, i.e., when nature is judged to be demonic. The individuality-denouncing subject comprehends his freedom in purely logical, objectively unrealizable, terms: free will, immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. To distinguish the natural or phenomenal world from the noumenal world, the subject must articulate himself in terms of these metaphysical objects. Although these articulations do not bare any real resemblance to individual existences, they are indirectly conditioned by the empirical world (which contradicts them). Our thoughts concerning the free will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God are, qua content and qua form, only metaphorical. Qua logic, however, the metaphysical nature

sublimity, freedom, and necessity



of these objects is articulated. This idea demands more investigation, but the previous investigations enable me to outline the fundamental insight into the possibility of metaphysics: the purely logical articulation of the Noumenon is the eternity of autonomy. Objective reality, as well as the knowledge thereof, is limited to individual things, which are finite. For me, an individual being with will, my autonomy is something distinct from me, beyond the boundaries of objective comprehension. However, my individual will only has meaning as a finite articulation of autonomy. So, even though I know nothing about my autonomy, I am certain that autonomy conditions the possibility of my will. This certainty is theoretically inexplicable, but can be articulated as the vital importance of an unconditional care about my autonomy. This care can be formalized as an obligation to one’s autonomy, which is the moral duty par excellence. The care for autonomy, however, cannot be justified. As a result, I am not certain that my existence is necessary. But, to know the impossibility of any certainty about the necessity of my existence is enough to comprehend that autonomy is necessary. Therefore, the duty that I ought to care about my autonomy, which transcends my individual existence, is the only absolute certainty I have. As a result, only if I forbid myself to ever question, challenge, or denounce my autonomy (and thus do the same of others), do I legislate myself and conceive my existence as necessary. This possibility to conceive my existence as necessary, insofar as I am morally obligated, is the only source of necessity. The defense of autonomy is reactive because it does not need to be justified, but defended, when its right is challenged. Autonomy is principally inviolable and thus ought not to be challenged in any case. In the case of murder or human degradation, a non-reciprocal injustice is being inflicted upon a human being’s autonomy. Since this human’s autonomy is more important than the actual murder or degradation, it is necessary to assume a purely intellectual supersensible reality that cancels out the empirical effects of murder and degradation of the individual. Metaphysics is necessary as the logical comprehension of this necessity to preserve the unalienable predisposition for morality against the possibility of objective reality to contradict our moral predisposition. The logical comprehension of the Noumenon implies that we must judge that the Noumenon is the eternal existence of the individual—a reality that has to be assumed when the natural individual is forlorn. The moral-existential task to care about autonomy justifies all philosophical reflection. Eternal existence is the only possible ground for any kind of necessity. Transcendental self-consciousness is the consciousness that



arthur kok

comprehends that all necessity comes from autonomous freedom. In this sense, metaphysics is not a first philosophy. The positive articulation of the Noumenon, which is the possibility of metaphysics, is the completion of the system of philosophy because it is the absolute contrary of this system: the pure and unconditioned oneness of freedom and necessity. This disproves Descartes’ argument that the certainty of self-consciousness is a self-relation: a pure self-relation is the abstract unity of an individual and thus not metaphysical. Only the Noumenal nature that is pure oneness is genuinely metaphysical, and its negative theoretical articulation the principle for philosophy. References Descartes, Meditationen. Dreisprachige Parallelausgabe Latein—Französisch— Deutsch, Göttingen . Gregor, M.J., Practical Philosophy. The Cambrigde Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Cambrigde . Guyer, P. and Wood, A.W., Critique of Pure Reason. The Cambrigde Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Cambrigde . Guyer, P. and Matthews, E., in: Critique of the Power of Judgment. The Cambrigde Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Cambrigde . Hume, An enquiry concerning human understanding, Dover Philosophical Classics, New York . Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. III. ———, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. IV. ———, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. V. ———, Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Akademie Ausgabe Bd. V. Moors, Martin, “Gestalten van het ik bij Kant,” in Ludwig Heyde (ed.), Problematische Subjectiviteit. Kant, Hegel en Schelling over het Ik, Tilburg University Press .

TELEOLOGY IN KANT’S PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE AND HISTORY: A PROBLEM FOR THE ARCHITECTONIC OF REASON

Christian Krijnen

. Kant’s Division of Philosophy The history of philosophy is not only an important source and an eminent criterion for an account of contemporary philosophy, but at the same time something that, as history, has to be criticized. Kant’s thematically and methodologically far-reaching transcendental turn in philosophy holds a special place in the three respects mentioned. As far as the last of these is concerned, it is not without reason that two things have been criticized from the start: () the transcendental esthetics of the KrV 1 and its focus on the forms of time and space as forms of what is given by the senses (sensible intuition), and () the relationship between theoretical and practical reason as fundamental parts of the system of philosophy and the unity of reason thought of in terms of these parts. For who are systematically interested in the matter of teleology in Kant’s philosophy of culture and history, the two aspects criticized must form a kind of focal point. The problem of the unity of theoretical and practical reason (i.e. reason in a theoretical and practical direction), interpreted by Kant in his KdU as the problem of how freedom can actually be possible in the sensible world, presupposes the division of reason into various faculties and the transcendental legislations that characterize these different faculties. The faculty of judgment offers a connection between legislation for the realm of nature and legislation for the realm of freedom (KdU V, § IX). Based on the transcendental principle of purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit) in his KdU, Kant develops 1 References according to Kants gesammelte Schriften, Bd. I–XXVI, hg. v. der Königlich-Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin  ff. (volume, page(s); KrV and KpV according to original pagination), my translations. KrV = Kritik der reinen Vernunft; KpV = Kritik der praktischen Vernunft; KdU = Kritik der Urteilskraft; GMS = Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; MS = Metaphysik der Sitten.



christian krijnen

a conceptual design of the world in which the legislations of freedom and nature are connected from a moral-teleological point of view. Because of this connection, the actualization of the highest good possible through freedom (KdU V, ; § IX) is itself thought of as possible. But even with respect to theoretical knowledge, purposiveness of empirical manifoldness is necessary, as otherwise, it could be the case that concept formation would be simply impossible because of that manifoldness (cf. KrV B,  f.; KdU V, §IV). Hence, put more generally: within Kant’s framework, the problem of realizing principles of validity of thought and action is at stake. Between the realms of the concept of nature and that of the concept of freedom, there is a huge gap to be bridged (KdU V,  f.).2 This gap, stemming from the different legislations of nature and freedom, the quest for unity, and Kant’s solution for bridging the gap are intrinsically related to Kant’s theory of experience as developed in his KrV. Especially relevant here are Kant’s discrimination between constitutive and regulative principles, the more fundamental discrimination between intuition and understanding, and time and space as principles of sensibility. Consequently, what is immediately given to understanding in order to perform its synthesis, is characterized as being given in time and space. The introduction of purposeful entities and our knowledge of them should theoretically be dealt with ex post, as was indeed done by Kant in his theory of teleology presented in the KdU. This setting for Kant’s theory of knowledge has often been discussed and analyzed critically. In what follows, I will not go into the problem of the transcendental esthetics of knowledge, but would just like to mention that there is an important problem to be tackled here, if Kant’s philosophy of culture and history is to be relevant for contemporary philosophy. Instead, I will delve into a problem no less important in that respect: a problem concerning the architectonic of reason, i.e. the form of the system of philosophy—Kant’s division of philosophy into ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ as directions for reason. Of course, not all the aspects can be treated here, e.g. the question of whether it is convincing to divide the system of philosophy in faculties, or if a division of realms as the products of faculties should be preferred. This question does not seem to be of great systematic interest, as Kant knows that objectivity and not subjectivity has a logical priority and in his philosophy, transcendentality 2

Cf. for the problem of unity discussed in the KdU e.g. Krijnen (; ,  ff.), Düsing (), Krämling (), or Wagner ().

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  functions as a principle of objectivity, not as something merely subjective. My concern is the problem of Kant’s division of philosophy itself into a theoretical and a practical dimension and its meaning for the philosophy of culture and history. . Philosophy of Culture and History What is certain is that the idea that Kant does not have a philosophy of culture and history at all stimulated philosophers in the late th century into developing that supposedly missing piece of the puzzle.3 As a paradigm, Dilthey’s not-very-Kantian ‘Kritik der historischen Vernunft’ or the, compared to Dilthey, more Kant oriented theories of the NeoKantians can be mentioned here. In the course of the th century, however, it became (more) clear that Kant himself offers a philosophy of culture and history, even when its meaning is contested.4 For understanding the teleology in Kant’s philosophy of culture and history, within the context of the problem sketched above, Kant’s critique of teleological judgment, especially the doctrine on the final purpose (Endzwecklehre), is very important. This doctrine, however, plays a functional role within the overarching problem of Kant’s third critique, as exposed by Kant in the introduction (in its first as well as in its second version) to the KdU: the problem of the unity of the two apparently separated legislations of nature and freedom. On top of what are known as Kant’s political writings, especially his Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht are illuminating.

3 Even today it is sometimes said that Kant provides neither a logic nor a methodology of historical knowledge (e.g. Lembeck , ). 4 Recently Flach tried to reconstruct the transcendental content of Kant’s philosophy of culture and history (; ; ; ). He is convinced that Kant’s model is still relevant. I think, however, that Flach underestimates the fact that Kant’s philosophy is determined by the distinction between the theoretical and the practical—a distinction that Flach in his own system of philosophy () does not accept to be fundamental, and in the methodological part of his epistemology he refers with regard to the historical sciences not so much to Kant’s philosophy of history but to Neo-Kantians like Windelband and Rickert, and especially to their principle of value-reference in historical explanations (, –,  he explicitly favors Kant’s option, without, however, referring to his own epistemology).—Flach’s interpretation of Kant’s philosophy of culture and history as “empiriology” (i.e. as philosophy of empirical sciences) has been harshly criticized by Grünewald (,  ff.). Like Grünewald Höffe too (,  f.) states correctly that Kant’s philosophy of history is not a foundation of empirical historiography, but a contemplation of history in a practical perspective, in the perspective of morality and right.



christian krijnen

Concerning the exposition of the problem of the KdU, Kant addresses the unity of nature and freedom as a problem that is about actualizing freedom in a world determined by natural laws.5 As already mentioned, based on the transcendental principle of purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit) he develops a conceptual design of the world, in which the legislations of freedom and nature are connected from a moral-teleological point of view, enabling the actualization of the highest good possible through freedom.6 One could call this design an effort to discuss the problem of ‘world’ in a “critical philosophy of finite subjectivity”.7 For Kant, this discussion is about connecting the realm of nature and the realm of freedom by using the faculty of judgment (KdU V, § IX): the “concept of freedom” is meant to actualize the “end that is imposed by its laws” in the “sensible world” (KdU V,  f.). To bridge the gap between the two separated realms, two things are required (KdU V,  f. with  f.): () a concrete subject capable of overcoming his inclinations by reason, () a nature that in its particular determination allows actualization of what is morally required (the “particular laws” of nature are not fully determined a priori (KrV, B )). In order to fulfill both conditions, Kant is convinced that we need the concept of a ground which transcends the senses, a supersensible ground, functioning as the foundation for both nature and freedom (KdU V, ). Clarifying this presupposed concept requires a thorough investigation of the concept of purposiveness, going beyond Kant’s elaborations on the “transcendental ideal” (KrV B,  ff.) and the “physical theology” () of the KrV as well as beyond the distinct separation of the unconditional nature of moral law (Sittengesetz) and the conditions for actualizing it (postulates) as set out in the KpV.8 I cannot go into the subtleties of this investigation here,9 but that is not necessary as only the main direction is of interest.

5 Van Erp (in this volume) criticizes Schiller’s attempt to conquer the dualism between nature and freedom on a purely esthetic level as this does not incorporate sufficiently the obliging character of freedom. 6 This concept of the final end of the ‘existence’ of the world as a concept of the (practical) reflecting judgment is not identical with that of the highest good as object of practical reason (KpV A, , , , ). Man itself is now becoming teleological final end and has as final end the object of practical reason. Cf. Düsing ,  note ; ,  ff.; Krämling ,  note ,  note ; Wagner , . 7 Düsing , . 8 Cf. Krämling . 9 Cf. Krijnen .

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  From a bird’s eye view, the analysis of esthetical purposiveness gives insight into the condition of the subject. The universal validity of esthetical judgments can only be understood on the basis of a supersensible ground ‘within us’; in the context of his doctrine of symbols (KdU § : “On beauty as a symbol of morality”) Kant qualifies this supersensible spontaneity within us as freedom in the moral sense. On top of that, it turns out that the beauty of nature offers a clue to the ‘objective’ purposiveness of nature—the theme of Kant’s analysis of the teleology of nature. The analysis of the teleology of nature offers us insight into the condition of nature: It turns out that the purposeful lawfulness of nature can be thought of as based on, i.e. as a product of a supersensible, ‘syntheticgeneral’ (intuitive), goal-setting understanding; and as fruitful for scientific research. This analysis even leads us towards the concept of a fully teleologically determined nature. The supersensible ground of that nature, however, remains theoretically undeterminable. Only practical reason allows its determination as a complement to the teleology of nature. Because of this, nature is thought of as a purposeful whole of nature and freedom, as a whole of a teleology of nature (physical teleology) and a moral teleology. Kant ends his KdU with a new ‘proof ’ of God. If we now give up the bird’s eye view and go into the concept of culture and history as developed by Kant in his critique of teleological judgment, then the following aspects are essential: . In his KdU Kant is contemplating the world (Weltbetrachtung) according to the principles of the power of reflective judgment. Phenomena are thematized in terms of teleological concepts. To pit that in more detail, his concept of culture and history is about purposeful entities. The determination of such an object is related to an end: phenomena in the world which seem to be accidental with regard to the constitutive conditions of experience, can in a regulative way be understood as purposeful. This goes especially for human beings and their behavior. As purposeful entities humans are “organized and self-organizing” beings (KdU V, ), related to an end, determined by a “teleological ground” (KdU V, ). . Kant qualifies humans within a setting of ‘means—end’. A phenomenon cannot only be related to an end (purpose, goal) in the sense that it is a means to an end; it can be an end itself. A phenomenon that is only an end is called an end in itself, an “ultimate end of nature”, as Kant says (KdU V,  ff.). As far as we know



christian krijnen

from empirical research, humans are the only entities for which count that they are an ultimate end, as only humans are capable of “forming a concept of ends” (KdU V,  f.), i.e. capable of goalsetting: as a goal-setting entity man is the betitled “ultimate end”, “lord of nature” (KdU V, ). With regard to the type of goals, “culture” as “production of the aptitude of a rational being for any ends in general (thus those of his freedom)”10 is the ultimate end of nature (KdU V, § , V  ff.).11 Man is not only capable of setting goals, but also of unconditioned goals, i.e. he sets goals himself, out of his “freedom” (KdU V, ). According to this ultimate end of nature, natural phenomena are mere means. Moreover, nature itself is conceived of as a means for enabling non-natural determination; the ultimate goal of nature lies “outside” of nature (KdU V, ). Hence, humans are natural beings and at the same time rational (vernünftig) beings, beings capable of self-determination. Within the framework of Kant’s theory, this is to say that man is an animal rationabile, equipped with a will and therefore capable of freeing himself (his will) from natural determination insofar as he can himself choose to “tighten or loosen” his “animal nature”, as the “ends of reason” require (KdU V, ). . The end (purpose) of nature is culture. Hence man, insofar as humans are capable of self-determination. Kant’s philosophy of culture deals with the purposeful development of the natural dispositions (Naturanlagen) of humans. As a natural end (Naturzweck) humans are “organized and self-organizing” entities (KdU V, ). As the ultimate end of nature, part of this organization is the transposition of human beings from the “guardianship of nature into the stance of freedom” (VIII, ). The inescapable antagonism of human action, of his striving for survival, leads to freeing man from being pampered by nature (VIII, ); the “unsocial sociality” of humans requires cultivating that sociality. According to Kant, developing our natural dispositions leads to a cosmopolitan state of affairs (weltbürgerlicher Zustand), i.e. to a “perfect civil union” on the level of mankind (VIII, ). Here all genuine “dispositions 10 —more precisely not just culture of “skill” (Geschicklichkeit), but that of “discipline” (Zucht, Disziplin), of “freeing the will from the despotism of desires”; which is only possible in a “civil society” (bürgerliche Gesellschaft), and finally in a “cosmopolitan whole” (weltbürgerliches Ganzes), securing lawfulness freedom. 11 Cf. KdU V § , where Kant not only emphasizes the self-determining capacity of human beings, but also conceives of man as “ideal of beauty”.

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  of mankind” (Menschengattung) can be developed (VIII, ). The “formal condition” alone under which nature can reach its ultimate end (development of the natural dispositions of man on the level of mankind) is a civil code of lawful power in a whole that is “civil society” (KdU V, ; VIII  ff.), finally in a “cosmopolitan” whole (KdU V, ; VIII, ), i.e. in a whole in which cosmopolitan right (Weltbürgerrecht) is acknowledged by the states within that whole (VIII,  f.). Hence, nature maneuvers man into an “artificial” position (VIII, , ), of course in the sense of a Kantian idea: as a necessary approximate value, and with this as a rational (vernünftig) situation. I.e. a situation in which humans truly determine themselves, in which human behavior is human action, in which humans are subjects (entities which make something out of themselves, being capable of doing so, and having an obligation to do so). Man as natural being is at the same time gifted with reason. . It is especially Kant’s philosophy of history, based on his philosophy of culture, which is a “philosophical attempt” to determine the “universal history of the world to the plan of nature in its aiming at a perfect civil union on the level of mankind” (VIII, ). Kant formulates his concept of a “philosophical history” (VIII, , cf. ) in his Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. History as world history, as “history of mankind”, is conceived of in accordance with the plan of nature as a process in which the natural dispositions of mankind are fully developed. In doing so, the philosophical historian succeeds in presenting the “otherwise random aggregate of human actions, at least in general, as a system” (VIII, ).12 With this idea of a cosmopolitan state of affairs Kant certainly offers an a priori “guideline” (VIII,  f.) related to experience, making a philosophical historiography of world history possible. But Kant offers his philosophical history neither as a suppression of nor as a foundation for empirical historiography—he just takes “another point of view” concerning history (VIII, ). Human actions then turn out to develop the freedom of man in a disciplining process of cultivating, civilizing and moralizing, i.e. in a process that advances enlightenment and finally culminates in a cosmopolitan situation.

12

Stolz (,  note ) confuses philosophical and empirical history when she writes that Kant sees his philosophy of history as a “mere narration”.



christian krijnen . Kant’s Practical Orientation of Teleology

In spite of the fact that Kant does not offer his philosophical history as a foundation for empirical historiography, his philosophy of history and its foundation in the philosophy of culture does contain important insights for a philosophical treatise that aims to establish the foundations of empirical historiography. However, the a priori guideline presented by Kant would not suffice in that respect, although the thought that empirical historiography needs an a priori guideline is indeed essential. Kant’s guideline would restrict the object of historical science to a very particular (but possible and interesting) aspect: to the point of view of establishing a cosmopolitan state of affairs. In contrast to this systematically unjustified restriction, many points of view (‘ideas’, ‘values’) can be guiding principles for empirical historiography (e.g. for a history of science, of politics, religion, ancient, or contemporary times). A philosophical world history would have to construct history on the basis of a system of philosophy, as this system would deliver the ‘points of view’ (‘ideas’, ‘values’) relevant to the construction (of course empirical history is itself part of that construction, namely as material for it). This remark concerning the specific perspective of Kant’s philosophy of history signifies a more general characteristic of Kant’s idea of teleology of culture and history. This more general characteristic concerns the practical orientation of Kant’s teleology (the cosmopolitan state of affairs is only an aspect of it). Kant’s practical orientation needs to be exposed and evaluated critically. The practical orientation of Kant’s teleology already plays a role for the general problem of the KdU, i.e. the problem of the unity of nature and freedom, and therefore also of the unity of theoretical and practical reason as well as of the knowing subject and the subject actualizing moral goals. As we know, freedom must be realized, but the possibility of that necessity is an issue to be discussed in the KdU; this work presupposes both the legislation of nature and that of freedom and makes their unity plausible through a moral teleology. Despite the fact that Kant in cultural philosophical perspective speaks of the ‘development of all dispositions of man’, he primarily conceptualizes human action as ‘practical’ and ‘moral’ (sittlich/moralisch). This does not only become clear from the exposition of the problem in the KdU, going after the “mediating concept between the concepts of nature and the concept of freedom”, making the “transition between the pure theo-

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  retical and the pure practical” possible, and with that the possibility of the “final end” (Endzweck), the “effect in accordance with the concept of freedom” (KdU V, § IX).13 Of course one could give much more examples: (a) The determination of beauty as a symbol of “morality” (KdU V, § ); (b) the sketched idea of a final end; (c) the orientation towards the practical; (d) the motives of morality and law concerning civil society and the cosmopolitan state of affairs;14 (e) the distinction between civilizing and moralizing (the latter being of higher quality);15 (f) the fact that when Kant speaks about culture, he immediately focuses on the “will” (KdU V,  f.); (g) that as in the sections of Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht about developing all dispositions, or in the KdU when he talks about the sovereignty of reason (V, ), he determines reason immediately as practical and focused on the ‘will’; (h) that Kant presents man qua noumenon as the final goal (Endzweck), because humans are equipped with a supersensible power (freedom) and as a final goal Kant immediately takes man as a “moral being” (KdU V, ,  note), and as “subject of morality” (KdU V, ) the whole nature is subordinated to him teleologically,16 and so forth and so on. This all shows 13 The Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht too starts in its introduction with the relationship between freedom and will and actions as appearances of them (VIII, ), takes freedom as freedom of the will (cf. “proposition three” and “proposition six”). In “proposition four” the “continuous enlightenment” is understood as moving towards the “moral whole”. 14 In the Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht the “biggest problem” according to Kant is to “achieve a civil society administering right [Recht]” (“proposition five”, cf. “proposition seven” about the relation of states between each other, and “proposition eight”). Only in that situation is mankind able to develop its dispositions fully, hence, the focus is on morality and right. Civil society is a terminus technicus for Kant; it refers to freedom under outer laws, under a civil code expressing perfect justice. 15 Although Kant uses the notions cultivating, civilizing, and moralizing not entirely consistently throughout his work, the idea is still clear. In the “seventh proposition” of the Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht he discriminates between culture, civilization, and morality, the latter being higher than civilization. Morality is directed towards the “morally-good conviction” (moralisch-gute Gesinnung) as nucleus of the “good” (VIII, ). Civilization and morality are both part of culture here (culture comprehends all possible goal-setting). In Über Pädagogik (IX,  f.) Kant discriminates between disciplining (taming “animality”), cultivating (skill to set “arbitrary” goals), civilizing (suited to what is common in society), and moralizing (not just skilled to set arbitrary goals, but equipped with the conviction to have good goals, goals which ought to be recognized by everybody). Cf. also Kant’s use in his Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, which integrates the trias ‘technical—pragmatical—moral’, established in his practical philosophy (VII,  ff.). 16 Cf. KdU V,  note. Here Kant contrasts morality with happiness (Glückseligkeit), a conditioned end. Cf. for the moral focus also KdU V, §§  ff.: Here it is of interest that



christian krijnen

clearly that Kant’s teleology is conceived of within the tension between nature and freedom understood as practical and moral.17 . Architectonical Foundations of Kant’s Practical Orientation Kant’s focus of freedom and teleology on the practical and moral is indeed consistent. It is indebted to his division of reason and to his system of philosophy. Kant’s focus is systemically induced. Indeed, Aristotle prepared the way for dividing philosophy into the theoretical and the practical, and the realms (objects) of philosophy into nature and freedom. These distinctions were picked up in German philosophy during the th century (Wolff), and became a guiding factor too for Kant’s thoughts about the system of philosophy.18 As early as in his first critique, Kant makes a statement that is also important for his later development of transcendental philosophy:

Kant complements physical teleology with moral teleology, and hence with reason in a practical direction (practical reason). Decisive in this respect is the contrast between theoretical reason (and the physical teleology and theology belonging to it) and practical reason (and the moral teleology and theology belonging to it), and therefore between ‘nature’ and ‘freedom’. Here too we can see clearly the intrinsic relationship between ‘freedom’ and the ‘faculty of desire’ (Begehrungsvermögen), ‘will’ and the proposition that man only as a moral being can be the final end of creation itself. Time and again Kant talks about “moral laws”, “moral constellations”, a “moral intelligence”, “moral conviction”, “moral way of thinking” (Denkungsart), a “legislative sovereign in a moral realm of ends”, the “pure moral ground of practical reason”, of reason which “mediated by its moral principles” produces a concept of God, of an “ethical principle”, of “morals” (Sittlichkeit), “moral goals”, the relationship from nature to “morals”, of “the highest good possible through freedom” intrinsically bound to morals, of the necessity to assume a “moral cause of the world”; of “practical reason” showing the final end and determining the spontaneous power of being a cause (the endpoint (of the reflection of judgment in theoretical direction) of natural teleology) as “freedom”, i.e. as power to act “morally” (sittlich), finally even leading to a “moral being as original ground of the creation”, etc.— In this whole context Kant is interested in the “practical direction” of reason. Subtle differentiations within the practical (as we know them from his practical philosophy) are not of much relevance. The “final end of creation” is nothing but the condition of the empirical world in which the moral law (Sittengesetz) is de-formalized and with that has become concrete reality (KdU V,  f.). 17 Cf. in this volume also the contribution of Loose about the sublime in Kant’s philosophy. Loose continuously operates with the close relationship between concepts like ‘freedom’, ‘practical’, ‘will’, ‘goal-setting’, ‘autonomy’, ‘morals’, ‘morality’. This close relationship includes the teleology of history as a development towards a state governed according to law. 18 —although Kant (KpV A,  ff.) does not opt for a primacy of theoretical reason, like Aristotle (Nik. Eth. X –, esp. a  ff.), but for one of practical reason.

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  The “legislation of human reason (philosophy)” has two objects: “nature and freedom”. Philosophy of nature deals with “all that is”, philosophy of morals with that which “ought to be” (KrV B, , cf. ). In its metaphysical part, philosophy is knowledge derived from pure reason. As pure knowledge it is “speculative” (theoretical) or “practical”, leading (from critical foundations) to “metaphysics of nature” and “metaphysics of morals”, the former containing the principles of reason employed in “theoretical knowledge of all things”, the latter containing the principles which determine a priori all our actions (“morals”) (KrV B, ). Determinations like these return in Kant’s KpV, now making explicit that reason in its practical direction is about “grounds for the determination of the will” (KpV A, ). They also return in Kant’s KdU (V,  f., ), where he divides philosophy “as is customary” into the theoretical and the practical, as well as in its objects nature and freedom, into theoretical knowledge and determination of the will, into philosophy of nature and philosophy of morals qua “practical legislation of reason according to the concept of freedom” (KdU V, , cf. e.g. ,  f., ). A sufficient justification for this division going beyond the mere historical reference is missing from Kant’s work. In Kant’s system of philosophy the active, producing component of human behavior is primarily thematic in a ‘practical’ setting, and remains mostly thematic in that setting. There is no systemic possibility to deal with ‘all dispositions of man’ in a truly encompassing way. Freedom of the will qua self-determination of willing is certainly an eminent determination of freedom. One could call such a determination in accordance with the non-homogeneous use of Kant himself ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’ (moralisch, sittlich). In any event, Kant is one of the most prominent theoreticians about moral freedom. In the third antinomy of the KrV, and therefore within theoretical philosophy, Kant shows that freedom (as capability to act spontaneously, not determined by causes of nature) is thinkable; within his practical philosophy he shows that freedom is objectively real.19 But in making plausible the possibility to think freedom as cosmological causality, it becomes clear that Kant is primarily interested in the possibility of moral freedom for our actions (cosmological freedom, also called transcendental freedom, precedes moral freedom logically: KrV B,  f., cf. ).20 In his KrV Kant defines 19 Cf. on the development of Kant’s (controversially discussed) position Düsing (; ) and Wagner (a with b). 20 Fulda (, , cf. ) correctly offers the criticism that Kant in developing his idea



christian krijnen

freedom “in the practical sense”, in correspondence with his later works on morals, as “the will’s (Willkür) independence of coercion through sensuous impulses” (KrV B,  f., curs. ck), and as the power of man to determine “himself ” in such independence (KrV B, ). ‘Practical’ is called everything that hangs together with free will (freie Willkür) (KrV B, ), “everything that is possible through freedom” (KrV B, ). On the basis of cosmological freedom as justified by the KrV, hence causality through action, the whole focus is then on the freedom of the will. In his practical philosophy (especially in his foundational works Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten and Kritik der praktischen Vernunft), in which Kant shows the objective reality of freedom, he takes freedom immediately into the perspective of ‘moral law’ (Sittengesetz), hence discussing freedom in a moral setting: the problem of willing and its validity determinedness are the central pin. Free will and a will under moral laws are for Kant the same (GMS IV, ) with will and practical reason finally coinciding (MS VI, ; cf. KpV A, ). It is then of no further relevance concerning the opposition ‘theoretical–practical’ as determining the system of philosophy including the teleology of history, that Kant differentiates (via the opposition of inner and outer use of our will) the principle of morals as highest principle of practical validity in metaphysical foundations (Anfangsgründe) of virtue on the one hand and of right on the other.21 Against this diagnosis of ‘moralizing’ freedom one could bring in many arguments, e.g.: Kant also acknowledges something like freedom of thinking and judging, i.e. the logical freedom of man as a spontaneous I, as pure intelligence, hence a kind of freedom not practically determined. On top of that there is something like a non-‘pure’ will; the practical realm or practical freedom or free will, contains three levels, restricting the influence of sensuous impulses more and more. Kant therefore offers a broad concept, comprising the practical in a technical, pragmatic, and moral sense.22 But Kant discriminates between these levels within the context of practical philosophy, in order to get a more precise determination of the moral-practical, i.e. of that which is unconditionally good. of freedom in relation to the general causality of nature, i.e. of cosmological freedom, anticipates from the start a metaphysics of practical reason of finite subjects. 21 —although I cannot go into the matter here, the question could arise of whether the distinction between virtue and right really enables it to philosophically understand all human action sufficiently (e.g. also those actions like theorizing, friendship, or love). 22 Cf. for this distinction and Kant’s formulations: KrV B, , ; GMS IV,  ff.; KdU, V .

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  Also with regard to ‘right’ (Recht) one can see that it is part of the moralpractical; in Kant’s Metaphysik der Sitten it is not treated independently of practical philosophy. In the teleology, as developed by Kant in his works on ‘philosophy of history’, Kant knows, as in his Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, the respects of cultivating, disciplining and moralizing. He is certainly thinking not only about virtue and right here, but also about the realms of knowledge and art. Nevertheless, his teleological contemplation is, as we know, led by the moral perspective. And as far as the logical freedom already mentioned is concerned, the ‘spontaneity of understanding’ and its ‘actions’, it is important to notice that we as knowing subjects are not ‘pure’ understanding, not pure intelligence, though related to the ‘I think’. Just as in practical philosophy our will (Willkür) is not identical with pure will, in theoretical philosophy we are not identical with the laws governing knowledge.23 Kant does not develop a concept of freedom that contains the manifoldness of concepts of freedom present in his own work (one could add the concept of he-autonomy of the KdU to the ones mentioned above), a concept of freedom being able to function as ground for the unity of all its specifications. In Kant’s philosophy the concept of freedom as (moral-)practical freedom prevails, although Kant brings about fundamental aspects of such a general concept of freedom, not least in his practical work. He even offers the beginnings of a general concept of freedom and ‘praxis’. However, developing such a general, pre-practical, pre-willing concept of freedom is exactly what is needed: a concept that establishes a thoroughgoing relationship, encompassing and infiltrating the Kantian opposition ‘theoretical–practical’, making up the foundation for every specification of freedom—whichever: logical freedom, freedom of will, freedom of action, esthetical freedom, etc. From Fichte on via Hegel, Neo-Kantianism, and Husserl up to contemporary transcendental philosophy, offers for such a general concept of freedom have been

23 Recki (), defending Kant against Cassirer, seems to underestimate this relationship. She even takes Kant’s theory of knowledge as “theory of action” (Handlungstheorie) ().—Kaulbach (; ) offered an interpretation of Kant in this respect which was very influential, paving the way for anthropological inclinations. He emphasizes the concept of “free productions” of the “human subject” so much, that the difference between the concrete subject and pure reason as subject threatens to fade away. Already the concept of law, however, shows that for Kant (as Kaulbach knows, of course) mere subjective willing is not enough. Instead the concept of a normative instance for that subjective willing is needed.



christian krijnen

presented.24 ‘Going back to Kant’ cannot be the solution for the matter at stake—Kant’s determination of theoretical and practical normativity is the cause of the problem.25 . Towards a Comprehensive Teleology of Freedom Why exactly does the opposition ‘theoretical–practical’ and the corresponding one of nature and freedom fall short concerning the system of philosophy? Indeed, Kant’s opposition has been criticized from the start up to today. The critics do not accept that the opposition of the theoretical and the practical enables us to explain the inner structure of reason; e.g.

24

Cf. Krijnen : Fichte stresses that reason can only be theoretical when at the same time being practical (cf. SW I, ). Therefore the will does not come into play afterwards, i.e. when something is known as true or good, but knowledge itself depends on the effect of the will. Thinking and willing are not just two capacities beside each other or separated from each other: they are intrinsically related. Hegel shows e.g. in his Logik that the idee of truth (Idee des Wahren) and the idea of the good (Idee des Guten) are possible only within the absolute idea (II,  ff.), and in his ‘philosophy of subjective spirit’ that and how the theoretical and practical spirit are interrelated and have their unity in the free spirit (Enz, §§  ff.). For a Neo-Kantian like Rickert (e.g. ) or later transcendental philosophers like Wagner (, §§ , ) or Flach (, esp. chap.  and ), there is something like a general relation of giving shape to oneself (Selbstgestaltung), what is known as a fundamental axiotical relationship (axiotisches Grundverhältnis), preceding the distinction between theoretical and practical and guiding the development of the system of philosophy. For Husserl, man is ‘designated to live in apodicticity’, ‘being-toward-reason’, ‘being teleologically and being-ought’, hence he explicitly rejects a division of reason into “ ‘theoretical’, ‘practical’, and ‘esthetical’, and whatever” (Hua VI,  f.).—Although Brandom (e.g., ; ) correctly holds that intentionality, cognition and action are normative, that freedom consists in constraint by norms, it is only partly correct to refer to Kant as being supposed to have had that mastery idea: Such an interpretation was initiated by Fichte, taken up by Hegel, Neo-Kantians, and others, oriented not to the ‘letter’ but to the ‘spirit’ of Kant’s work. 25 It is meaningful that an eminent Kant scholar like Oberer becomes increasingly subtle in determining Kant’s practical philosophy in critical foundation and metaphysics of morals (virtue, right), without, however, elaborating on the distinction between the theoretical and the practical, theory and praxis, itself. Oberer (; ; ; ) discusses the relationship between them in the context of the transition from the theoretical foundation in the third antinomy (logical possibility of freedom) of the KrV to the foundational project of the practical sphere (moral-practical reality of freedom). It is exactly this transition, however, that will turn out to be superfluous, as the objective reality of freedom can be shown within a truly general—including transcendental philosophy itself—, ‘theoretical’ philosophy. We are not only consciousness of the fact that our practical endeavors are bound to (practical) normativity, but we are also conscious of being bound to (theoretical) normativity in our striving for knowledge too.

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  contemporary philosophers like Wagner and Flach do not conceptualize the system of philosophy, reason, the realms of philosophy, in terms of the opposition between the theoretical and the practical, between nature and freedom. Morals or practical philosophy is certainly not the highest or most fundamental domain of philosophy.26 By practical Kant means ‘everything possible through freedom’. Theoretical philosophy within Kant’s system of philosophy can only reach the logical possibility of freedom and brings about at most a ‘negative’ determination of freedom (‘non-natural causality’). Not only, then, does practical philosophy show that the concept of freedom has objective reality, it delivers at the same time the ‘positive’ determination of freedom. Within Kant’s whole of philosophy this just makes up the possibility and genuine task of practical philosophy. This argumentation makes sense within Kant’s distinction between theoretical and practical reason and the corresponding one of nature and freedom. It no longer, however, makes sense for a comprehensive philosophy of knowledge, integrating from the start not only knowledge of cultural phenomena, but also its own philosophical knowledge, and therefore taking seriously the idea that knowledge itself is already related to an end. Then it in fact turns out that objectivity and subjectivity of knowledge, i.e. objective validity and subjective actualization of knowledge, belong together intrinsically; that the knowing subject is oriented toward an end—the end (purpose) of truth, guiding actions. Hence, the spheres of the theoretical and the practical cannot be separated in a way that they mutually limit their scope, that the theoretical or nature starts where the practical or freedom ends, and vice versa. It is not only the practical subject but the knowing subject too which must be capable of acting according to the law of theoretical validity, otherwise no synthesis in judgments is possible (and there is no need to pose a questio iuris at all; without freedom there is no problem of validity and no philosophy). Kant’s distinction is not a complete opposition. It is not characterized by reciprocal implication, exclusion, and limitation of the parts (relata). Therefore, no whole founded and justified in itself, i.e. reason, is brought about. Rather, an embracing ‘quasi-practical’ moment is presupposed, which qualifies itself as freedom beyond the opposition of the theoretical

26

Cf. for the problem of the parts of the system of philosophy Krijnen (, chap.  ff., and , esp. ...).



christian krijnen

and the practical (just like an embracing ‘quasi-theoretical’ moment is presupposed, qualifying itself as determining factor).27 Hence, the problem of freedom, i.e. making plausible that freedom is objectively real, can already be solved within theoretical philosophy. Freedom as self-determination turns out to be a necessary condition for possible knowledge—freedom is just as objectively real as knowledge is. With all this, practical philosophy does not become impossible at all, but the relationships within the system of philosophy change radically. As far as the problem of teleology is concerned, there now seems to be something like a general teleology: a telos qua a set of normative factors determining the subject, theoretical factors, technical factors, religious ones, or whatsoever. A moral or cosmopolitan restriction would be an unjustified narrowing of the whole of human possibilities. References Aristoteles, (Nik. Eth.) Die Nikomachische Ethik. Zürich/München . Bauch, B., Grundzüge der Ethik. Stuttgart . Brandom, R., Tales of the Mighty Dead. Historical Essays in the Metaphysics of Intentionality. Cambridge, Mass. . ———, ‘Kantian Lessons about Mind, Meaning, and Rationality.’ Philosophical Topics , , –. 27

So Recki’s proposal to go back to Kant will not do. Recki diagnoses a “moralphilosophical deficit” (, e.g. ) in Cassirer’s philosophy, as his philosophy of symbolic forms treats neither morals nor right. According to her, this desiderate belongs intrinsically to Cassirer’s concept of philosophy as philosophy of culture. In his philosophy of culture the specific nature of morality cannot be grasped, as for Cassirer all culture is a concretization of practical energy, a result of creative spontaneity, of autonomy and freedom ( ff.); this “culture-theoretical fundamentalism of freedom” () hinders forming a “systematic concept” of moral normativity (); the basic concept of ethics is already occupied by the basic concept of philosophy of culture itself (). Against this critique one can hold firstly that in other philosophies of Neo-Kantianism, methodologically related to Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms, morality and right have become themes of philosophy (cf. Bauch ; Cohn ; Rickert ,  ff.); ethics and philosophy of right are also part of later transcendental philosophies favoring a basic relationship of normativity sui generis (axiotisches Grundverhältnis) (Wagner , §§ , ; Flach ,  ff.,  ff.). Secondly, Recki seems to operate with a presupposition whose validity is denied by the protagonists of a general notion of normativity. Namely that, as Recki writes in correspondence with Kant, morality is the central medium of human self-understanding, as morality possesses the possibility of orientating actions by normative assessment; morality is the normative element in our self-determination; freedom becomes explicitly a problem here ( with , cf. ). Without doubt, ‘fundamentalism of freedom’ is accompanied by important problems concerning the division of the system of philosophy. This accompaniment, however, stems from discontent with Kant’s division.

teleology in kant’s philosophy of culture and history  Cohn, J., Wertwissenschaft. Stuttgart . Düsing, K., Die Teleologie in Kants Weltbegriff. Bonn . ———, ‘Das Problem des höchsten Gutes in Kants praktischer Philosophie.’ KantStudien, , , –. ———, ‘Spontaneität und Freiheit in Kants praktischer Philosophie.’ In ders., Subjektivität und Freiheit. Untersuchungen zum Idealismus von Kant bis Hegel. Stuttgart-Bad-Canstatt, , –. ———, ‘Spontaneität und sittliche Freiheit bei Kant und Fichte.’ In E. Düsing et al. (ed.), Geist und Willensfreiheit. Würzburg, , –. Van Erp, H., in this volume, –. Fichte, J.G., (SW). Fichtes Werke, hrsg. v. I.H. Fichte. Berlin  (quoted according to volume and page(s)). Flach, W., Grundzüge der Erkenntnislehre. Erkenntniskritik, Logik, Methodologie. Würzburg . ———, Grundzüge der Ideenlehre. Die Themen der Selbstgestaltung des Menschen und seiner Welt, der Kultur. Würzburg . ———, ‘Zu Kants Kultur- und Geschichtsphilosophie.’ In R. Hiltscher/A. Georgi (eds.), Perspektiven der Transzendentalphilosophie im Anschluß an Kant. Freiburg i. B./München, , –. ———, Zu Kants geschichtsphilosophischem “Chiliasmus”. Phänomenologische Forschungen, , –. ———, ‘Erreichung und Errichtung. Über die empiriologische Orientierung der Kantischen Geschichtsphilosophie.’ In R. Hiltscher et al. (ed.), Die Vollendung der Transzendentalphilosophie in Kants ‘Kritik der Urteilskraft’. Berlin, , –. ———, ‘Kants Begriff der Kultur und das Selbstverständnis des Neukantianismus als Kulturphilosophie.’ In M. Heinz/Ch. Krijnen (eds.), Kant im Neukantianismus. Fortschritt oder Rückschritt? Würzburg, , –. Fulda, H.F., ‘Freiheit als Vermögen der Kausalität und als Weise, bei sich selbst zu sein.’ In Th. Gretlein/H. Leitner (eds.), Inmitten der Zeit. Beiträge zur europäischen Gegenwartsdenken (FS M. Riedel). Würzburg, , –. Grünewald, B., Geist—Kultur—Gesellschaft. Versuch einer Prinzipientheorie der Geisteswissenschaften auf transzendentalphilosophischer Grundlage. Berlin . Hegel, G.W.F., (Enz). Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (), hrsg. v. F. Nicolin/O. Pöggeler (. Aufl.). Hamburg . ———, (II). Wissenschaft der Logik. Zweiter Teil, hrsg. v. G. Lasson. Leipzig . Höffe, O., Immanuel Kant (. durchg. Aufl.). München . Husserl, E., (Hua). Gesammelte Werke (Husserliana). Den Haag  ff. (quoted according to volume and page(s)). Kant, I (AA). Kants gesammelte Schriften, Bd. I–XXVI, hg. v. der KöniglichPreußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin  ff. (quoted according to volume and page(s)). Kaulbach, F., Einführung in die Metaphysik. Darmstadt . ———, Immanuel Kant (. durchges. Aufl.). Berlin/New York . Krämling, G., Die systembildende Rolle von Ästhetik und Kulturphilosophie bei Kant. Freiburg/München .



christian krijnen

———, ‘Das höchste Gut als mögliche Welt: Zum Zusammenhang von Kulturphilosophie und Architektonik bei I. Kant.’ Kant-Studien, , , –. Krijnen, C., ‘Pluraliteit als probleem. Over de betekenis van het oordeelsvermogen voor de overgang van natuur naar vrijheid in Kants kritische filosofie.’ Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte (ANTW), , , – . ———, Nachmetaphysischer Sinn. Eine problemgeschichtliche und systematische Studie zu den Prinzipien der Wertphilosophie Heinrich Rickerts. Würzburg . ———, Philosophie als System. Prinzipientheoretische Untersuchungen zum Systemgedanken bei Hegel, im Neukantianismus und in der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Würzburg . ———, ‘Metaphysik in der Realphilosophie Hegels? Hegels Lehre vom freien Geist und das axiotische Grundverhältnis kantianisierender Transzendentalphilosophie.’ In M. Gerhard/L. de Vos (eds.), Metaphysik und Metaphysikkritik in der Klassischen Deutschen Philosophie. Forthcoming. Lembeck, K.-H., Einleitung. In K.-H. Lembeck (ed.), Geschichtsphilosophie. Freiburg i.B./München, , –. Loose, D., in this volume, –. Oberer, H., ‘Praxisgeltung und Rechtsgeltung.’ In K. Bärthlein/G. Wolandt (Eds.), Lehrstücke der praktischen Philosophie und der Ästhetik. Basel/Stuttgart, , –. ———, ‘Kants praktische Philosophie.’ In K. Bärthlein (ed.), Zur Geschichte der Philosophie, Bd. : Von Kant bis zur Gegenwart. Würzburg, , –. ———, ‘Sittengesetz und Rechtsgesetze a priori.’ In H. Oberer (ed.), Kant. Analysen, Probleme, Kritik, Bd. . Würzburg, , –. ———, ‘Sittlichkeit, Recht und Ethik bei Kant.’ Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik, , , –. Recki, B., ‘Kultur ohne Moral? Warum Ernst Cassirer trotz der Einsicht in den Primat der praktischen Vernunft keine Ethik schreiben konnte.’ In D. Frede/ R. Schmücker (eds.), Ernst Cassirers Werk und Wirkung. Darmstadt, , –. Rickert, H., ‘Zwei Wege der Erkenntnistheorie. Transcendentalpsychologie und Transcendentallogik.’ Kant-Studien, , , –. ———, System der Philosophie. Erster Teil: Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie. Tübingen . Stolz, V., Geschichtsphilosophie bei Kant und Reinhold. Würzburg . Wagner, H., Philosophie und Reflexion (. unver. Aufl.). München/Basel . ———, (). ‘Wie weit reicht die klassische Transzendentalphilosophie?’ In ders., Zu Kants Kritischer Philosophie, hrsg. v. B. Grünewald/H. Oberer. Würzburg , –. ———, (a). ‘Kants schwierige Bestimmung des Verhältnisses zwischen Freiheit und Moralgesetz.’ In ders., Zu Kants Kritischer Philosophie, hrsg. v. B. Grünewald/H. Oberer. Würzburg , –. ———, (b). ‘Kants ergänzende Überlegungen zur Möglichkeit von Freiheit im Rahmen der Auflösung der dritten Antinomie.’ In ders., Zu Kants Kritischer Philosophie, hrsg. v. B. Grünewald/H. Oberer. Würzburg , –.

THE LORD AND THE SUBLIME: FREE LIFE’S TRANSCENDENCE OF FINITUDE

Paul Cobben Introduction According to Kant, the experience of (dynamic) sublime freedom and nature are somehow linked. The experience of the superior power of nature—the superior power that could completely absorb me—does not seem to get bogged down in the experience of absolute fear, but rather awakens my consciousness of freedom. This absolutely superior power does not absorb me, but makes me aware that I transcend nature, and evokes the transcendent ideas that belong to the realm of freedom. In his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel describes the fear of death in a similar way. In the experience of the fear of death, the superior power of nature is experienced on the one hand, and, on the other, one’s own freedom is experienced. The fear of death is the experience of one’s own finitude. Precisely because finitude is experienced as such, it is simultaneously transcended. In the awareness of my own mortality, I am in a position that transcends mortality. Nevertheless, Hegel’s concept of the fear of death and Kant’s concept of the experience of the sublime cannot be equated. Whereas the experience of the sublime seems to be attributed to a real individual, this is not equivalent to the experience of the fear of death. Rather, according to Hegel, the experience of the fear of death expresses the fundamental, systematic unity between nature and freedom. Therefore, the experience of the fear of death can be compared to what Kant calls the Power of Judgment—the power to subsume a (natural) multitude under a unity (of Understanding). Kant’s Power of Judgment manifests itself in the various forms in which nature is subsumed under a unity: at the level of theoretical reason, the multitude of intuition is subsumed under a unity; at the level of practical reason, the determination of the will is subsumed under a rule, in the determination of life, the actions of the organism are subsumed under the telos of reproduction; in esthetic judgment, the sensual experience is



paul cobben

brought under the unity of an experience of beauty; and in the experience of the mathematic and the dynamic sublime, the experience of nature refers to the ideas of reason. Analogously, Hegel’s fear of death manifests itself at the various levels at which the multitude of nature is brought into unity. In contrast to the unity that is linked to the power of judgment, the unity that is explicated by means of the experience of the fear of death is the internal unity of nature and freedom, in other words, it is not a subjective unity or a unity that refers to transcendent ideas. Moreover, in contrast to the forms of the power of judgment, the forms of the fear of death are systematically developed separately from one another and in relation to the cultural context. It is precisely through his concept of the fear of death that Hegel succeeds in overcoming Kant’s dualism: the dualism between theoretical and practical reason, between reason and nature and between noumenal and phenomenal world. In this contribution, I want to compare the various forms of Kant’s conception of the Power of Judgment in the Critique of Judgment with the various forms of Hegel’s conception of the lord in the Phenomenology of Spirit. My thesis is that the lord is the representation of pure freedom which results from the experience of the fear of death. This background implies that the representation of the lord mediates between nature and freedom. On the one hand, it results from the experience of the superior power of nature, and, on the other hand, it represents pure freedom. The initial forms of the lord’s representation can be recovered in the religion of nature. The religion of nature, however is sublated into, respectively, the religion of the work of art, the revealed religion and absolute knowledge (philosophy). At this last level, the lord is most suitably represented as the absolute spirit. My thesis is that the religion of the work of art, the revealed religion and absolute knowledge, can be considered Hegel’s equivalents, respectively, of Kant’s conception of the beautiful, the mathematic sublime, and the dynamic sublime. The main difference between Kant and Hegel appears to concern the social mediation between freedom and nature. Both assume the experience of the beautiful and the sublime. However, the lord presupposes a social mediation (cultural education), which for Hegel is only reflected in the object towards which the experience of the lord is performed, while according to Kant, the beautiful and the sublime can be experienced in relation to immediate objects of nature. In the first part of my contribution, I will show that Hegel introduces his concept of the fear of death as a concept that mediates between Hegel’s version of Kant’s distinction between theoretical and practical reason. In

the lord and the sublime



this sense, the fear of death has the same status as Kant’s concept of the power of judgment. This part is divided into four sections: . Hegel’s reception of the Critique of Pure Reason in the Consciousness chapter of Phenomenology of Spirit. In the first section, the discussion will focus on Hegel’s proposal that all theoretical knowledge is grounded in a “cogito”. In contrast to Descartes, however, this cogito is essentially related to a living organism. . Hegel’s reception of the Critique of Practical Reason in the SelfConsciousness chapter of Phenomenology of Spirit. The second section explains how Hegel understands the unity of the cogito and the living organism as a social organism. . The fear of death as mediation between theoretical and practical reason, the representation of the fear of death in the “lord”, and the analysis of the relation to the lord as an esthetic judgment in the Kantian sense. The third section expands upon the manner in which the relation between cogito and social organism is mediated through the fear of death. This allows the social organism to be described with the help of the lord/bondsman metaphor. The bondsman stands for the individual who expresses his freedom in practice by serving the social organism. The lord is the representation of the individual’s pure freedom. . The lord and the esthetic experience. The fourth section describes how the relation to the lord satisfies the criteria of the esthetic experience of the beautiful in the Kantian sense. In the second part of my contribution, I will discuss the manner in which Hegel provides a systematic development of the various forms of the fear of death and their representation in the various forms of the “lord”. In addition, I will discuss the manner in which this systematic development is related to a cultural development. This part is divided into two sections: . The fifth section shows how, in the Greek world, the lord is represented as a work of art. . The sixth section discusses the manner in which the esthetic experience in Hegel is sublated in the relations of religion and philosophy. These last relations can be compared with the experience of the sublime in Kant. The contribution ends with some conclusions: The superior power of nature is internalized as the fear of death. Hegel understands this experience as the process in which all determined ties to nature are overcome,



paul cobben

so that a free attitude to nature can be developed. In this sense, the fear of death is the presupposition of the free self. Through the fear of death, the free self can experience itself as the “lord” of its body. The internal experience of being-lord-of-the-body is represented in an external “lord”. Therefore, this lord is the image of the free self. Hegel discusses the systematic and historic development of the “lord” in the last chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit: Religion and Absolute Knowledge. Considering the supposed correspondence between the fear of death and the power of judgment, the development of the forms of the lord helps to illuminate the internal unity of the various forms of the power of judgment and their cultural presuppositions. . Reflecting upon Theoretical Knowledge In the Consciousness chapter of Phenomenology of Spirit,1 Hegel discusses the problem of theoretical knowledge. This problem presupposes an initial distinction between the subject of cognition and his possible knowledge. Without this distinction, there is no problem, because everything will always already be known. The point of departure is an epistemological I that is related to otherness. This relation to otherness is conceptualized as sensual intuition. The immediate relation of sensual intuition, however, cannot be understood as a relation of cognition. If knowledge coincides with what is intuited, it becomes impossible to differentiate between the epistemological I and what is known. In this case, there would be no otherness, because the distinction between I and otherness cannot be made. Therefore, the relation of intuition is only related to otherness if what is intuited appears as a multitude. This multitude of intuition appears to threaten the unity of the epistemological I: it seems to fall apart into a multitude of cognitions. As a consequence, it remains unclear as to what is known. Only if the disunity of the knowing I can be overcome, can its sensual relation to otherness be rescued as a cognitive relation. This is only possible if the sensual multitude has always already been unified; in other words, nature ought to be perceived as a unity. In the Consciousness chapter, Hegel investigates whether this demand can be fulfilled. The answer is negative. If, at the level of sense-certainty 1

G.W.F. Hegel, . Quoted as PhS.

the lord and the sublime



(PhS,  ff.), nature is considered a thing, there is no unity, because the thing is only determined insofar as it is distinguished from other things. To overcome this indeterminacy of the thing, the relation to nature, at the level of perception (PhS,  ff.), is understood as the perception of sensual properties. Once again, however, this does not result in a unity, because the unity between properties (that makes them the unity of a thing) cannot be perceived. At the level of force and understanding (PhS,  ff.), Hegel discusses whether modern physics’ concept of nature offers a solution. Modern physics does not consider nature as a set of things, but rather as an “interplay of forces” (PhS, ). In contrast to the unity of the thing, the unity of the force does not appear to depend on the observer, but seems to be a unity of nature itself. Forces of nature seem to be a self-manifestation of nature. Forces of nature, however, cannot be perceived immediately, but only in the framework of an experimental setting in which hypotheses of physical laws are tested. This experimental setting implies that the sensual perceptions (in this case: the experimental data) are regarded as the appearance of the force (that the hypothesis formulates in the form of a physical law). Since the experimental data are mediated by the experiment, this mediation also concerns the unity of the force. The unity of the force is dependent on the scientist who formulates a law hypothesis. This means that every scientific attempt to identify an object of cognition in nature presupposes the scientist. Before it makes sense to speak about theoretical knowledge of nature, it must be clear that the epistemological I can identify itself as the subject of cognition. It must be able to conceive of the epistemological I as a self; in other words, as an I that makes itself the otherness (or is related to itself as object) and transcends this selfdifferentiation by identifying itself with this object. The self seems to have the structure (self-relatedness) of Descartes’ res cogitans. This structure of self-relatedness is identical with the formal lawstructure, or, as Hegel calls it, the structure of the concept; the unity of unity and multitude. Here, it becomes clear as to the sense in which the Copernican turn in the Hegelian sense differs from the Kantian approach. For both, human cognition has its foundation in the subject (the transcendental subject, Ich = Ich). According to Kant, however, the transcendental subject only “begleitet” the cognition; in other words, it accompanies a synthesis of the power of judgment. According to Hegel, the subject itself has the structure of the synthesis between unity and multitude. In Hegel, the formal law-structure corresponds to a function that Kant assigns to the power of judgment.



paul cobben

The end result of the Consciousness chapter is confusing. On the one hand, theoretical knowledge presupposes an epistemological I that is related to natural otherness (Hegel’s technical term is consciousness); on the other hand, it presupposes a self—an I—that is related to itself (Hegel’s technical term is self-consciousness). In the Self-Consciousness chapter Hegel investigates the conditions under which these two demands can be combined.2 Although both demands seem to contradict one another, because otherness is both natural and self-distinction, Hegel maintains that this contradiction can be overcome if the self is conceptualized as a living self.3 This conception firstly implies that the epistemological I can be specified as a living organism. Only living organisms have a multitude of sensual intuitions4 and guarantee that otherness is natural. The problem is, however, that the epistemological I cannot be identified with the living organism. After all, the relation of the organism to nature is practical, not epistemological. This problem can be solved if the organism is, secondly, also a self; in other words, a self that understands itself as the essence of the organism. Under this condition, the relation of the self to nature is not only a self-distinction (in its relation to the organism, the self is related to its own appearance), but also an epistemological relation, insofar as the self is aware of its relation to the organism as an essence/ appearance relation. In the next section I will expand upon the manner in which Hegel underpins his solution. . Hegel’s Concept of the Living Self Like Aristotle, Hegel understands the animal organism as a teleological process. In its practical relation to nature, the organism strives after selfpreservation. The relation between the organism and nature (the earth) can be analyzed as an interplay of forces. The organism as a unity can be regarded as a force that is pushed back into itself. As this unity, the organism is, so to speak, a physical thing that will erode under the 2 In Kantian terminology this program comes down to the attempt to combine sinnliche Anschauung (sensual intuition) and the “Ich denke, [das] alle meine Vorstellungen [muß] begleiten können” (I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B /). Hegel, by the way, thinks this is “eine barbarische Exposition”. G.W.F. Hegel, , p. . 3 “But this unity is, as we have seen, just as much its repulsion from itself; and this Notion sunders itself into the antithesis of self-consciousness and life”. (PhS, p. ). 4 “Einerseits sind Gefühlsbestimmungen, die mit unserem Organismus zusammenhangen . . .” G.W.F. Hegel, , p. .

the lord and the sublime



influence of external nature. This process of erosion can be considered the manifestation of the force of the earth which is evoked by the force of the organism that is pushed back into itself. For the organism, the process of erosion appears in the form of its needs. To satisfy its needs, it undertakes some actions against external nature. Through these actions, the force of the organism manifests itself. If its needs are satisfied, it returns to itself as the force that is pushed back into itself. The relation between the organism and the earth, however, is a-symmetrical. Ultimately, the organism will not be able to resist the force of the earth and will die; in other words, its unity will be destroyed and the interplay of forces will come to an end. Death and the end of the interplay of forces can be overcome at the level of the species. At this level, the organism is not immediately related to the earth, but to a member of the species which belongs to the opposite sex. The relation between the sexes can be interpreted as an interplay of forces in which the unity of the species is reproduced. Compared to the interplay of forces in physical nature, the theoretical relations of the physicist are transformed into the practical relations of the reproductive process of the species. While physical force is a theoretical concept in which sensual intuitions are unified, the animal organism is a force in which sensual intuitions are unified in practice. While the unity of the physical interplay of forces exists in the physical law that results from a theoretical law hypothesis, the unity of the organic interplay of forces exists in a practical law: the instinctive law thanks to which the sexes reproduce the species. The form of law that the scientist projects onto nature is performed in practice by the sexual partners of the species. Since the reproduction of the species is only a practical relation, not an epistemological one, the question is raised as to whether the species can also be considered as a self that is the essence of the reproductive process. It is clear that the species which is also a self has to be understood as a self-conscious species, or as an animal rationale. It is again Aristotle who presents a model with the help of which the self of the animal rationale can be understood as the essence of the reproductive process of the species. According to Aristotle, the animal rationale reproduces its species in the form of a social organism that is institutionalized in the state. Therefore, the law in which the social organism achieves its unity is not the instinctive practical law of the species, but the self-conscious law of the state—human law. Under this condition the (human) self can indeed be understood as the essence of the (social) organism. The self consists of the self-conscious determinations of human law, and the



paul cobben

social organism is the manifestation of this law, because the actions of the self objectify the law in the social organism.5 Human law is a law of freedom; in other words, a law of free selfdetermination. Therefore, human law seems to correspond in this respect to Kant’s law of freedom—moral law. However, in contrast to Kant, human law is a law of freedom which is immediately realized in a social organism. According to Kant, moral law is never fully realized: moral law remains a demand—the demand that freedom ought to be realized. From his perspective, the question has to be raised as to whether human law can be realized at all in a social organism. In the next section we will discover that this is also a relevant question for Hegel. With his concept of the fear of death, he actually answers the question as to the conditions under which human law can be considered the realization of pure freedom. . The Fear of Death As the Mediation between the Pure Self and the Organism While it is true that Aristotle’s concept of the state enables a conception of the self as the essence of the (social) organism, this does not mean that the contradictory result of the Consciousness chapter has been solved. The self of human law is not understood as a pure self, but rather as a self that is determined by the specific concepts of human law. Thanks to these concepts (which are realized in the social organism) the self can be considered as the essence of the social organism.6 However, it remains unclear as to how the pure self and the self that is determined through the concepts of human law are related. It is precisely this relation that Hegel wants to clarify with the introduction of his concept of the fear of death. To understand the fear of death, it is advisable to return to the elementary relation between the organism and the earth. I described this relation as an interplay of forces.7 Insofar as the organism is affected by the earth (as the force that is pushed back into itself) it is interested in 5 “. . . the action is the transition from thought to actuality merely as the movement of an insubstantial antithesis whose moments have no particular, distinctive content and no essentiality of their own” (PhS, ). 6 This is the self of stoicism: the self that identifies his concepts with the concepts of nature itself. From an external perspective, this is only the case because these concepts are mediated through labor. 7 As in Kant, it is also the case for Hegel that it is valid that “We can [consider]

the lord and the sublime



the earth. This effect appears as a specific need. In its reaction, the organism satisfies its need—it overcomes its interest and returns back to itself. The life process is the endless repetition of this movement. In the fear of death, however, this movement is interrupted. At this moment, the earth appears as the absolute power of death—as the “absolute lord”.8 What exactly does the organism’s experience of the “absolute lord” mean? Firstly, the organism’s relation to nature is no longer determined through specific interests. The absolute power of nature appears as indivisible otherness. Therefore, the organism is, in this relation, the force that is pushed back into itself.9 However, this “force that is pushed back into itself ” is not the result of needs that are satisfied. Under the influence of the absolute power of death, “alles Fixe” in the organism “hat gebebt”.10 The fear of death tears the organism away from all specific natural needs. All specific interests are sublated in the unifying experience of the fear of death. In this sense the fear of death is the experience of “nothingness”, because all specific determinedness has perished in the experience of the pure unity of life.11 All specific interests vanish in the undifferentiated unity in which life as life is experienced. The temporal process of life is transcended in the experience of the supra-temporal unity of life. Therefore, the fear of death is also the experience of the finitude of life—the experience of one’s own mortality. In the fear of death the interplay of forces is suspended, because the “absolute lord” is internalized. After all, the “absolute lord” appears as the force that is absolutely pushed back into itself, and is experienced in the fear of death that makes the organism the force that is absolutely pushed back into itself. As the force that is absolutely pushed back into itself, the organism experiences life as life; in other words, as the supra-temporal unity of life. In fact, the supra-temporal unity of life reflects the supratemporal unity of nature—the “absolute lord” who, mediated by the fear of death, is experienced by the organism.

the mechanics of nature (its force and contra-force) as a representation of the ultimate relation of nature as a whole towards freedom as a similar relation of force and contraforce”, see Donald Loose, p. – in this volume. 8 “. . . the fear of death, the absolute Lord” (PhS, p. ). 9 Concerning the fear of death of the self-conscious organism (the bondman), Hegel speaks about “a consciousness forced back into itself ” (PhS, p. ). 10 “. . . everything solid and stable has shaken to its foundations” (PhS, p. ). 11 In this sense, Heidegger’s analysis of the fear of death in “Sein und Zeit” repeats Hegel’s analysis.



paul cobben

The fear of death that Hegel has in mind is not just the fear of death of an organism, but the fear that is experienced by an organism that is also a pure self. Initially, the body is threatening to the pure self. It threatens the pureness of the self because it implies that the self is externally determined in its awareness of its needs. Therefore, the pure self tries, at the level of Desire (PhS, ), to negate the awareness of its body by satisfying its needs. From an external perspective, the interplay of forces between the organism and the earth can be interpreted as an action of the pure self that also has a body to rescue its pureness. At the moment of the fear of death, however, the pure self “experiences” that it is impossible to negate the awareness of its body. After all, in the fear of death, the body appears as the force that is absolutely pushed back into itself—as an independent self. This experience appears to be the definitive end of the pure self ’s attempt to realize itself, yet the opposite is true. In the fear of death, the organism of the body has transcended itself—it has itself negated the naturalness of the organism. Therefore, the pure self can “recognize” itself in its body. It experiences that it is the “lord” of its body. The unity of life, the life as life, that the organism experiences in the fear of death, is a self-relation, a being-at-itself whose pure form is the pure self. The pure self-relatedness of the pure self is not negated by the organism, but rather affirmed, specifically, by the organism in the fear of death. In the relation of the fear of death in which the pure self “recognizes” itself, the pure self is related to the organism in its own independence. It is in the otherness as otherness returned to itself. This means that the pure self is not identical to the essence of the organism. The organism appears in its own independence—the relation between the pure self and the organism expresses an ontological difference. The organism is the appearance of the pure self, but it is only a finite appearance of the pure self, that in its finitude is essentially distinguished from the infinitude of the pure self. The foregoing development has shown that the pure self is always already related to an organism in the fear of death. In this sense the pure self (or: das reine Ich) is an abstraction of this relation. The relation to the organism (in the state of the fear of death) is presupposed. Principally, this relation is a relation of transcendental openness—principally, the pure self has a free relation to the organism and can “conceive” of it in its own nature. Initially, however, the pure self has no insight into this relation. As a pure self, it is not able to perform any reflection, any thinking or knowing: after all it is purely itself. Therefore, I placed

the lord and the sublime



“recognize” and “conceive” in quotation marks. The question is how the pure self is aware of its relation to the organism. Hegel draws attention to the fact that this awareness can only be generated under the special condition that the fear of death is caused by another self. In this case, the absolute master (death) has the form of the other self; in other words, the other self is the master of the organism. Since the first self has experienced itself as the essence of the organism, it can “recognize” itself in the other self—the other self is the representation of the pure self. However, once again it is not clear as to how a pure self is able to “recognize”. According to Hegel, this recognition is not a spiritual act, but is expressed purely in practice. The first self recognizes the other self in its practical service—by being a bondsman who serves his lord. From an external perspective, the serving bondsman is in theory the pure, free self. By internalizing the power of nature (the absolute lord), he has overcome death and can represent his pureness in the lord. In practice, however, with respect to his corporeality, the bondsman is part of a social organism. The organism of the bondsman does not (immediately) serve itself—it does not satisfy its needs—but rather serves the lord. In this service, the fear of death; in other words, the transcendence of nature, is institutionalized. The relation to nature has, in the first place, the form of freedom. Through this openness to nature, the actions of the bondsman are no longer natural—they do not express the laws of instinct (the laws of the natural species), but the laws of the human species—the laws of the state (the social organism), whose essence is the lord, or the representation of the pure self. The lord/bondsman relation can be considered the presupposition of Understanding, i.e., Hegel’s alternative of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. It resumes the “reine Ich” (Hegel’s transformation of the transcendental subject) in the form of the representation of the pure self (the lord) and shows that this pure self already presupposes the social organism of the bondsman. In the service of the bondsman—in his relation to nature in the form of labor—nature always already appears in practice (a priori) in the form of a law. In this sense, nature is reasonable. The “freedom” of the bondsman (his relation to nature which is mediated by the lord) results in an openness to nature which enables him to discover specific (contingent) laws of nature. These laws are not discovered through scientific experiments, but are rather practically experienced in the framework of the labor division which characterizes the social organism. In the lord/bondsman relation Hegel shows the internal unity between theoretical and practical reason. For Kant, this unity is thematic in the



paul cobben

Critique of Judgment. In the next section, I will discuss in which sense the lord/bondsman relation can also be considered Hegel’s alternative of Kant’s faculty of judgment. . The Lord and the Esthetic Experience Kant’s definition of Judgment runs as follows: “Urtheilskraft überhaupt ist das Vermögen, das Besondere als enthalten unter dem Allgemeinen zu denken. Ist das Allgemeine (die Regel, das Princip, das Gesetz) gegeben, so ist die Urtheilkraft, welche das Besondere darunter subsumirt, (auch wenn sie als transscendentale Urtheilskraft a priori die Bedingungen angiebt, welchen gemäß allein unter jenem Allgemeinen subsumirt werden kann) bestimmend. Ist aber nur das Besondere gegeben, wozu sie das Allgemeine finden soll, so ist die Urtheilskraft bloß reflectirend.” (KU V, ) As esthetic judgment, the reflective judgment is accompanied by a feeling of pleasure.12 I want to investigate the extent to which the bondsman’s relation to the representation of the lord can be considered an esthetic judgment. We have seen that the lord/bondsman relation originates from the experience of the fear of death, in which the pure self experiences life as life. This experience seems to presuppose a form of Judgment, because the particularity of life (the actions by means of which the organism strives after its self-preservation) is subsumed under a generality (the pure self experiences itself as the inward essence of life). The fear of death gets its institutionalized form in the lord/bondsman relation. From an external perspective, the bondsman is the pure self who not only has a body, but has gone through the fear of death and has represented its pure self in the form of the lord. The lord, however, is another self whom Hegel describes as experiencing pure enjoyment:13 his pure self is not threatened by otherness, because his relation to nature is mediated through the labor of the bondsman. From an external perspective, the lord is a moment of the bondsman’s self-consciousness, namely his 12 “Wie die Analytik des Schönen zeigen wird, zeichnet sich das ästhetische Urteil aus durch die von einer Gefühl der Lust begleitete Bewegung des Suchens. Kant spricht von einer “Lust [. . .] durch reflectirte Wahrnehmung” (KU V,  f.) und identifiziert hier bereits die ästhetische reflektierende Urteilskraft mit dem Gerschmack als dem “Vermögen, durch eine solche Lust [. . .] zu urtheilen” (KU V, )”, Birgit Recki, , p. . 13 “. . . but the Lord . . . has the pure enjoyment of it”. (PhS, p. ).

the lord and the sublime



self-consciousness insofar as it is free and experiences enjoyment in relation to nature. Therefore, insofar as the bondsman makes the lord his representation, this representation represents the bondsman’s enjoyment of nature. In this sense the bondsman’s relation to the representation of the lord not only explicates a form of Judgment (as the institutionalization of the fear of death), but is also “accompanied by a feeling of pleasure (Lust)”. If the bondsman’s relation to the representation of the lord can indeed be considered an esthetic judgment of the beautiful, it must correspond to the determinations of Kant’s analysis of the esthetic judgment, which concern its quality, quantity, relation and modality. With respect to its quality the esthetic judgment “ist in sofern ein bejahendes Urteil, als es in der Beziehung auf den Zustand (das “Lebensgefühl”) des Subjekts ein Wohlgefallen, eines Lust zum Ausdruck bringt”.14 I have already discussed how, in the relation to the lord, the absolutely negative experience of a possible loss of life has been transformed into an absolutely positive experience of enjoyment. The quantitative determination of the esthetic judgment is “generality without concept”. Although the judgment concerns a specific object, the experience of beauty is general—it is valid for all subjects (although this generality is not based on categorical schemes). The negative determination of this generality is already implied in the enjoyment as “interesseloses Wohlgefallen”: “diese Interesselosigkeit [ist] nichts anderes als die Negation aller privaten Bedingungen”.15 We have previously noted that this lack of “private” interest is part of the fear of death, in which all specific interests of life are sublated in the unity of life as life. The positive condition of the generality “beschreibt Kant metaphorisch als jenes “freie Spiel der Erkenntniskräfte”, das am Effekt des Lustgefühls spürbar wird und als die eigentliche Bestimmung der ästhetische Reflexion zu sehen ist”.16 This “free play of cognitive powers” consists of the “Bewegung des Suchens”, in which the reflective judgment subsumes the observed particular under a general unity. This activity is indeed a “free play”, because the criterion for this subsuming can only be searched for; in other words it is not based on the categorial schemes of understanding. This free interplay of cognitive powers is also at work in the case of the lord’s representation. The particular life functions are

14 15 16

Recki, , p. . Recki, , p. . Recki, , p. .



paul cobben

brought together in the unity of representation that generates a feeling of enjoyment. Although this representation is equal for all, it is basically a matter of freedom as to which object objectively represents the lord. The relational determination of the esthetic judgment is connected to the preceding “free interplay of forces”: “Ohne daß eine Erkenntnis bezweckt wäre, verhalten sich die Erkenntniskräfte so functional zueinander, als ob sie durch einen Zweck bestimmt wären”.17 (Zweckmäßigkeit ohne Zweck). Therefore, the esthetic object results from a hypothetically presupposed causality. The same causality plays a part in the representation of the lord. The object which represents the lord is made to be functional for this representation. It is in no way necessary that this very object should represent the lord. As general, the esthetic judgment is necessary. Therefore, with respect to its modality, it is an apodictic judgment. However, since generality of the esthetic judgment is “without concept”, the necessity of the apodictic judgment is simultaneously subjective. Kant expresses this by characterizing the apodictic judgment in this case as exemplary: it is “immer an Einzelnes gebunden”.18 The bondsman’s representation of the lord can also be qualified as an exemplary apodictic judgment: the representation is not only general, but also subjective—it is connected to a particular object. Although the representation of the lord seems to satisfy the qualifications of an esthetic judgment, this does not in general correspond to Hegel’s interpretation. In the Religion chapter, the representation of the lord appears respectively as sun (Lichtwesen), flowers, animal, the mummy of the pharaoh, the work of art and the Christian God. Only in the case of the work of art (the representation of the lord in the ancient Greek world) does it seem to make sense to connect the representation of the lord with an esthetic judgment. Nevertheless, this is not an argument to reject the foregoing attempt to consider the bondsman’s representation of the lord as an esthetic judgment of the beautiful. This consideration was subjected to an important presupposition. The bondsman was considered from an external perspective. Only under this condition can the lord be understood as the representation of the bondsman’s selfconsciousness. Only when the bondsman is able to be aware of himself from an external perspective; in other words, only if the bondsman has developed into a free self-consciousness, is he able to make an esthetic 17 18

Recki, , p. . Recki, , p. .

the lord and the sublime



judgment of the beautiful. It is precisely in the Greek world that this development has been achieved. The lord/bondsman relation is not only the presupposition of Understanding (Hegel’s alternative of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason), but also Hegel’s version of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. The bondsman is the human being who has represented his essence—his pure freedom— in the lord.19 In the initial form of the lord/bondsman relation, the bondsman only “recognizes” the lord in practice by his service. At this stage, the free essence of the bondsman is totally hidden in his practical activities. Hegel reconstructs the relation between bondsman and lord as a process through which the bondsman becomes aware of his pure essence, which results in the moral subject who knows that he has the duty to realize his freedom and who knows that this is only possible in a finite (historical) way by his participation in the institutions of an ethical community. Hegel’s reconstruction of the historical process in which this self-awareness is reached (which is discussed in the Spirit and Religion chapters) encompasses the ancient Greek world. At this level, the social organism is a free organism—the bondsmen appear as free citizens, who are aware that the social organism (the state) is reproduced in and through their own actions (in this sense, the social organism is a work of art). However, their awareness does not yet have a conceptual form, but is tied to the specific, historical tradition in which the social organism appears. Therefore, their awareness has the form of an esthetic judgment of the beautiful. The social organism is represented in (another) work of art that is considered the essence of the social organism.20 . The Ancient Greek World As Social Presupposition of the Esthetic Judgment At the level of the ancient Greek world, the lord/bondsman relation is realized as the relation between divine and human law. The pure self of the lord returns as the shadow of the deceased family member, 19 This is Hegel’s way of conceiving of “the transcendental subject as a living and incarnated being”; see Donald Loose, p.  in this volume. 20 Athens, for example, is represented by the goddess Athens, who lives in a temple. The statue of the goddess and her temple respectively represent the free citizen and his polis. “In this mode, the shape is broken up into the distinction of individuality, which bears within the shape of the self, and the universality, which represents the inorganic essence in reference to the shape, its environment and habitation” (PhS, ).



paul cobben

the abstract being-for-itself that is remembered by the surviving family members. The bondsman is manifested in the citizens of the state, who serve human law. They serve human law, because they have always already experienced the fear of death. This experience is objectified in their “pathos”; the content of their character as citizen that makes them observe human law.21 In his form as citizen, the freedom of the bondsman is no longer totally hidden. After all, the citizen knows that the law he is serving is human law. However, the freedom of human law is restricted, because it is a traditional law. The pure freedom of the citizen still remains hidden. Although pure freedom (in other words, his essence as lord) remains hidden for the citizen, it is present in divine law, in other words, as the remembrance of the abstract being-for-itself of the deceased family member. The deceased individuals, however, belong to the underworld, not to the state of the living citizens. According to Hegel, the development of the Greek world must be conceptualized as the process in which the pure essence of the citizen (represented by divine law as the shade of the deceased) is united with his reality in human law. This process, however, leads to the destruction of the Greek world, because the tradition of human law is not compatible with pure freedom. In reality, this destruction is enacted in the form of war (the struggle for life and death) between city-states. In this war, the fear of death that is objectified in the “pathos” is re-actualized in the struggle of the soldiers who defend their homeland. In this struggle,22 it is clarified that the essence of the state is not human law, but the individual who is prepared to give his life for the state, because he knows that the state objectifies his essence, or his pure self.23 However, the external destruction of the polis is preceded by an internal development. The citizens of the polis are (like the bondsmen) involved in a practical process of education in which the power of the sec21 “The ethical consciousness . . . is essentially character” (PhS, ). “Character, likewise, in respect of its ‘pathos’ or substance . . .” (PhS, ). 22 We will see that this experience of war can be considered an experience of the sublime. See Donald Loose: “Even war in this context is highly valuated by Kant as a sublime experience”, p. . 23 “The consummation of the ethical sphere in free self-consciousness, and the fate of the ethical world, are therefore the individuality that has withdrawn into itself, the absolute levity of the ethical Spirit which has dissolved within itself all the firmly established distinctions of its stable existence and the spheres of its organically ordered world and, being perfectly sure of itself, has attained to unrestrained joyfulness and the freest enjoyment of itself ”. (PhS, /).

the lord and the sublime



ond nature (the tradition of the polis) is sublated. In this process the citizens acquire their pure freedom—they overcome their dependence upon the determinations of tradition.24 “This activity is pure form, because the individual, in ethical obedience and service, has worked off every unconscious existence and fixed determination in the same way that substance itself has become this fluid essence”. () Initially, however, the self-awareness of the citizens does not have the form of selfconsciousness, but is represented by a work of art. The pure self is confronted with the historical tradition of the polis in which it expresses itself.25 Therefore, free consciousness is represented as a work of art, in which the pathos of tradition has the form of the free self. “The concrete existence of the pure Notion into which Spirit has fled from its body is an individual which Spirit selects to be the vessel of its sorrow. Spirit is present in this individual and as the power over him from which he suffers violence, as his ‘pathos’, by giving himself over to which his selfconsciousness loses its freedom. But that positive power of universality is subdued by the pure self of the individual, the negative power. This pure activity, conscious of its inalienable strength, wrestles with the shapeless essence. Becoming its master, it has made the ‘pathos’ into its material and given itself its content, and this unity emerges as a work, universal Spirit individualized and set before us”. (/) In the work of art, the free self is already represented—in this sense, the work of art is a representation of the lord. Consequently, by means of the work of art, divine law penetrates the real world of human law. In the various forms of art distinguished by Hegel, the free self is represented more and more suitably, until, ultimately, the difference between the work of art and the real free individual disappears.26 At that moment, the polis has collapsed because the free selves of the citizens no longer share a content: pathos has been totally dissolved into the free self. Therefore, the representation of the work of art has a twofold meaning. On the on hand, it is a representation and objectification of the free self, and a moment in the process by means of which the citizens acquire an 24 At the level of the lord/bondsman relation Hegel expresses this result as the bondsman’s “recognition” that he himself is the lord. 25 This confrontation between the free form and an observed content is discussed in the Self-Consciousness chapter as the relation of skepticism. 26 The free self is, for example, represented as the statue of a god, the athlete of the Olympic Games, the hero of the Ilias, or Antigone. In Cobben () I have elaborated that these works of art are structured as the forms of the Unhappy Consciousness and Reason.



paul cobben

adequate self-awareness (leading to the decline of the polis). On the other hand, it postpones the decline of the polis, because it represents the polis as an absolute (divine) reality. The works of art that Hegel discusses under the title Religion of the works of Art can all be considered representations of the lord. Moreover, at this stage, the bondsman, or the citizen of the Greek state, has developed a free self-consciousness. Therefore, his relation to these works of art can be subsumed under the esthetic judgment of the beautiful as it is defined by Kant. However, it has become clear that the social conditions that are presupposed by the esthetical judgment are only met in the specific period of the ancient Greek world. Before this period, free consciousness has not yet been developed and after this period, the representation of the lord is no longer bound to the pathos of a traditional society.27 Only under the condition that a pathos is shared by all can the experience of beauty be general. Although it is clear that esthetic judgment and the experience of beauty do not disappear after the decline of the Greek world, the era of absolute art has ended. The social conditions that make the esthetic experience objective are overcome. The work of art is no longer the most suitable medium to represent the lord. In the next section I will investigate whether this transition can somehow be linked to Kant’s notion of the sublime. Before continuing, however, I want to discuss a striking similarity in Kant’s and Hegel’s ideal of beauty: the beautiful human.28 For Hegel, the statue of the god is the ideal of beauty. However, it is clear that this god is an idealized human. The Greek god not only has a human shape, but is also a being whose dimensions are fully harmonized. Since, in Hegel’s view, the work of art represents the lord, it is not surprising that the beautiful human corresponds with his ideal of beauty. After all, the human body is the immediate appearance of the pure self. The beautiful human is the purified body, the body that expresses its spiritual essence—the free self. In contrast to Hegel (who rejects the immediate beauty of nature), Kant defends the primacy of the beauty 27 “In such an epoch, absolute art makes its appearance. Prior to this it is an instinctive fashioning of material; submerged in the world of determinate being, it works its way out of it and into it; it does not possess its substance in the free ethical sphere, and therefore, does not have the character of free spiritual activity for the self at work. Later on, Spirit transcends art in order to gain a higher representation of itself ”. (PhS, ). 28 “Es ist der Mensch, welcher “eines Ideal der Schönheit [. . .] unter allen Gegenstände in der Welt allein fähig” ist (KU V, )”. (Recki, , p. ).

the lord and the sublime



of nature. Therefore, it may come as a surprise that for him, too, the ideal of beauty is the beautiful human. In Kant’s enumeration of examples of beautiful objects in §  of the Critique of Judgment, the beautiful human is missing. “Die Beispiele, die Kant hier und im folgenden nennt, um zu konkretisieren, was unter den Schönheiten der Natur vorzustellen ist, reichen vom Gesang der Nachtigall (KU V, ) über “die schöne Gestalt” von Blumen, Vögeln und Insekten (KU V, ) bis zur Schönheit der Kristalle (KU V,  f.). Der schöne Mensch wird unter den Naturschönheiten nicht ausdrücklich aufgeführt”.29 This can be explained if one realizes that the beautiful human is not just an example of a beautiful object of nature, but rather stands for the ideal of beauty. “In der Konstruktion eines “Ideals der Schönheit”, wie er es in einer Anmerkung zum dritten Moment des Geschmacksunteils (“Zweckmäßigkeit ohne Zweck”) behandelt, beantwortet Kant auch für den ästhetischen Bereich die Frage nach der “unbestimmten Idee der Vernunft von einem Maximum” (KU V, ) . . . Die Frage zielt mit anderen Worten auf den Gegenstand, dessen Erscheinung die maximale Verwirklichung der Schönheit gibt”.30 “Beim “Ideal der Schönheit” handelt es sich ausdrücklich um das Objekt “eines zum Theil intellectuirten Geschmackurtheils” (KU V, )”.31 Obviously, the ideal of beauty encompasses a reflection on the nature of beauty—it expresses the meaning of beauty as such. Since Kant conceives of beauty as the free interplay of cognitive powers that results in an experience of pleasure, the experience of beauty is about the mediation of freedom and nature, or the reasonableness of nature, “die Einheit des sinnlich-vernünftiges Wesen selbst”.32 In the work of art, nature affirms human freedom in a double sense. On the one hand, the work of art shows that that the human as a natural being is in harmony with freedom: the artist owes his creativity to nature. On the other hand, it shows that the human as a free being is in harmony with nature: human freedom is not produced by itself, but is given to humanity as a super-sensual nature. Human beauty as ideal explicitly expresses both moments. It not only immediately shows that human nature is in harmony with beauty, but also that freedom, represented by a human being, is in harmony with nature. 29 30 31 32

Recki, , p. . Recki, , p. . Recki, , pp. /. Recki, , p. .



paul cobben

Insofar as Kant considers human beauty to be the ideal of beauty, he comes close to Hegel’s analysis of the statue of God in Ancient Greece.33 Both consider the idealized human figure to be the representation of pure freedom. The beautiful human figure is regarded as the appearance of the pure self (in other words, as the appearance of the lord). We have noted how this relation in Hegel introduces a movement in which art is sublated. If the work of art is the appearance of a pure essence, there may be better alternatives to express this essence. In the next section, I will discuss whether it makes sense to compare Hegel’s sublation of art with Kant’s sublation of the beautiful into the sublime. . Kant’s Concept of the Sublime and Hegel’s Sublation of Absolute Art According to Kant, the experience of beauty is sublated in the experience of the sublime, when the free interplay of cognitive powers no longer has the ability to perform a synthesis that results in the feeling of pleasure, or the experience of beauty. In the experience of the sublime, the human being is confronted with his finitude. Within the domain of the sublime, Kant distinguishes between a theoretical and a practical variant. In the theoretical variant, the experience of finitude is related to an object (Gegenstand). The subject experiences that the object is too large, so that he is not able to come to a synthesis. Therefore, the theoretical experience of the sublime refers to an infinitely large object and, consequently, to a transcendent idea: the idea of an object that encompasses all objects. In the practical variant, the experience of finitude is related to a reality which is too mighty; in other words, to an absolute power. Therefore, this experience refers to the transcendent idea of a divine almightiness. The sublation of the experience of the beautiful can also be found in Hegel. Here, too, the sublation has to do with the experience of human finitude, which is separated into two variants. First, the religion of art of the Greek world is sublated in the offenbare Religion (“Revealed Religion”, PhS,  ff.) of medieval Christianity. This transition to the offenbare Religion is, according to Hegel, conditioned by a social presuppo33 The status of God is gradually transformed into a living human being; at the level of the ‘living work of art’, for example, the lord is represented as ‘the handsome warrior’ (PhS, )—the hero of the Olympic Games; at the level of the ‘spiritual work of art’, for example, as ‘the individuality of a hero’ (PhS, ); at the end, the statue of God has been realized as the ‘brave youth in whom woman finds her pleasure’. (PhS, ).

the lord and the sublime



sition, namely the decay of the Roman Empire. Hegel characterizes the decay of this empire as an “absolute” loss, which results in the “unhappy consciousness”.34 What has been lost is the reality of essential being: freedom that had its true shape in Roman law. After the decay of the Roman Empire, this essence can only be maintained as a transcendent object; as the “unwandelbare Wesen”, which remains out of reach in the real world.35 In relation to this absolute object, the human being experiences his finitude. Here, the experience of the fear of death, which was re-actualized in the struggle for the self-preservation of the polis, has acquired its representation in a new form, namely as the absolute object which appears in the religious representation of the revealed religion. The second variant of Kant’s sublation is thematized in Hegel as the absolute spirit. Again this transition is conditioned by social presuppositions. The medieval attempt to make the absolute object actually appear (the attempt to realize heaven on earth, PhS, ) fails. This is discussed by Hegel as the absolute freedom which results in the terror of the French Revolution. Although, at this level, it is understood that the absolute object (the “lord”) actually stands for the pure freedom of the human being, it now becomes clear that this pure (moral) freedom cannot be immediately realized in the legal order. The attempt to do so nevertheless leads to a struggle for life and death (the terror of the French Revolution). The realization of freedom means its determination, and this determination contradicts pure freedom. In this last form of the struggle for life and death, the essence of the fear of death is at last understood. The fear of death is not caused by an external power, but is a moment of one’s own striving for freedom.36 As a free being, the human being is lord of nature. However, if he tries to realize this freedom immediately, he is confronted with his own finitude. Pure freedom can only be realized by mediation, as the free essence of the free society. At the level of the Morality chapter, Hegel discusses how the human being acquires the insight that allows him to conceive of his lord as 34 “It (i.e., the Unhappy Consciousness, p.c.) is the consciousness of the loss of all essential being in this certainty of itself, and of the loss even of this knowledge about itself—the loss of substance as well as of the Self, it is the grief which expresses itself in the hard saying that ‘God is dead’.” (PhS, ). 35 “. . . the simple Unchangeable, it is taken to be the essential Being”. (PhS, ). 36 “The culture to which it attains in interaction with that essence is, therefore, the grandest and the last, is that of seeing its pure, simple reality immediately vanish and pass away into empty nothingness”. (PhS, ).



paul cobben

absolute spirit, which he serves by participating in the institutions of the free society in which he lives. Through this he learns to distinguish his finite freedom from the pure freedom of absolute spirit; in other words, the absolute power which underlies the finite world.37 In contrast to the experience of the sublime in Kant, the experience of the sublation of art in Hegel is primarily a social experience. There are some parallels with the experience of the beautiful. In Hegel, this experience is primarily a social experience—the experience of the religion of art which is linked to the Greek world. This does not exclude the possibility that a particular individual could experience the beauty of an object of nature in a way that is analogous to the experience of the beauty of art. In contrast to Kant, however, this experience of beauty is not an immediate one. For Hegel, the experience in which the beauty of art is sublated in the revealed religion and in the absolute spirit is also a social experience. Again, this does not exclude the possibility that an individual could have some experiences in relation to nature which are analogous to this (the experience of the stars in heaven, or the experience of the savage sea). However, in this case, too, the experience of the “sublime” is socially mediated. Moreover, Hegel also discusses the sublation of the beautiful within the domain of art. For example, romantic art is an expression of free subjectivity. At this level, art has lost its absolute status: it expresses an essence which can also be expressed in forms other than art. . Conclusion In the experience of the (dynamic) sublime, nature is experienced as an absolutely superior power, which, nevertheless, does not devour the subject, but rather refers him to the infinite idea. The experience of the fear of death, which Hegel thematizes in Phenomenology of Spirit, can be compared with the experience of the sublime. In the fear of death, nature appears as the absolutely superior power, which nevertheless does not generate death, but rather the transcendence of death; in other words, the awareness that pure freedom is the transcendent essence of nature.

37 “The world of reconciliation is the objectively existent Spirit, which beholds the pure knowledge of itself qua universal essence, in its opposite, in the pure knowledge of itself qua absolutely self-contained and exclusive individuality-a reciprocal recognition which is absolute Spirit”. (PhS, ).

the lord and the sublime



Although the possibility of the experience of the sublime in Kant is linked with cultural education,38 this mediation is not expressed in the object of the experience of the sublime—the experience of the sublime is (rather) directed towards nature as it presents itself in its immediacy. The (human) experience of the fear of death is also mediated by cultural education. According to Hegel, this cultural education is reflected in the object in which the fear of death becomes aware of itself. Hegel’s general determination of the object in which the fear of death becomes aware of itself is the lord;39 in other words, the representation of pure freedom. In the representation of the lord, social mediation is always already expressed—the lord is the representation of society in its entirety, not the particular representation of a particular individual. Like the experience of the sublime, the experience of the fear of death can be directed towards an immediately given object of nature, but in this case the object of nature becomes valid as a social representation of the lord: specifically, in the way in which god in the different forms of the religion of nature is represented as an object of nature (as the sun in the religion of the Lichtwesen, or the flowers and the totem animals in the other religions of nature). From an external perspective, the lord is always the symbol of pure freedom. The relation to the lord and its symbolization, however, is involved in a development that results in the lord, ultimately, and also from an inner perspective, being understood as pure freedom. Initially, however, the lord appears as the external power of nature. Only if the power of nature in real society has been rendered the expression of human freedom, can the representation of the lord be explicitly conceptualized as the representation of pure freedom. This process of development consists of three stages: the stage of the religion of nature, the stage of the religion in the form of Art, and the stage of the sublation of art in the revealed religion and philosophy. At the level of the religion of nature, the power of nature is internalized and represented as the lord (in other words, as divine being). It is important to realize that at this stage the lord is represented with the help of an object of nature. On the one hand, this expresses that the human being

38 Donald Loose, p. : “Towards the sublime this expectation is less direct. Here, the necessary consent of all, concerns the idea of reason and this presupposes a culture that is much more developed”. 39 Donald Loose remarks; “In this sense, according to Kant, the human is the ‘lord of nature’.” (p. ). Hegel would not contradict this opinion.



paul cobben

is free: he is not devoured by the external power of nature, but rather has the ability to make it his representation. On the other hand, however, he is not yet aware of his freedom. Therefore, he still represents his freedom as an object of nature; in other words, his relation to nature still does not appear in the form of freedom. Therefore, according to Hegel, the object of nature that represents the lord expressively is not an object of beauty (this remains restricted to the later representation of the lord as a work of art). The representation of the lord (that, to its content, is the representation of pure freedom) in the form of not-being-free; in other words, the religion of nature; refers to the really not-being free in relation to nature. The religion of nature belongs to peoples of nature; in other words, to peoples that do not explicitly borrow the unity of their society from a selfmade law; in other words human law that underlies the order of a state. Only in the last stage of the religion of nature, which Hegel discusses as the religion of the Werkmeister (The Artificer, PhS  ff.), or the religion of the Egyptian Realm, does a point of return take place that results in the religion in the form of Art—the religion of the Greek Realm. During the Egyptian Realm, the social organism has developed into a coherent labor system with a pharaoh, who has a divine status as its leader (so that there is not yet a human law). In its religion, this world is represented as the pyramid and the mummy of the pharaoh. Therefore, the godhead is still an object of nature, but already has a human form (as a mummy). Moreover, the godhead is related to nature that (as cultivated) is already part of the human world: this is represented in the pyramid that symbolizes the land of the labor system, or the land that is measured through geometry.40 According to Hegel, the pyramid and the mummy are not yet objects of art. They express the fact that the Egyptian Realm is determined through human labor, but not yet through free activity. Labor is performed by slaves. However, just as the bondsman in the initial lord/bondsman relation is brought to freedom through his labor, so this is also the case for the Egyptian slaves. This becoming-free is reflected in the paintings of the pyramids, in which the animals increasingly acquire a human shape.41 The process of becoming-free results in the Greek Realm, the realm of the free citizens. 40 “. . . the crystal, the form characteristic of the Understanding, which houses the dead”. (PhS, ). 41 “The human form strips off the animal shape with which it was blended”. (PhS, ).

the lord and the sublime



The Greek society, the polis, can accurately be described as a work of art. As a product of labor, it is a practical synthesis of natural reality. However, this synthesis is not bound to a law of nature, but rather to a self-made, human law. Society is no longer conceptualized as a society that is founded in the godhead. However, the freedom that is expressed within Greek society is not pure. It is bound to the shared pathos of the citizens; in other words, it is bound to traditional norms and values. This actually makes the polis the (only) absolute work of art. A general experience of the beautiful is only valid for the polis—the desire that is experienced from an objective reality in which all feel at home. In fact, the religion in the form of Art is already a reaction to the decay of the polis. This decay is initiated through the display of individual freedom (the subterranean essence of the polis). The religion in the form of Art tries to ward off this decay by representing the specific form in which freedom appears as an absolute being. The artist represents the pathos of the polis as a statue of god. Individual freedom, however, cannot be expelled through the representation of the work of art. The work of art is the product of an individual artist and, therefore, is infected by individual freedom (even though the individual artist tries to express the general pathos). To some extent, individual freedom can be expressed in the work of art (a characteristic that, later, especially characterizes romantic art), but the work of art is not the most suitable medium to express individual freedom: freedom is an inner, subjective essence that cannot be absorbed in a sensual form of expression. This becomes explicit at the level of the revealed religion. In the revealed religion, the lord is represented as an inner essence. Since this inner essence is absolute, it cannot remain opposed to the world of appearance. Therefore, the revealed religion is driven by the attempt to let this inner essence appear. In the age of the French Revolution it becomes clear that this attempt has to fail: the inner (absolute) freedom cannot be realized in the form of a real law. The determinedness of the real law contradicts the absoluteness of the inner essence. This shows that, at the level of the revealed religion, the lord can be understood as the representation of moral freedom in the Kantian sense. At the level of conscience, pure freedom is understood as the transcendent absolute spirit which has its finite appearance in world history. In a certain way, this is a synthesis between the religion in the form of Art and the revealed religion. On the one hand, it is clear that pure freedom manifests itself in society and, on the other hand, it is clear that the essence of absolute (pure) freedom is an inner, “subjective” being. The experience



paul cobben

of world history can be compared with the experience of the (dynamic) sublime. It confronts mankind with absolute superior power, but, simultaneously, the experience of this superior power reveals that the inner essence of reality is not a foreign being, but refers to mankind’s own freedom.42 References Cobben, Paul, The Nature of the Self. Recognition in the Form of Right and Morality, Berlin/New York (De Gruyter) . Hegel, G.W.F., Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A.V. Miller, Oxford University Press, . ———, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, Frankfurt/M. . Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Hamburg, . Recki, Birgit, Ästhetik der Sitten, Frankfurt/M. .

42

Donald Loose quotes Kant; “Es soll kein Krieg sein. Was kann mehr metaphysisch sublimiert sein als eben diese Idee (des ewigen Friedens)?” (p. ). I think Hegel would totally agree with this statement. Since the relation between absolute and objective Spirit is not dialectical, but rather an ontological difference, the demand to realize eternal freedom remains involved in a relation of “sollen”; in other words, the demand can never be fully realized.

THE SUBLIME MONSTER

Jacob Rogozinski I shall speak about the “monstrous”, about the Ungeheure in Kant’s Critique of Judgment. What could seem paradoxical: of Ungeheure, indeed, it is never question in this book. Or almost never. But, we shall see it, what is at stake with the Ungeheure is the precarious limit of an almost. Through the whole Critique, the Ungeheure appears almost never—at the only exception of a short allusion in the §  of the Analytics of the Sublime, where Kant indicates that, in the representations which awake the feeling of the sublime, “the Nature contains nothing which would be ungeheuer”. Of this monstrous Thing, the Critique wants to know nothing: it evokes it only to revoke it immediately. The “monstrous”— if this term suits to translate ungeheuer—would be never sublime. It is this demarcation which I would like to question. Is a sublime monster possible? This possibility, excluded by the Third Critique, we shall see that Kant will envisage it some years later, in the Anthropology. What is this Ungeheure which he needs to banish from the field of the aesthetics? Immediately after having excluded it from the sublime representations of the Nature, he specifies that “an object is ungeheuer when, by its size, it annihilates (vernichtet) the end which constitutes its concept”.1 As the sublime, which shows itself in the presentation (almost impossible) of the absolutely-great, the Ungeheure belongs to the register of the greatness, of the excess of size. Kant distinguishes it however from another experience of the greatness, from what he names the colossal: which is “the simple presentation of a concept which is almost too big for any presentation (which is on the limit of relative Ungeheure)”. Strange and paradoxical confession: what must be absolutely excluded from the aesthetics immediately comes back in it, but “on the limit” of the presentation, beyond or below this demarcation line which separates the Ungeheure from the colossal, that is to say from a different way to present the greatness . . . This is however a precarious demarcation, if it is seems impossible, as notices Derrida, “to stop the category of the almost-too-

1

Critique of the Power Judgment (CPJ) §  (bd. V, p. ).



jacob rogozinski

much”2 by assigning it a fixed limit. Impossible thus to make the difference, to draw a demarcation between the Geheure (the usual, the ordinary) and its negation, between the normal and the enormous, between an aesthetics of the beauty and of the sublime and this point of excess which is indicated by the term Ungeheure. An aporia which belongs to the nature of the monstrous Thing. If the colossal and/or the sublime are “almost too big for any presentation”, they are held on the verge of the unpresentable, but remain liable to be presented, at least negatively. While the Ungeheure breaks any limit, makes us pass from the almosttoo-much to the absolutely unpresentable. By annihilating the end which constitutes its concept, it annihilates at the same moment any intuition, any representation which could present it, and even the words which could express it or translate it by assigning it an unambiguous meaning. Thus, any attempt to define it will be doomed to failure. All the aesthetic illustrations that we could give of it, all the “deconstructrive”, “ontological” or “ethical” analyses which we shall propose of it will be condemned to miss the monstrous Thing. Any approach of the Ungeheure has to make itself ungeheuer; to try to break the standards of the language to which it belongs. But without ever reaching it. This aporia appears as a double-bind: in order to think of the Ungeheure, it is necessary and we cannot think of it on a ungeheure mode. A marginal aporia, certainly, but its effects could be felt in the whole Critique. What is at stake with the Ungeheure, is the very possibility of the sublime. What can seem paradoxical, because the sublime is also defined by its exclusion from the Ungeheure. It would be possible that the Kantian Critique repeats here an ancient decree of eviction, even older than the category of the sublime: in his Poetics, Aristotle has already determined the essence of the beauty in the tragedy by the exclusion of the “monstrous” (to tératôdès).3 Nevertheless, if he seems to repeat this gesture of exclusion, Kant grants a certain place to the Ungeheure, because a certain mode or a certain style of sublime—this almost-sublime that he names the colossal—appears “on the limit” of the Ungeheure. It is impossible thus to think of the sublimity of the sublime without a certain reference to the Ungeheure. What is at stake is a certain experience of the limit, of this strange limit which would come to delimit what refuses itself to any limitation. If “The beautiful in nature concerns the form of the object, which consists in 2 3

J. Derrida, , p. . Cf. Poetics, XIV b.

the sublime monster



limitation; the sublime, by contrast, is to be found in a formless object insofar as limitlessness is represented in it, or at its instance, and yet it is also thought as a totality”.4 This reserve is important: the formless would be only a particular case of sublime; or rather the sublime would never be absolutely formless, because it still allows to think of its object as a whole, to bring its almost formless multiplicity to an unity. As show us the examples of Saint-Peter-of-Rome or of the Pyramids, the feeling of the sublime roots itself in a form which is “almost too big for any presentation”, but which is nevertheless a form, that is the binding of a multiplicity. If this ultimate limit would be exceeded, if the size of the object or the multiplicity of its elements would increase, then it could not be schematized any more under the categories of unity or totality, and it would escape absolutely the grasp of the imagination. When this limit will be crossed, the sublime would sink into the Ungeheure. But if their difference is simply quantitative, it becomes very difficult to distinguish them. The same object could be judged sometimes sublime and sometimes ungeheure as the aim of the imagination goes just behind or just beyond the maximal limit of its comprehension. Between the almost-too-much of the sublime and the absolutely-too-much of the monstrous, the demarcation would become undecidable. Or almost undecidable. At least from the quantitative point of view, but it is not the case any more if we consider the aesthetic judgments from the point of view of the quality, that is of the affect, of the satisfaction or of the dissatisfaction which they arouse. Here, the demarcation seems better assured. We know that the sublime is characterized by a feeling of “negative pleasure”, which “is possible only by the mediation of a displeasure”. It shows itself in a “fast alternation of the aversion (Abstoßen) and the attraction provoked by the same object”.5 It is this oscillation which disappears in the case of the Ungeheure: no more joy succeeds the pain. No more attraction comes to invert the aversion for the object. Only remain absolutely negative feelings, the affects of the Ungeheure. No more fear (Furcht)—which does not exclude an attraction for the object—but terror (Schreck), horror (Grauen) and disgust (Ekel), the affects of a pure aversion. Is it certain however that the qualitative distinction of feelings succeeds to mark the limit, to make the difference between the affective polarity of the sublime and the purely repulsive affects of the Ungeheure? 4 5

CPJ, §  (V, p. ). CPJ, §  (V, p. ).



jacob rogozinski

We must notice that, in the Anthropology, the connections between the beautiful, the sublime and the Ungeheure are definite otherwise than in the Critique of the Judgment. Kant asserts henceforth that “the mental representation (of the sublime) in the description or in the presentation can and must always be beautiful; otherwise, the astonishment would become terror (Abschreckung) ( . . . ). The size which is counter-final (magnitudo monstrosa) is the Ungeheure”. And he ends by reaffirming that “the artistic presentation (of the sublime) can and must be beautiful: without that, it would be wild, rough, repulsive (abstoßend) and so object of aversion for the taste”.6 Unlike the Critique, which tried to distinguish them, to distribute them in two different Analytics, this text insists on the complicity between the sublimity and the beauty. The sublime depends strictly on the beautiful. Forsaken to itself, it would inspire only negative feelings of terror, aversion, disgust: it would become ungeheure. According to Fénelon, “the beautiful which is only beautiful is only half beautiful”. It would be the same with the sublime: if it was only sublime, it would not be sublime any more, but monstrous. It thus needs the beauty not to sink into the abyss of the Ungeheure. But if the sublime without beauty, the sublime as such, provokes only aversion, what we find of attracting in it would not come from it. Let us risk a hypothesis: it is the pure pleasure of the beauty that becomes strangely allied to the terror to arouse this oscillation between the attraction and the aversion which characterizes the feeling of the sublime. If it is the case, it would be necessary to recognize that the sublime does not constitute a specific affect, but only an unstable synthesis between two opposite affects, between the pure pleasure of the beauty and the aversion of the monstrous. The Anthropology so confers to the beauty a mission which the Third Critique had not envisaged: to transfigure an affect of horror in the feeling of the sublime, to sublimate the Ungeheure. The beauty would be then the transcendental condition of any presentation and any aesthetic representation. It is sometimes asserted that the consideration of the sublime by Burke, then by Kant, marks a decisive break with the classical aesthetics centred on the ideal of the beauty. Must we admit that, on this point, the Anthropology returns below the break of the Third Critique? In this book, Kant indeed writes that “the representation of the sublime can and must be beautiful in itself, otherwise it is coarse, barbaric and opposite to the taste. Even the representation of the evil and the ugliness (like the figure of

6

Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view, §  (bd. VII, p. ).

the sublime monster



Death personified by Milton) can and must necessarily be beautiful, if it is at stake to give an aesthetic representation of an object”.7 Even the “barbary”, even the evil, and the death itself . . . What would be the limit of this sublimating power of the beauty? He already seemed to defend this thesis in the Third Critique, when he granted to the Fine Arts the power “to give a beautiful description of things which, in the Nature, would be ugly or disagreeable”, “as the Furies, diseases, the devastation of the war”.8 There too, the Critique joins in an ancient tradition: according to Aristotle, the mimesis could transform painful affects—phobos kai eleos, terror and pity—in a feeling of pleasure; and he underlines that “we take pleasure to contemplate the most exact images of things the sight of which is painful to us in the reality, as the forms of completely filthy animals or corpses”.9 In the Critique, this art to sublimate the horror, to convert any displeasure in aesthetic pleasure, meets nevertheless its limit: what Kant indicates as disgust (Ekel). It is “the only mode of ugliness which cannot be represented according to Nature without annihilating any satisfaction and consequently any artistic beauty”. There is doubtless an essential nearness between the disgust and the Ungeheure. Whereas the other feelings (of terror, horror, etc.) that the monstrous Thing awakens can nevertheless be aesthetically sublimated, the disgust resists this sublimation: it would be the purest affect of the Ungeheure. Kant characterizes it as a jouissance or, more exactly, as a representation which “imposes itself to the jouissance (zum Genuße) while we resist it with violence”; in that case, “the artistic representation of the object is no longer distinguished in our sensation itself from the nature of the object itself, and it then becomes impossible for the former to be taken as beautiful”.10 It is the sign of a radical abjection which could not be represented or sublimated any more, but still remains an object of jouissance. There is thus a jouissance of the filthy, where is abolished the distance between the monstrous Thing and its representation, that is to say the constitutive distance of the mimesis. Derrida is not wrong to indicate the disgust as “the absolute other of the Kantian system”, as this absolutely excluded, this “vomit” which would be the unthinkable of the Kantianism.11 It is this ultimate border which fades away some years later in the Anthropology: it is this limit-point of

7 8 9 10 11

Ibid. §  (VII, p. ). CPJ, §  (V, p. ). Poetics, IV, b. CPJ, §  (V, p. ). J. Derrida, , pp. –.



jacob rogozinski

the unpresentable that is reabsorbed in the aesthetic presentation of the beauty, as if the Kantian system came after all to swallow its vomit. The analysis of the relations between the sublime and the Ungeheure from the point of view of the quality or of the affect thus confirms what had taught us their analysis from the point of view of the quantity. It confirms that the passage from one to another implies no break, but a gradation, a continuous process where the same movement becomes intensified by crossing successive levels: from the almost-too-much to the absolutely-too-much, or from an oscillation between attraction and aversion to a pure aversion. It is in this sense that Kant could assert that the sublime stands “on the limit of the Ungeheure”. But he also declared that in the representation of the sublime there is nothing ungeheure, and this exclusion becomes difficult to understand. Because this notion does not refer anymore to the categories of quantity or quality, but to the third moment of the Analytics, to the categories of relation, that is here to finality. At this level, a new cleavage appears which could indeed break the continuity and throw back definitively the monstrous out of the field of aesthetics. What characterizes a pure aesthetical judgment is its total lack of end, of objective finality determined by its relation to a concept. For that reason, the sublime is determined as zweckwidrig, “contrapurposive”, opposed to any end. Such is not the case of the Ungeheure, because an object is so qualified “when, by its size, it annihilates the end which constitutes its concept”. We must thus recognize that its monstrous character is completely determined by its relation to its concept and to its end, even if this relation is totally negative. The “size” which is here in question has nothing to do with this absolute and unconditioned greatness which defines the sublime. A size can be considered as ungeheure only by comparison, with regard to the normal size assigned to the object by its concept. Such a judgment can perfectly apply to small-dimension objects: the “long foot of four cubits” about which speaks Aristotle in his Politics, the man with the enormous ear which meets Zarathustra remain relatively small and seem nevertheless monstrous according to the teleological norm of the human body. From the sublime to the Ungeheure, there is thus no continuous gradation from the almost-too-big to the too-big, but a change of ground, the passage from the faculty of aesthetical judgments (in which we find the sublime) to the faculty of teleological judgments (to which belongs the Ungeheure). We do not have to deal anymore with an internal conflict in the imagination, between its power of apprehension and its power of comprehension (as it is the case for the sublime), but with an external conflict between the imagination

the sublime monster



and the understanding, and between two different modes of judgments. It is not even certain that the category of the almost-too-much suits to the sublime. To read more attentively the text, what raises itself “on the limit of the monstrous” is not considered as sublime, but as “colossal”. This term indicates here “the end of the presentation of the concept” of an object which is, because of its huge size, “almost too big for any presentation”. Far from being sublime, that is to say merely aesthetical, the colossal supposes a relation to the objective finality. It would thus be a limit-case, a lower degree of the monstrous, unless the monstrous would be an extreme mode of the colossal. In these conditions, the judgment on the Ungeheure would strictly have nothing to do with Kant’s aesthetics. It would be at least the case if the size or the site of the colossal could be fixed; if the Colossus did not oscillate on both sides of its limit, between the almost-sublime and the almost-monstrous. We have to recognize indeed that the category of the almost-too-big which characterizes it remains valid for the sublime; because this feeling raises up close to the maximum of size which could be comprehended by the imagination, and just before reaching this maximum, neither too close nor too far from the Pyramid, on an unstable threshold between the not-rather-big (where the Pyramid does not yet awaken the feeling of the sublime) and the tooclose or the too-big (where the perception of its total shape collapses in the chaos). From a quantitative point of view, the colossal is identical to the sublime and it differs from it only by its relation to the concept of an end. The demarcation is even more precarious, as no artistic judgment, even the “purest”, cannot completely get out of any relation with an end. What seems possible for the spectacles of Nature becomes very difficult with works of art, the shape of which always lets appear an end, the intention aimed by the artist. This irreducible presence of a “concept of perfection” which limits the freedom of the imagination brings Kant to classify among the “conditioned” or “adherent” beauties the beauty of buildings, for example that of a church.12 Why what is worth for the beauty would not be worth for the sublime? In particular for the two only examples which he gives of “mathematical” sublime, those of a church (the Basilica Saint-Peter) and of a holy grave (the Pyramid)? In this “astonishment” which seizes us when we penetrate into the Basilica, how to distinguish what recovers from a purely aesthetic emotion and what

12

CPJ, §  (V, p. ).



jacob rogozinski

answers the aim of the architect? Apparently sublime, without concept nor end, the Basilica or the Pyramid would be subjected in fact to the presentation of a concept: simply colossal. Or rather, they are at once colossal and sublime, because nothing allows us to distinguish any more these two judgments. Alternately sublime—thus pure of all Ungeheure— and colossal, in the very border of the Ungeheure. In any case, it is not possible to oppose the contrapurposiveness of the sublime to the negative finality of the monstrous. Because Kantian sublime is not zwecklos, devoid of any end, but zweckwidrig, contrapurposive. By presenting the spectacle of the Nature in its chaos and its devastation, it opposes violently to the concept of a natural end; but it supposes nevertheless a relation to this end: a negative relation of de-formation, of destruction which resembles to this annihilation of the end which defines the Ungeheure. It is moreover the same term— zweckwidrig—that is applied in the Third Critique to the sublime and that will serve in the Anthropology to define the monstrous size of the Ungeheure. One more time, sublime and Ungeheure become quite close, almost undecidable. Like beauty, the Kantian sublime is the ideal aim of a purely subjective judgment without end, but it presupposes in fact the violent deformation of the final forms, the destruction of any end. It requires the Vernichtung, the monstrous violence of the Ungeheure, as its condition of possibility. What places the monstrous in a quasitranscendental position with regard to the sublime: it would be its preliminary phase, as if it was necessary to go through the moment of Ungeheure, to pass close to this terrifying threat so that happens the feeling of sublime. This hypothesis, Kant would certainly not have accepted it. By making of the monstrous a condition or a primary phase of the sublime, we have taken our distances with the Critique. It is nevertheless an enthusiastic follower of Kant, a poet who considered him as “the Moses of our German nation”, who has made this step: by asserting that the highest art, the tragedy, finds its essence in the Ungeheure. According to Hölderlin, “the presentation of the tragic lays mainly on this that the Ungeheuer, how the God and the Man couple and how, by abolishing any limit, the panic power of Nature and the inmost depths of Man become One in the fury—it is conceived by this that the Unlimited purifies itself by an unlimited separation”.13 I do not intend to comment here this text, whose

13

Hölderlin’s Sophocles, Remarks on Œdipous, § .

the sublime monster



enigmatic density challenges any reading. I simply wanted to underline what Hölderlin owes to the Kantian Third Critique, or at least in a certain interpretation of it. At the very moment when, by introducing the monstrous into the presentation of the tragic, that is into the essence of the work of art, Hölderlin breaks with all the tradition of the aesthetics, from Aristotle to Kant. What he names caesura, this cathartic gesture where the “fury” of the unlimitation “purifies” itself through an “unlimited separation”, is exactly the becoming-sublime of the Ungeheure, the moment when the sublime arises on the verge of the monstrous by redrawing the limit, by re-marking the necessary distance to get rid of the jouissance, of the disgust, of the horror. What would become the experience of the tragic, what would become the art without this caesura, without this “categorical turn” which protects it from the fascination for the Ungeheure? In a way, the major part of the contemporary art is an attempt to answer this question. Confronted with the impasse of any poetry, of any art, of any thought in front of the atrocities of the XX° century, the most radical artists undertook in the way of dis-sublimation, of a “Theatre of Cruelty”, of a presentation of the monstrous in its most unbearable reality. They tried to implement an art of Ungeheure, and we begin today to measure the resources, but also the aporias of such an art. The shock which it provokes does not belong any more to the register of the pleasure, not even of this pleasure mingled with displeasure which characterizes the Kantian sublime, but to that of the jouissance, in its traumatic relation to horror and death. This very trauma from which Aristotle wanted to protect the theatre by banishing the teratodes from the tragic scene—and that Kant had tried to keep at a distance by trying to maintain a demarcation between the sublime and the Ungeheure. This gesture of conjuration, which underlies the possibility of the aesthetics in the whole history of western philosophy, could it succeed? At what price art and philosophy do they succeed in exorcising the jouissance of the Thing? I shall not claim here to be able to answer. I shall only content myself, as a conclusion, with quoting this warning of Nietzsche: “when you fight against Ungeheuern, it is necessary to be careful not to become yourself ungeheuer. If you look for a long time at the abyss, the abyss will fix its glance in you”.14

14

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, § .



jacob rogozinski References

Aristotle, Poetics. Derrida, J., La vérité en peinture, Paris (Flammarion) . ———, “Economimésis”, in S. Agacinski et alii, Mimésis des articulations, Paris (Aubier-Flammarion) . Kant, Immanuel, Critique of the Power of Judgment, Akademische Verlag, bd. V. ———, Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view, Akademische Verlag, bd. VII. Nietzsche, F., Beyond Good and Evil.

THE TRAGICAL SUBLIME

Simon Critchley I have begun to work seriously in the last six months on a topic that has obsessed me for many years: the nature of tragedy, especially but not exclusively Attic tragedy. More properly—in the context of this volume— what interests me is the sublimity of tragedy, and its relation to philosophy. Since its beginning in ancient Greece, philosophy has been involved in an extended and often bitter quarrel with the poets. So the argument goes, philosophy is concerned with truth whereas poetry is not true—it simply deals in fictions and storytelling. Plato even wanted to expel the poets from the philosophically well-ordered city described in the Republic. The poets that he had in mind were the Attic tragic poets: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Philosophy begins, then, with the political exclusion of the tragic poets. The larger story I want to tell begins with a detailed examination of the complex exclusion of tragedy in Plato and at Aristotle’s decisive philosophical comprehension or, one might say, containment of tragedy, before looking in detail at a number of ancient Greek tragedies—notably the Oresteia, the Theban plays and a number of pieces by Euripides. I am also very concerned with examining the way in which the quarrel between philosophy and poetry and more specifically the question of tragedy is taken up and deepened by a number of modern philosophers: Rousseau, Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and the way in which the category of the tragic finds its expression in early German idealism. My simple, but far-reaching, question is the following: if philosophy begins by excluding tragedy, then why is it that modern philosophy, in the epoch of its self-acknowledged modern crisis, should turn to tragedy, the tragic and attempt to return to tragic thinking? On my mind here will be the question of the availability of tragedy for us, as an aesthetic genre, a mode of experience and a critique of the present. The examination of this question leads me to a consideration of Shakespearean tragedy, especially Hamlet, and the consideration of the responses of Ibsen and Beckett ultimately to the question of the limits of tragedy. This entire problematic will be the topic of my research for the coming couple of years, which I hope will find expression in a book.



simon critchley

I have an epigraph from Gorgias, a fragment which—along with Aristophanes’ parody of Aeschylus and Euripides in The Frogs—gives us our earliest philosophical response to Attic tragedy. Gorgias writes, Tragedy, by means of legends and emotions, creates a deception in which the deceiver is more honest than the non-deceiver, and the deceived is wiser than the non-deceived.1

Tragedy exists, then, within an economy of deception, where the deceived is wiser than the non-deceived. In another fragment by Gorgias, Enconium of Helen, a text that was apparently composed as an experiment in persuasion and as ‘an amusement for myself ’, and which appears to have directly influenced the argument of Plato’s Republic,2 Gorgias writes that if it was speech alone that persuaded Helen to abscond to Troy, then her defense is easy, Speech is a great power, which achieves the most divine works by means of the smallest and least visible form; for it can even put a stop to fear, remove grief, create joy and increase pity. This I shall now prove: all poetry can be called speech in meter. Its hearers shudder with terror, shed tears of pity and yearn with sad longing; the soul, affected by the words, feels as its own an emotion aroused by the good and ill fortunes of other people’s actions and lives.3

This is precisely what Socrates fears in the Republic, that the emotional power of speech can lead us to forget ourselves and empathize with the other in a way that is beyond reason or morality.4 This is also true of tragedy, indeed especially true of tragedy. Looking at the above fragment on tragedy, Gorgias is arguing that tragedy is a deception in which the deceiver is more honest than the non-deceiver and the deceived is wider than the non-deceived. Tragedy, Gorgias would appear to be suggesting, is the acquisition of wisdom through an emotionally psychtropic experience, a shuddering with terror, the effect of something like the sublime. What Plato sees as the great danger of tragedy is celebrated by Gorgias as revealing the sublime power of persuasion and the affective effects of imitation and deception. For Socrates, tragedy can lead us to have sympathy for morally suspect characters and this is why it has to eliminated from

1 2 3 4

Kathleen Freeman, , p. . Plato, , b. Freeman, , p. . Plato, , a–d.

the tragical sublime



the education of the Guardians and from the philosophically wellordered city. Tragedy is an awful danger, a moral hazard, the danger of deception and fiction regulating political life. The vast question here— which exceeds the bounds of this paper—is that of the necessity and productivity of deception, of fiction, of illusion, in particular of sublime illusion. In this paper, I’d like to relate a small chapter in this larger story about philosophy and tragedy by focusing of the relation between tragedy and the sublime. I’d like to investigate the possible relation between the concept of the sublime and tragedy along two main historical and philosophical axes. Firstly, in the context of Plato’s critique of tragedy for its excessive emotionality and Aristotle’s description of tragedy in terms of the feelings of pity and fear and the experience of katharsis (which I would like to translate at sublimation, and we might want to consider the complex relation between sublimation and the sublime), I’d like to consider the link between tragedy and the feeling of the sublime in Longinus (or, more properly, the Pseudo-Longinus). For Longinus, the feeling of the sublime tethers the potential of the human mind and imagination to the greatness of nature and the cosmos. What kind of accommodation can be made between tragedy and sublimity? Is tragedy sublime? The risk of tragedy for Longinus is that true sublimity can slip into mere bombast. There are good and bad manipulations of fear and other emotions in tragedy, they can be low, but can also cause a kind of sublime awe in the spectator. True heroism, for Longinus, strives courageously into zones beyond pity and fear. Secondly, and more importantly for my purposes, with the link having been made between tragedy and the sublime, I will turn to the linking of the tragic and sublimity in the early Schelling. Following Peter Szondi in An Essay on the Tragic, I will try and show how the experience of the tragic turns on the experience of the struggle between freedom in the subject (criticism, i.e. Kantianism) and necessity in the object (dogmatism, i.e. Spinozism).5 What interests Schelling, drawing specifically and pretty exclusively on Oedipus Tyrannos, is the situation where the tragic hero freely submits to necessity in the experience of fate. This situation is

5

Peter Szondi, , see esp. –.



simon critchley

described on a few key occasions by Schelling in The Philosophy of Art— which were lectures initially given in Winter /—as ‘sublime’.6 The stakes of this linking of freedom and necessity through the concept of the tragic could not be more important. If the experience of the aesthetic is what might allow for a possible reconciliation of the realms of nature and freedom in philosophy after Kant, then the tragic sublime is the highest exemplar of the aesthetic. The tragical sublime would be the aesthetic completion of philosophy, what Hölderlin calls ‘a metaphor for an intellectual intuition’.7 The tragic is the bridge between the spheres of pure and practical reason. Although I will not go into this here, as it is a rich and complex topic that requires separate discussion, the experience of the tragical sublime could be linked to Hölderlin’s Death of Empedocles and his theoretical writings on tragedy, where it seems to me that the Hölderlinian tragic hero embodies the risk of sublimity, namely the unification with the divine, and the separation that follows this union, namely death, the law of finitude.8 At the core of Hölderlin’s fascination with tragedy is this rhythm of union and separation, unification with sublime grandeur and the falling away into lethargy despair and, indeed, madness. Let’s begin with Longinus, or the Great Unknown in this corrupt and difficult to date text, peri hypsos, possibly from the st Century ad.9 There is no explicit theory of tragedy in Longinus, but the Aristotelian emotion of pity is placed beneath the sublime, whereas fearfulness can be an awesome fear attached to the sublime. Longinus can admire a moment in tragedy, sometimes an entire play (Oedipus Tyrannos is cited as an example), or indeed all three great tragedians for their sublime powers of phantasia, vivid visualization, what Gorgias sees as deception. As Stephen Halliwell argues in a fascinating paper, Revaluated in the light of the sublime, tragedy becomes a statement of a force that can rise heroically above such loss to affirm an inner human nobility—even, symbolically at least, a kind of immortality.10

The effect of the sublime, for Longius, is to transport us with wonder, to entrance, to elevate, to exert ‘an irresistible force and mastery’, a 6 7 8 9 10

F.W.J. Schelling, , pp. , , . Friedrich Hölderlin, ‘On the Difference of Poetic Modes’ , p. . Friedrich Hölderlin, . Longinus, , pp. –. Stephen Halliwell, , p. .

the tragical sublime



grandeur.11 There is discussion of the pseudo-tragic bombast of Aeschylus or tumidity, which desires to outdo the sublime in grandeur and fails and puerility, which is the antithesis of the sublime.12 Longinus then turns to what he calls the ‘true sublime’ (talethous hypsous) by which he appears to mean by some innate power the sublime uplifts our souls and we are filled with proud exaltation and a sense of vaunting joy, just as though we had produced what we had heard. The true sublime withstands and even increases with repeated hearing and experience.13 Nothing contributes so much to the effect of the sublime than a noble emotion in the right setting. Longinus picks an example from tragedy, from Sophocles’ Ajax, Well, I have written elsewhere to this effect: ‘Sublimity is the echo of a noble mind’. Thus, even without being spoken, a simple idea will sometimes of its own accord excite admiration by reason of the greatness of mind that it expresses; for example, the silence of Ajax in ‘The Calling up of the Spirits’ is grand, more sublime than any words.14

Longinus criticizes Homer in the Odyssey for lacking sublimity and then goes on to discuss sublimity in tragedy. Euripides has no natural grandeur, ‘yet on many occasions he forces his genius to tragic heights’.15 Aeschylus ventures into what Longinus sees as the heroic sublime, but produces ideas that are ‘unfinished and crude and harsh’.16 Sophocles, by contrast, is said to use excellent imagery to describe the death of Oedipus. Longinus’ critique of the tragic poets is that they possess too much romantic exaggeration. Imagery, for Longinus, must adhere to what he calls reality and truth. Yet, flawed sublimity is better than flawless mediocrity. Longinus mentions the faults he finds in Homer, but this is because of what he sees as the ‘heedlessness of genius’.17 An analogously flawed but essential sublimity is true of tragedies like Oedipus Tyrannos.18 This line of thought is continued:

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. .



simon critchley While writers of this quality are far from being faultless, yet they rise above the human level. All other attributes prove their possessors to be men, but sublimity carries one up to where one is close to the majestic mind of God.19

Longinus concludes On the Sublime with an interesting remark on the supposed decay of eloquence. He is skeptical of all Dunciad-like denunciations of the present as a time of degradation and decay and he adds, ‘I maintained that what wears down the spirit of the present generation is the apathy in which, with few exceptions, we all pass our lives’.20 This strikes me as true. Longinus’ text was famously translated into French by Boileau in , which really marks its entry into modern aesthetic criticism.21 And there is obviously an important story to tell here about the influence of Boileau’s translation, on William Smith  translation of Longinus, through Edmund Burke’s  book, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful and onto the reception of the sublime in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment and its influence in German idealism and romanticism. But that’s not a story I could tell here.22 But let me pass here to my second axis, namely Schelling. Let me begin by going back to Peter Szondi, whose account of the tragic turns on his understanding of Schelling. Szondi’s organizing claim is that, since Aristotle, there has been a poetics of tragedy; but only since Schelling has there been a philosophy of the tragic.23 Although Szondi underestimates the enduring radicality of Aristotle’s Poetics, which remains in my eyes the most profound meditation on the praxis of theatre, he claims that the object of the tragic is not tragedy, but the idea of tragedy. In other words, Aristotle remains too empirical. I think this is a highly tendentious claim, but Szondi writes, ‘The philosophy of the tragic rises like an island above Aristotle’s powerful and monumental sphere of influence’.24 This philosophy of the tragic is begun by Schelling in the last of his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism, from , written 19

Longinus, , p. . Longinus, , p. . 21 Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, . 22 In this connection, see The Sublime. A Reader in British th Century Aesthetic Theory, A. Ashfield and P. de Bolla (eds.), Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) . 23 Szondi, , p. . 24 Szondi, , p. . 20

the tragical sublime



when Schelling was just twenty years old.25 Schelling contrasts Spinoza with Kant, described by Fichte and the only two ‘completely consistent systems’.26 On this view, Kant proceeds from an absolute I or subject, whereas Spinoza begins from an absolute object or non-I. Criticism wants unconditional freedom, unbounded activity. Dogmatism submits to the power of necessity and finds freedom in this submission. The third option is described as the tragic: to know that there is an objective power that threatens to destroy our freedom and to fight against it, to fight and fall, to perish. Greek tragedy, which essentially means Oedipus Tyrannos for the young Schelling, as we will see in more detail, shows the free tragic hero fighting against necessity in the form of fate, the prophecy that determines Oedipus’ existence. But—and, at least in the  text, this changes in the Philosophy of Art, and here is one importance difference from Hegel’s meditation on the tragic—Greek tragedy cannot achieve the reconciliation of freedom and fate. And this is the great or sublime thought: to suffer punishment willingly, freely, for an inevitable crime and so to prove one’s freedom in the very loss of freedom, and ‘to go down with a declaration of free will’.27 Schelling writes, Even Greek tragedy could not reconcile freedom and failure. Only a being deprived of freedom could succumb under fate. It was a sublime thought (es war ein große Gedanke), to suffer punishment willingly even for an inevitable crime, and so to prove one’s freedom by the very loss of this freedom, and to go down with a declaration of free will.28

This is the first and arguably most radical version of the tragical sublime or grandeur in Schelling: to willingly endure punishment even for an unavoidable crime, so as to prove one’s freedom precisely through the loss of this freedom. As Schelling concludes the letter, ‘there is nothing left but to fight and fall’.29 This is why, for Schelling, there are no more terrible people than the Greeks. Therefore, the Greeks are sublime. Let’s now turn to how this thought of the tragical sublime is deepened and transformed in the – lectures on the Philosophy of Art, that is, in the context of the identity philosophy outlined in the  System of Transcendental Idealism.30 The systematic context for Schelling’s account should of course be expounded, but let’s just say that art is philosophy’s 25 26 27 28 29 30

F.W.J. Schelling, , pp. –. Szondi, , pp. –. Schelling, , p. . Schelling, , p. . Schelling, , p. . F.W.J. Schelling, .



simon critchley

objective reflex. Namely, that if philosophy subjectively intuits the absolute or the ideas as they are in themselves, then art intuits them objectively. For Schelling, the relation between necessity and freedom must be one in which they are equal; that is, equally justified and equally vanquished in their highest indifference. The conditions for such a relation between necessity and freedom obtain, Schelling thinks, in human nature, where human beings are both subject to necessity (the argument of Kant’s First Critique) and freedom (the claims of Kant’s Second Critique). The question is how is this indifference realizable? For Schelling, it is realizable in an artwork and not just any artwork, but in drama. Why drama? Because it is the higher organization of the two prior poetic genres: epic, which is objective and governed by necessity and lyric which is subjective and governed by freedom. In drama, subjective freedom is portrayed objectively in relation to necessity. Thus, for Schelling, as indeed for Hegel, drama is the highest and final synthesis of all art. Crucially, the nature of drama is deduced from tragedy and comedy is subordinated to tragedy.31 Here, Schelling is unlike Hegel, for whom comedy is the highest form of drama and the medium in which art comes to an end and passes over into the prose of thought. The essence of tragedy is an objective conflict between freedom in the subject and necessity in the object, such that ‘both are manifested in perfect indifference as simultaneously victorious and vanquished’.32 Necessity enters into conflict with freedom insofar as it imposes a misfortune, übel or evil. The subject of tragedy is someone who falls into misfortune as a result of error, Irrthum, which would appear to be Schelling’s translation of Aristotle’s hamartia. Now, the highest possible misfortune is to be condemned by fate, ‘to become guilty without genuine guilt’.33 We should note this ambiguous formulation: it is a question of guiltless guilt. It is claimed that this is the nature of Oedipus’ guilt and the latter is the singular exemplification of the essence of the tragic for Schelling (as, of course, it exemplified tragedy for Aristotle). Schelling goes on to say that a genuine struggle between freedom and necessity only obtains where freedom is attacked on its own ground or basis (Boden) and necessity ‘undermines the will itself ’.34 31 32 33 34

Schelling, , p. . Schelling, , p. . Schelling, , p. . Schelling, , p. .

the tragical sublime



Schelling then begins to revisit and indeed to cut and paste from his earlier  text, asking ‘How the Greeks were able to endure these terrible contradictions inherent in their tragedies?’35 Were they not simply devastating? Referring back directly to his earlier text, Schelling argues on the contrary that what finds expression in tragedy is the ‘greatest idea’ and the ‘greatest victory of freedom’, namely to voluntarily bear the punishment for an unavoidable transgression and to manifest freedom in the loss of freedom, ‘to perish amid a declaration of free will’. The latter is the idea of the tragic within tragedy, ‘I maintain that this is also the only genuinely or truly tragic (wahrhaft tragische) element in tragedy’.36 Szondi is careful and right to note that Schelling’s position has shifted from  to /. In the earlier text, freedom is proved through the tragic experience of its loss, whereas in the later text freedom is not destroyed in the conflict with necessity, but both win and both are vanquished in perfect indifference. This is indeed the basis for a ‘reconciliation’ and ‘harmony’ that leaves us ‘feeling healed and, as Aristotle says, cleansed’.37 Szondi suggests, not without justice, that what is driving this shift of position is the particular exigency of the identity philosophy. Szondi writes, ‘Schelling’s entire system, whose essence is the identity of freedom and necessity, culminates in his definition of the tragic process as the restoration of this indifference in conflict’.38 This is indeed a dialectical understanding of tragedy, but it is frozen in an idealization of identity. It is here that one might begin to unravel Hegel’s radically historical and indeed agonistic dialectic as a response to and critique of Schelling (I will come back to this below). However, let me push this a little further into the appearance of the sublime in the / lectures. After a reference to the erhabenen Gesinnung or sublime disposition of tragedy, where Schelling insists, based on a reading of Aeschylus’ Eumenides, that tragic effect does not at all depend on an unfortunate ending,39 we come to the key passage. He writes, and I quote at length, The Greeks sought in their tragedies this kind of equilibrium between justice and humanity, necessity and freedom, a balance without which they could not satisfy their moral sensibility, just as the highest morality itself is expressed in this balance. Precisely this equilibrium is the 35 36 37 38 39

Schelling, , p. . Schelling, , p. . Schelling, , p. . Szondi, , p. . Schelling, , p. .



simon critchley ultimate concern of tragedy. It is not tragic that a premeditated, free transgression is punished. That a guiltless person unavoidably becomes increasingly guilty through fate itself, as remarked earlier, is the greatest conceivable misfortune. But that this guiltless guilty person (dieser schuldloser Schuldige) accepts punishment voluntarily—this is the sublimity of tragedy (das Erhabene in der Tragödie); thereby alone does freedom transfigure itself into the highest identity with necessity.40

If art is the organon of philosophy, as Schelling writes in , or in the words of the  ‘System-Programme’, ‘the highest act of reason, which embraces all Ideas, is an aesthetic act’, which means that freedom is transfigured into identity with necessity, then this is only possible through the tragic.41 Tragedy is the keystone in the arch that unites freedom and necessity, practical reason and pure reason. The tragic is the completion of philosophy after Kant. And it is philosophy’s completion in a sublime act. Namely, that Schelling’s claim above is that what the Greeks sought in their tragedies was an equilibrium between ‘justice and humanity, freedom and necessity’, and this equilibrium is what finds expression in tragedy. The sublimity of tragedy is the free acceptance of punishment by this guiltless guilty one. I find this idea of guiltless guilt a fascinating thought that we might do well to ponder in another connection. For example, it seems to me that Heidegger’s existential analytic in Being and Time can be thought of in terms of guiltless guilt. Authentic Dasein is nothing other than a momentary holding together or the ontological guilt of facticity and thrownness with the projective, free counter-movement of throwing off that guilt. If the tragical sublime is the pinnacle of art and art is the completion of philosophy as the identity of freedom and necessity, and if this was somehow the case for the tragic Greeks, then the vast question that this raises, and which Schelling spends the remaining pages of the Philosophy of Art groping towards, is to what extent the tragical sublime is realizable in modernity, which—in case we forget, was the time in which Schelling was purportedly writing. The problem here can be framed by Schelling’s assertion that ‘modernity lacks fate’, namely that it has no sense of the movement of necessity as that against which the activity of the free subject collides.42 Of course, being a good German, 40

Schelling, , p. . See Schelling, , p. .; see also Hölderlin, ‘The Oldest System-Program of German Idealism’, , p. . 42 Schelling, , p. . 41

the tragical sublime



everything here turns on the interpretation of Shakespeare. This is the key passage, which I quote at length, If we now summarize our findings and express succinctly Shakespeare’s relationship to the sublimity of the tragedy of antiquity, we must call him the greatest creator of character. He cannot portray that sublime, purified and transfigured beauty that proves itself in the face of fate, a beauty that coincides with moral goodness. (. . .) He knows that highest beauty only as individual character. He was not able to subordinate everything to it, because as a modern—as one who comprehends the eternal not within limitation, but rather within boundlessness—he is too widely involved in universality. Antiquity possessed a concentrated universality, and viewed allness not in multiplicity but rather in unity.

There is nothing human that Shakespeare did not touch upon; yet he touches it only individually, whereas antiquity touched it in totality. The elements of human natures from the lowest to the highest lie dispersed within him. He knows it all, every passion, every disposition, youth as well as age, the king and the shepherd. If our world were ever lost, one could recreate it from the series of his works. Whereas that ancient lyre enticed the whole world with four strings, the new instrument has a thousand strings; it splits the harmony of the universe in order to create it, and for that reason it is always less calming for the soul. That austere, all-soothing beauty can exist only in simplicity.’43 Hegel makes a very similar point to Schelling with a dissimilar intent in the final pages of his monumental Aesthetics.44 If Shakespeare’s genius lies in his creation of character, then the freedom of character plays itself out in a world without fate, a world where the four-stringed ancient lyre has been replaced with a thousand-stringed beast. That is to say, with the emergence of the differentiated world of modernity, what disappears is the possibility of the tragical sublime. Schelling’s hopeful question—the question with which the Philosophy of Art ends, or rather, fades out—is whether there can be a modern Sophocles. Or, as he puts it, ‘We must, however, be allowed to hope for a Sophocles of the differentiated world . . . ’45 As the long quotation above makes clear, despite his genius this new Sophocles cannot be Shakespeare. He was, in the final analysis, too Protestant to allow for this possibility.46 What or rather who is required, 43

Schelling, , pp. –. G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Volume , , pp. –. 45 Schelling, , p. . 46 Ibid., , ‘Shakespeare was a Protestant, and for him this (i.e. the Fatum of antiquity, S.C.) was not a possibility’. 44



simon critchley

then, in order to recover the tragical sublime, is a ‘. . . southern, perhaps Catholic, Shakespeare’.47 That is to say, someone who can allow for the public, institutional reconciliation between the fact of error or, in Christianity, sin, and the possibility of redemptive grace. This leads Schelling to a closing, and rather desperate, reading of Calderón, where Schelling discusses just one play, read in A.W. Schlegel’s German translation. Regardless of the virtues of Calderón, what interests me here is the desperation on Schelling’s part to discover a Catholic Shakespeare, a Sophocles of modernity. I think it is the same desperation that leads the young Nietzsche initially towards the possibility of a rebirth of tragedy through the music or more properly the opera of Wagner, and which leads the later Nietzsche in his last writings on music, in The Case of Wagner, towards Bizet’s Carmen. After seeing Carmen for the twentieth time, he writes, ‘So patient do I become, so happy, so Indian, so settled—To sit five hours: the first stage of holiness’.48 And again, ‘This music is cheerful, but not in a French or German way. It’s cheerfulness is African; fate hangs over it . . . il faut méditerraniser la musique’.49 So deep is the Wagnerian sickness in Nietzsche, that he’ll accept anything—Mediterranean, Indian, African, that might allow him to recover his health. Sadly, it did not work. Schelling’s Philosophy of Art concludes with a quasi-Nietzschean pathos of mourning at the passing of great art in modernity. The final words of the / lectures read as follows, I will remark only that the most perfect composition of all the arts, the unification of poesy and music through song, of poesy and painting through dance, both in turn synthesized together, is the most complex theater manifestation, such as was the drama of antiquity. Only a caricature has remained for us: the opera, which in a higher and nobler style both from the side of poesy as well as from that of the other competing arts, might sooner guide us back to the performance that ancient drama combined with music and song.

Music, song and dance, as well as all the various types of drama, live only in public life, and form an alliance in such life. Wherever public life disappears, instead of that real, external drama in which, in all its forms, an entire people participates as a political and moral totality, only an inward, ideal drama can unite the people. This ideal drama is the 47 48 49

Schelling, , p. . Nietzsche, , p. . Nietzsche, , pp. –.

the tragical sublime



worship service, the only kind of truly public action that has remained for the contemporary age, and even so only in an extremely diminished and reduced form.’50 With the disappearance of public life (öffentlichen Leben) in modernity—what Hegel would call Sittlichkeit—the possibility of the tragical sublime, understood as a genuinely communal or political artwork (an artwork that quasi-legislates for the community), has also disappeared. We are left with a caricature of the tragical sublime in the form of the opera, on the one hand, where opera would be a kind weak mimesis of the drama of antiquity, and the worship service, which—in the absence of the external or real drama of antiquity, would provide an idealized drama in an extremely diminished and reduced form. Modern art, on this view, is nothing else but the expression of the absence of the public realm. It is with this lament for the tragical sublime and a sort of nostalgic northern longing for a southern Catholicism that Schelling’s Philosophy of Art finishes. This leaves us with a question, with which I’d like to conclude. It is a question aimed at my research collaboration with Paul Cobben: Is Hegel right? Both Schelling and Hegel agree on the function of art. It is sensuous presentation of the absolute in Hegel and the more neo-Platonic emanation (Ausfluss) of the absolute in Schelling. Their disagreement turns on whether it is still possible, assuming that it was possible for the Greeks (and it is a significant and questionable assumption), for the absolute to be presented in sensuous form. For Schelling, it would seem that either art is the organon of philosophy or that the aesthetic presentation of the absolute is what he calls a Potenz that is capable of presenting the absolute in the form of art. For Hegel, by contrast—and this would need to be spelled out at greater length—art is a thing of the past, which means that in modernity the absolute can no longer be satisfyingly presented sensuously. Our age is one of critique, judgment, reflection and conceptuality, and, as Hegel writes, ‘thought and reflection have taken their flight beyond fine art’.51 The absolute needs conceptual articulation, that is, philosophical expression. Who is right, Schelling or Hegel? Do we choose aesthetic absolutism or philosophical absolutism? Or neither? If the content of the aesthetic, as we have seen in Schelling, is public life itself, namely the community,

50 51

Nietzsche, , p. . G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Volume , , p. .



simon critchley

then the question of the presentation of the absolute becomes a question of the presentation or self-presentation of community to itself. Can the community be legislated aesthetically or philosophically? This is a vast question I cannot resolve here. Let me note, however, another thing that Schelling and Hegel have in common: namely, a dialectical understanding of tragedy. But where I think that Schelling is wrong and Hegel is right is that the former’s understanding of tragedy is a philosophical idealization that lacks a historical understanding of art’s unfolding. The structure of art in its highest expression, for Schelling, i.e. drama, is deduced from tragedy. The history of art since Greek tragedy is a falling away from that ideal. For Hegel, by contrast, not without some nostalgia for the loss of Greek Sittlichkeit and his deep admiration for Sophocles, tragedy is aufgehoben into comedy, and ancient drama is aufgehoben into modern drama, especially Shakespeare. For Hegel, comedy supplants tragedy, and comedy is the very element in which art dissolves and prepares the passage for conceptual elaboration, namely philosophy. Comedy—and one thinks both of Aristophanes, who Hegel praises, as well as Shakespeare and Molière— is the raising of art to the level of cognition where it dissolves. Hegel’s system—as others have pointed out—is a comedy and has to be a comedy, insofar as history culminates with the institutional expression of freedom in the form of the modern state. This is where we could begin a meta-critique of Hegel, along the lines one can find in the very young Marx.52 But the aesthetic point is that perhaps Hegel will always have the last laugh, that comedy stands higher than tragedy, and that the true comédie humaine is philosophy. Coda: but perhaps this opposition or seeming choice between the sublime and the comic, between tragedy and philosophy, is misplaced. I’d like to finish speculatively with an intriguing and overlooked passage from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy. There is a mention of das Erhabene or the sublime as one aspect of the saving deed of Greek art, the other being the comic.53 Both the sublime as the comic are ways of dealing with the Dionysian truth of tragedy, modes of sublimation or Aristotelian katharsis. In the opening chapters of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche establishes

52 I am thinking of Marx’s ‘Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State’, from , when Marx was in his mid-twenties. See Karl Marx, , pp. –. 53 Nietzsche, , p. .

the tragical sublime



his metaphysical claim for tragedy, what he later calls in his  Preface to The Birth of Tragedy his Schopenhauerian ‘artist’s metaphysics’:54 Namely, that what finds expression in Attic tragedy is the mysterious primal unity of being, the Ur-Ein.55 But this contact with the primal unity of being does not, as Schopenhauer thought lead to a quasi-Buddhistic resignation, but to a pessimistic affirmation of life. As Nietzsche writes, ‘Art saves him, and through art—life’.56 This much is familiar to any first reader of The Birth of Tragedy. However, Nietzsche goes on in a somewhat more Schopenhauerian tone to qualify this claim with a fascinating discussion of lethargy and nausea. He writes, For the rapture of the Dionysian state with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains, while it lasts, a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed. This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality. But as soon as this everyday reality re-enters consciousness, it is experienced as such with nausea or disgust (Ekel): an ascetic, will-negating mood is the fruit of these states. (. . .)

Now no comfort avails anymore; longing transcends a world after death; existence is negated along with its glittering reflection in the gods or in an immortal beyond. Conscious of the truth he has once seen, man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence; now he understands what is symbolic in Ophelia’s fate; now he understands the wisdom of the sylvan god, Silenus: he is nauseated or disgusted (es ekelt ihn). Here, when the danger to his will is greatest, art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert as healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous or disgusting thoughts (Ekelgedanken) about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live: these are the sublime as the artistic taming of the horrible, and the comic as the artistic discharge of the nausea or disgust (Ekel). The satyr chorus of the dithyramb is the saving deed of Greek art: faced with the intermediary world of the these Dionysian companions, the feelings described here exhausted themselves.’57

54 55 56 57

Nietzsche, , p. . Nietzsche, , p. . Nietzsche, , op.cit. p. . Nietzsche, , pp. –.



simon critchley

The effect of the Dionysian, with its rupture of boundaries and transgression of the principium individuationis is not an affirmation of life, but the introduction of a kind of lethargy into the organism. This lethargy is experience as Ekel, a nausea or disgust with existence, a feeling of revulsion at the pointlessness of existence. This disgust can be borne in two ways, as the sublime and the comic, which are both variations on the Satyric chorus of Attic tragedy. Beyond any question of a rebirth of tragedy in the rather embarrassing second half of The Birth of Tragedy, full of its Wagnerizing and Germanizing, as Nietzsche himself understood perfectly in his  Preface, or indeed Schelling’s lament for the sublime art of public life, maybe art serves to both reveal the essential lethargy of existence and to save us from the nausea or disgust that we feel when we’re faced with it. This can be both comic and tragic, or perhaps more accurately tragic-comic, which is of course how Beckett describes Waiting for Godot. But that, as they say, is another research project. We could provisionally call it: The Aesthetics of Lethargy and Disgust. References Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas, Traité du sublime ou du merveilleux dans le discours, C.-H. Boudhors (ed.), Paris (Gallimard) . Freeman, Kathleen, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cambridge Mass (Harvard University Press) . Halliwell, Stephen, ‘Learning from Suffering: Ancient Responses to Tragedy’, in A Companion to Greek Tragedy, J. Gregory (ed.), Oxford (Blackwell) . Hegel, G.W.F., Aesthetics: Volume , trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford (Oxford University Press) . ———, Aesthetics: Volume , trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford (Oxford University Press) . Hölderlin, Friedrich, ‘On the Difference of Poetic Modes’, in Essays and Letters on Theory, trans. T. Pfau, Albany (SUNY Press) . ———, ‘The Oldest System-Program of German Idealism’, in Essays and Letters on Theory, trans. T. Pfau, Albany (SUNY Press) . ———, The Death of Empedocles, trans D.F. Krell, Albany (SUNY Press) . Longinus, ‘On the Sublime’, in Classical Literary Criticism, T.S. Dorsch (ed.), Harmondsworth (Penguin) . Marx, Karl, Early Writings, L. Colletti (ed.), Harmondsworth (Penguin) . Nietzsche, F., The Birth of Tragedy and the Case of Wagner, trans. W. Kaufmann New York (Vintage) . Plato, Republic, trans. A. Bloom, New York (Basic Books) . Schelling, F.W.J., System of Transcendental Idealism, trans. P. Heath, Minneapolis (University of Minnesota Press) .

the tragical sublime



———, ‘Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism’ in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four early essays –, trans. F. Marti Lewisburg (Bucknell University Press) . ———, The Philosophy of Art, trans. D.W. Stott, Minneapolis (Minnesota University Press) . Szondi, Peter, An Essay on the Tragic, trans. P. Fleming, Stanford (Stanford University Press) .

THE SUBLIME AND THE LIMITS OF METAPHYSICS

Frans van Peperstraten Introduction Unfortunately Jean-François Lyotard, one of the greatest philosophers of art of the th century, never extensively dealt with Heidegger’s philosophy of art. However, when from a political perspective Lyotard addresses Heidegger’s philosophy as a whole, he almost incidentally makes an interesting critical observation concerning Heidegger’s philosophy of art as well. The context of this observation is the following: Lyotard acknowledges that it was Heidegger who had placed the theme of forgetting on the agenda of Western philosophy. Lyotard then reminds us that this theme has always featured prominently within the Jewish tradition. For in Judaism, the point of departure is that one is obliged by the Law. The Law, however, is neither a representation, nor a concept, but a presence. This presence as such is necessarily forgotten when it is represented. Against this background, Lyotard then points out that it is paradoxical that Heidegger should have forgotten this Jewish tradition of recognizing this forgetting at the heart of representation. In Lyotard’s view, the primary significance of this concerns politics. In the margin of this remark however, Lyotard notes that this forgetting is yet again repeated when it comes to aesthetics, for here Heidegger forgets the sublime: This is the ‘political’ aspect. But it seems clear that one can observe the same paradox, if not the same scandal of a same forgetting, on a seemingly entirely different terrain, namely, that of aesthetics. For here, again, as Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (in his ‘Sublime Truth’) has clearly shown, Heidegger (following Hegel) in his meditation on art, had to miss completely the problematics of the sublime, at least as such.1 (HJ )

We know that, according to Lyotard, the aesthetics of the sublime is the key to any understanding of avant-garde art. His statement that Heidegger overlooked the sublime therefore resonates well with those 1 References to works quoted more than once in this article are given by means of an abbreviation, followed by the page number. ‘HJ’ stands for: J.-F. Lyotard, Heidegger and “the Jews”, .



frans van peperstraten

philosophers who reproach Heidegger for not really having had an eye for the special character of avant-garde art, nor for that of modern art in general, for that matter. Did Heidegger really forget the sublime? Indeed, he used the word ‘sublime’ (in German: erhaben) only very rarely, and then only in notes. One will never encounter it in any text published by Heidegger himself. However, things are not as straightforward as Lyotard suggests. For we see that Lyotard summons Lacoue-Labarthe to be his witness, but the latter turns out to have a lot more to say than Lyotard reports. LacoueLabarthe admits that the word ‘sublime’ never appears in Heidegger, but then continues to state that many of the prominent terms in Heidegger’s ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ nevertheless actually belong within ‘the lexicon of the sublime’, or rather, to ‘the transcription of this lexicon into Heidegger’s idiom’. Lacoue-Labarthe writes: ‘(S)ublime’ is a word which does not belong to the Heideggerian lexicon, even if the concept—and the thing itself—are everywhere present (if only under the name of ‘greatness’).2 (ST )

Lacoue-Labarthe goes even a step further: In Heidegger’s ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ the sublime is not only present, but moreover the very issue at the heart of this text. Lacoue-Labarthe: What this text describes, in its own way and at a depth doubtless unknown before it, is the experience of the sublime itself. (ST )

And then Lacoue-Labarthe takes another step. Not only is Heidegger’s text about the sublime, but the sublime can only truly be thought when taking Heidegger’s attempt to overcome metaphysics as one’s point of departure. In short, by metaphysics here is meant thinking which has forgotten its openness to being, replacing this by closure instead—that is, by limiting things as if they were closed entities. However, LacoueLabarthe is not uncritical of Heidegger. He berates Heidegger for not recognizing the mimetic character of being. In Lacoue-Labarthe’s view therefore, the sublime would therefore have to be rethought—on the basis of mimesis. Actually, both Lacoue-Labarthe and Lyotard are engaged in attempts to overcome metaphysics. In Lacoue-Labarthe this is apparent from the fact that in his view, mimesis is incapable of ever arriving at a closure; in Lyotard from the fact that he thinks the sublime in terms of a presence which cannot ever be represented. At the same time however, 2

‘ST’ stands for: Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, ‘Sublime Truth’, , pp. –.

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



Lacoue-Labarthe is concerned that Lyotard’s interpretation of the sublime apparently still belongs to the negative metaphysics of the modern era. And Lyotard, for his part, does not see how Lacoue-Labarthe’s equating of the sublime with genius could free us from metaphysics. So, both Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe regard the other’s attempt to establish a non-metaphysical reconstruction of the sublime a failure. It may therefore be quite instructive to take a closer look at precisely where LacoueLabarthe and Lyotard differ from one another. Because Lacoue-Labarthe is inspired by Heidegger, I will first deal with his reading of Heidegger before turning to Lacoue-Labarthe’s own reconstruction of the sublime. In order to see whether his equating of the sublime with genius is justified, I will also provide a contextualized analysis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment here. In the concluding section, I will address Lyotard’s interpretation of the sublime. . Heidegger If Heidegger, asks Lacoue-Labarthe, uses words corresponding to the sublime, then why does he not use the actual term ‘sublime’ itself, or at least refer to it? Lacoue-Labarthe offers several possible reasons. First of all, the sublime is not a term which featured in the early Greek philosophy which Heidegger finds so important. The term only started featuring much later, in the so called Hellenistic period, in a climate strongly influenced by Judaism and early Christianity, and at a time when, in Heidegger’s view, thinking had already long since lost its openness to being. Secondly, the sublime was originally—in Longinus—a theme belonging to Rhetoric. It was only taken up by philosophy in the th and th centuries, and then as a category of aesthetics—where, as Heidegger probably thought, it became completely determined by modern metaphysics. According to Lacoue-Labarthe however, this did not prevent Heidegger from integrating those characteristics traditionally attributed to the sublime into his conception of great art. And because Heidegger founded his conception of great art on a specific understanding of beauty, this effectively meant that Heidegger integrated the sublime into the beautiful. I think that Lacoue-Labarthe is right on this point. Let us for instance read Heidegger’s phenomenological sketch of a certain Greek temple. In his ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ Heidegger proposes this temple as the most defining example of what great art is. This building ‘encloses the figure of a god’, but also accentuates ‘the darkness’ of ‘the rocky ground’



frans van peperstraten

that supports it, ‘makes the storm visible in its violence’, ‘brings forth the light of day, the breadth of the sky, the darkness of night’, ‘makes visible the invisible space of the air’, ‘stands out against the surge of the tide’, and ‘brings out the raging of the surf ’ (O – / GA , ).3 Indeed, all of these elements—the darkness, the violent storm, the wild sea—belong to traditional descriptions of the sublime. Heidegger, however, deviates from aesthetics. For, unlike a Burke or Kant, he does not reduce these descriptions to the experiences of a subject, but rather transfers them to beauty, and therefore also to truth. In Heidegger’s view, beauty is an aspect of truth as such. Heidegger so to speak elucidates ‘truth’ by saying that it is a Lichtung (literally ‘(forest) clearing’, but also invoking the aspect of light (German: Licht) pouring in). The work of art has its own special way of manifesting this Lichtung: Light of this kind sets its shining into the work. The shining that is set into the work is the beautiful. Beauty is one way in which truth as unconcealment comes to presence. (O  / GA , )

Why then, according to Lacoue-Labarthe, is this a non-metaphysical reading of beauty? Lacoue-Labarthe terms the metaphysical reading of beauty ‘eidetic’. The word refers to Plato’s concept of being appearing as eidos. Eidos or idea, then, is something delineated, and therefore limited. This would oblige truth to adopt a fixed form, to appear as a delineated figure, visible to the mind’s eye. To this form—or figure—beauty is attributed. Beauty coincides with the beautiful figure. According to Lacoue-Labarthe, aesthetics, from Plato onwards, is based on this eidetic determination of beauty. And because the sublime is just taken to be the transgression of the limited figure into the unlimited, the sublime also becomes understood on the basis of this eidetic determination. In brief, Lacoue-Labarthe objects to this ‘eidetic’ approach taken by metaphysics not only because it represents a closure of thinking as such, but also because it may hold very harmful implications for politics. Politics is always about collective identification. Normally this is an open process. Sometimes, however, all identification becomes fixated on a specific limited (‘beautiful’) figure which appears on stage, effectively resulting in a politics of exclusion.4 3 ‘O’ stands for: M. Heidegger, ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, in: id., Off the Beaten Track, . The corresponding reference to the German edition in the Gesamtausgabe, Band , Frankfurt a.M. (Vittorio Klostermann) , is given following a forward slash (/). 4 Lacoue-Labarthe’s most important texts about the relationship between metaphys-

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



Lacoue-Labarthe finds inspiration for an alternative line of thinking in a text in which Heidegger compares Plato with Nietzsche. Here Heidegger points out that when being appears as eidos, as Plato would have it, this would presuppose that first there would have to be appearing, phainesthai. Lacoue-Labarthe therefore concludes that phainesthai is the condition of possibility for having any eidos—any form or figure— whatsoever. It is the condition on which the possibility of both the beautiful and the sublime hinges. Therefore, a non-eidetic thinking, one which takes its point of departure in this phainesthai, is more fundamental than the eidetic approach which we find in aesthetics, or in metaphysics in general (see ST ). In Heidegger’s view, this phainesthai of truth is an event. Art is not so much a representation of what is there, but first of all the Darbringen, ‘the offering forth’, the presentation of the ‘that it is’. The work of art demonstrates the fact that unconcealment happens. Here Heidegger uses the word Ereignis, a special word for event, occurrence or happening: The happening (Ereignis) of its createdness does not simply reverberate through the work; rather, the work casts before itself the eventful fact (das Ereignishafte) that, as a work, this work is, and exhibits this fact constantly. (O  / GA , –)

The fact that the work is, entails a Stoss, a thrust, a shock. The ‘extraordinary’ (in German: the Ungeheuer) is being ‘thrust to the surface’; the work transports us into the ‘openness of being’, and therefore ‘at the same time out of the realm of the usual’. Heidegger wants us to submit to this ‘displacement’ (in German: Verrückung, a word which both means being drawn away / ‘transported’, and undergoing madness). We may note that not only Heidegger’s phenomenological description of the temple, but also the terms with which he describes truth—the event, the shock, the Ungeheuer, and a certain madness—all belong to traditional conceptions of the sublime. Special attention has to be paid to the word Ungeheuer, which means extraordinary, but also enormous, not fitting, gruesome, uncanny. Heidegger writes: In the immediate circle of beings we believe ourselves to be at home. The being is familiar, reliable, ordinary [geheuer]. Nonetheless, the clearing

ics (or aesthetics) and politics are his book Heidegger, Art and Politics. The Fiction of the Political, , and his essay, written together with Jean-Luc Nancy, ‘The Nazi Myth’, Critical Inquiry  (, Winter ), pp. –.



frans van peperstraten is pervaded by a constant concealment in the twofold form of refusal and obstructing. Fundamentally, the ordinary is not ordinary; it is extraordinary [un-geheuer]. (O  / GA , )

If truth is Ungeheuer, then we might as well be saying that in Heidegger truth is also sublime. Hence the title of Lacoue-Labarthe’s essay: ‘The Sublime Truth’. Now let us have a closer look at Lacoue-Labarthe’s own reconstruction of the sublime. . Lacoue-Labarthe In most accounts of the sublime—from Longinus onwards—a negative aspect has been regarded as constitutive. Thus, for instance in Lyotard’s view, the sublime makes us feel that our presentation falls short. Lyotard characterizes the aesthetics of the sublime—‘the axioms of the avantgardes’—as ‘presenting the existence of something unpresentable’ (presenter qu’ il y a de l’ imprésentable), and, more specifically, the postmodern as ‘invoking the unpresentable in presentation itself ’.5 And this is where Lacoue-Labarthe’s criticism comes into play. He cautions us not to think the negative aspect of the sublime in such a way that it would lead us into the ‘negative metaphysics of the moderns’.6 Indeed, as we know, in modern metaphysics delimiting things is eminently achieved by specifying what they are not. Lacoue-Labarthe observes that the fact that not everything presents itself, can be understood in two completely different ways. Thus, in his view, there are two paradigms for thinking the sublime. Lacoue-Labarthe illustrates each paradigm with a quote from Kant’s Critique of Judgment. In the first quote Kant terms ‘sublime’ the Biblical passage proclaiming the prohibition of making graven images. The graven image is prohibited, because it is something finite producing the illusion of referring to the infinite, something which is not possible. This prohibition is sublime, because, as Kant explains, ‘where the senses no longer see anything before them, yet the unmistakable and inextinguishable idea of morality remains’ (CJ  / B –).7 Lacoue-Labarthe concludes that Kant 5

J.-F. Lyotard, , pp.  and . Ph. Lacoue-Labarthe, , p. .—In this article, quotes from books of which the titles are given in French, have been translated into English by myself. 7 ‘CJ’ stands for: I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, . The corresponding universal reference to the B-edition () of Kant’s Kritik der Urteilskraft is given after the forward slash (/). 6

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



establishes the sublime on the opposition between the finite and the infinite, the limited and the unlimited. One could also say that it is all about form and matter, for making images is bringing matter into form, or delimiting matter by means of a form. When the sublime is conceived of as the transgression of the finite form, one may conclude that the negative moment of the sublime prevails: the sublime is defined as what is not—cannot be—captured in any form. And for Lacoue-Labarthe the finite and the infinite, the limited and the unlimited, form and matter, are precisely the oppositions of aesthetics, as this is at the same time part and parcel of western metaphysics. In the second quote however, Kant terms an inscription on the temple of Isis sublime. This inscription runs as follows: ‘I am all that is, that was, and that will be, and my veil no mortal has removed’ (CJ  / B ). In Lacoue-Labarthe’s interpretation, Kant now brings the sublime in relation to thinking truth as revealing, and this is a step towards Heidegger’s thinking of truth. In Heidegger, truth is at the same time revealing and concealing. Concealing here implies that also according to this notion of truth, not everything presents itself. But it further implies that metaphysics is now being evaded, because revealing and concealing are no longer conceived of as limited, delimited over against each other—as if we had the revealing (the presentation) here and the concealing (the unpresentable) there—for revealing and concealing are intrinsically interpenetrated; revealing is also concealing and concealing is also revealing. This is the non-metaphysical interpretation of the sublime which Lacoue-Labarthe wants to elaborate on further. He is especially keen to take up Heidegger’s suggestion regarding phainesthai preceding eidos. Lacoue-Labarthe makes a distinction between the fact that something appears—the quodditas of being—on the one hand, and that of appearing as something—the quidditas of being—on the other (ST ). According to Lacoue-Labarthe, the work of art exists not only in the order of the ‘what’, but also in that it brings us the ‘that’: ‘The work ( . . . ) is the opening of this: that there are beings’ (ST ). In Lacoue-Labarthe’s view, this ‘that there is’, is what has always been intended by the notion of the sublime. The sublime is the shock that there is. And this is why LacoueLabarthe disagrees with Lyotard. Whereas to Lyotard the sublime is the presentation of something unpresentable, Lacoue-Labarthe states that the sublime is rather ‘the presentation of this: that there is presentation’ (ST ). And hence the negative moment which traditionally dominated the understanding of the sublime, is now replaced by an affirmative one.



frans van peperstraten

At the same time, Lacoue-Labarthe replaces Heidegger’s conception of truth with the notion of mimesis. Mimesis, then, should not be understood as imitating or copying something that is already there, as reproduction or representation, but as creating, producing, making something present for the first time. In Lacoue-Labarthe’s view this productive notion of mimesis has up to now been overshadowed by a reproductive notion, by mimesis as imitation. However, once in a while, there have been philosophers who have acknowledged mimesis as production. Thus for instance, Aristotle’s treatment of the relationship between technè and phusis. Aristotle says that in the mimesis of phusis by technè, technè accomplishes something not accomplished by phusis. On this basis, Lacoue-Labarthe explains why—in the same vein as Derrida with regard to the sign—mimesis conveys an ‘original supplementarity’. When mimesis presents something, we tend to think that this something is the origin of what is being presented and that mimesis is only a supplement to this origin. Nevertheless, we must realize that the origin is only there, given, in the mimesis. ‘The origin actually presupposes the mimesis or presentation’, Lacoue-Labarthe observes. Thus mimesis is as original as the origin itself. At the same time, we have to admit that when mimesis presents the origin, the latter is not the origin as such, but something presented. Thus there can only be a presented—that is, supplemented— origin, while at the same time, the supplement is original. In LacoueLabarthe’s view this original supplementarity implies that the law of mimesis is that of impropriété. Instead of thinking that the original is the proper thing, we have to admit that it can only be presented as modified by its presentation, that is, as improper. Lacoue-Labarthe writes: (B)etween proper and not-proper, near and far, familiar and strange, the exchange is always reversible, and for this reason never stops; it is not fixed and has no determined direction.8

And this is where Lacoue-Labarthe joins criticism with Heidegger. For Heidegger always seemed to hold on to the possibility of an authentic existence, of a proper Germany, or perhaps even a proper Europe. According to Lacoue-Labarthe however, no consistent mimetology could ever adopt the idea that something can be properly what it is. But let us now turn to Kant. In Lacoue-Labarthe’s view, Kant too accounts for a productive notion of mimesis. As becomes clear from his understanding of genius, Kant regards art’s relationship with nature 8

Ph. Lacoue-Labarthe, , p. .

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



as one of productivity. Kant defines genius as ‘the talent (natural gift) that gives the rule to art’ (CJ  / B ). In Kant’s theory of genius we can furthermore recognize the notion of original supplementarity, for through art, it appears that nature has produced, given something, which it does not possess, namely the rule of art. Therefore Lacoue-Labarthe’s ‘mimetology’ is certainly applicable here. On this basis, however, Lacoue-Labarthe makes a strange move. He concludes that genius is ‘the sublime artist or the artist of the sublime’ (ST , repeated ). To be sure, this is true for Longinus, who stated that the sublime is the product of genius, but this is not the case for Kant. First of all, we must realize that in Kant’s view it is mostly not art, but nature—more specifically, raw nature—which gives occasion to the sublime feeling. Once in a while, he may come up with something sublime that has been made by human beings—Saint Peter’s in Rome, or the pyramids in Egypt—but then he seems to mention these examples not because they are works of art, but because of their astonishing scale. Only once does Kant mention the possibility of combining the sublime with the beautiful in a work of art. However, the examples he then gives— such as an oratorio—all belong to the duller corners of art. Consequently, even Kant immediately expresses misgivings about the success of any such enterprise (CJ  / B –). And at the same time it is clear that for Kant art is normally beautiful art. The title of section  in the Critique of Judgment is after all: ‘Beautiful art is art of genius’ (CJ  / B ). We understand that this also holds the other way around: the art of genius is beautiful art, not something sublime. But the crucial difference between genius and the sublime is the following: The special faculty of genius, according to Kant, is ‘the faculty for the presentation of aesthetic ideas’ (CJ  / B ). Aesthetic ideas are not ideas of reason, but ideas of imagination, of the productive imagination. We should even say that here the imagination is overwhelmingly productive. The aesthetic idea, writes Kant, gives ‘a multitude’, or rather, ‘an immeasurable field of related representations’ (CJ  / B ). However, taking Kant’s critical philosophy into account, we understand that aesthetic ideas are bound to the phenomenal world of nature, even if productive imagination, as Kant explains, is ‘very powerful in creating, as it were, another nature, out of the material the real one gives it’ (CJ  / B ). The fact that Kant uses the word ‘idea’ for a product of the imagination, while otherwise reserving it to reason, is because imagination, when producing aesthetic ideas, just like reason, tries to attain to a maximum. Aesthetic ideas, says Kant, ‘strive to reach something that



frans van peperstraten

lies beyond the boundaries of experience’. For they produce the other or second nature ‘with a completeness of which there is no example of in nature’. In this regard, there is some similarity between aesthetic ideas and those of reason. Nevertheless, we have to realize that although aesthetic ideas strive towards the noumenal world, they will never gain a toehold beyond the boundary of the phenomenal world. And this is different with regard to the sublime. Kant observes: The sublime consists merely in the relation in which the sensible in the representation of nature is judged as suitable for a possible supersensible use of it. (CJ  / B ; italics by Kant)

In other words, the sublime relates the sensible to the supersensible, the phenomenal to the noumenal. This means that both are simultaneously present in one’s mind; they are compared with each other, the first judged on the basis of the second, precipitating the conclusion that the phenomenal fails in representing the noumenal. Therefore, when Kant introduces the notion of aesthetic ideas, he immediately stresses—even before explaining what they have in common with the ideas of reason—that they should be understood as each other’s counterparts. Kant says that with regard to an aesthetic idea of the imagination, no concept or language can be adequate, whereas for an idea of reason no intuition—that is, no representation of the imagination— can be adequate (CJ  / B ). Kant also calls the aesthetic idea ‘an inexponible representation of the imagination’, whereas the idea of reason is ‘an indemonstrable concept of reason’ (CJ  / B ). Allow me to present one last argument. Kant refers to ‘would-be’ works of art, those produced by a genius without taste. Kant however wants genius to be disciplined by taste, that is, by the harmony of imagination and understanding. Kant writes: For all the richness of the former [i.e. the imagination, FvP] produces, in its lawless freedom, nothing but nonsense; the power of judgment, however, is the faculty for bringing it in line with the understanding. (CJ  / B –)

Thus, while genius is in need of the understanding, the sublime in no way draws on the understanding, but on reason. . Lyotard Lyotard denies that genius, as Lacoue-Labarthe would have it, is the sublime artist. In this regard, Lyotard writes:

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



(G)enius is not in the least sublime for critical analysis, it is crazy with forms and crazy about forms, whereas sublimity originates from their (LS ) ‘absence’9

Actually, Lyotard distinguishes three types of aesthetics, all of which may be derived from Kant. The first is the normal aesthetics of the beautiful. Here Kant refers to the quiet contemplation of forms, whether in nature or in art. Freely at play, imagination will reach a harmonious relationship with understanding. Secondly, there is the aesthetics based on the genius and his or her aesthetic ideas. Genius is haunted by an overwhelming multitude of forms. This is the ‘aesthetics of the too much’, writes Lyotard (AP ).10 Here, productive imagination may present, as Kant says, ‘an immeasurable field’ of forms, but each form as such remains a limited one, and thus addresses understanding. Therefore, argues Lyotard, this also is an aesthetics of the beautiful, albeit a disordered one. Here Lyotard refers to ‘the metaphor of the beautiful deluge’ (AP ). Thirdly, there is the aesthetics of the sublime. Like the aesthetics of genius, this is an aesthetics of disorder, but now as a result of the absence of form. The sublime is ‘a presence’, Lyotard explains, ‘that exceeds what imaginative thought can grasp at once in a form’ (LS ). Whereas beauty, according to Lyotard, always opens up time, and gives us a future, the sublime remains out of time. And as we know, time is the most important form for Kant. According to Lyotard, the sublime represents the suspension of time, making it impossible to apply this form. Lyotard opposes the two latter—disordered—types of aesthetics as respectively that of an ‘excessive Yes’, and that of an ‘excessive No’ (AP ); as ‘a figural aesthetic of the ‘much too much’ that defies the concept, and an abstract or minimal aesthetic of the ‘almost nothing’ that defies form’ (LS ). In as far as Lyotard is happy to derive this typology of aesthetics from Kant, one might suppose that he does not feel any need to break with metaphysics. Indeed, in his first text on the sublime (), Lyotard still followed Kant rather strictly, and consequently took the so to speak unpresentable part of the sublime as to still be thinkable, akin to the idea of reason in Kant. Already two years later, however, Lyotard’s treatment of the sublime has shifted. He now regards the sublime as an event— which, as we have seen, is also the case for Heidegger and LacoueLabarthe. Lyotard too regards the event as the shock with which the quod 9

‘LS’ stands for: J.-F. Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime, . ‘AP’ stands for: J.-F. Lyotard, Karel Appel, Un geste de couleur / Karel Appel, A Gesture of Colour, . 10



frans van peperstraten

of things—as distinguished from their quid—presents itself. On this basis Lyotard too criticizes the metaphysical opposition of two worlds, those of the sensible and the supersensible. Lyotard writes: The inexpressible does not reside in an over there, in another world, or another time, but in this: in that (something) happens. In the determination of pictorial art, the undetermined, the ‘it happens’ is the color, the picture. The color, the picture as occurrence or event, is not expressible, and it is to this that it has to witness.11 (I , translation modified)

From here, however, the way in which Lyotard tries to evade metaphysics differs from that taken by Heidegger and Lacoue-Labarthe. In this regard, the most important point is that Lyotard identifies the event, the ‘it happens’, with matter. Whereas the Romantics, such as Caspar David Friedrich, still thought that the sublime points towards another world, the avant-garde, Lyotard writes, seeks the unpresentable ‘in what is closest, in the very matter of artistic work’ (I ). In paintings and music, this matter is color and tone, or rather nuance and timbre. Lyotard calls this matter ‘immaterial’ (I ). In art, matter is ‘immaterial’ because it is not completely determined by physical data. Color, for instance, is not just this or that wavelength, for the same color may manifest differently, depending on the other colors which surround it. Matter, Lyotard says, is ‘rigorously singular’ (I ). From the fact that in Lyotard’s view matter is the basic category of art, we can conclude that his is not an aesthetics of meaning. Lyotard compares a work by Barnett Newman with the notion of an angel, but concludes that Newman’s work ‘announces nothing; it is in itself the annunciation’. The work shows: ‘its plastic nudity. Everything is there, dimensions, colors, lines, but there are no allusions’. That everything is there, also holds also with regard to time. When looking at a work of Newman, Lyotard says, the feeling is ‘instantaneous’ (I –). Lyotard’s conception of matter implies a criticism of the traditional understanding of art as the putting of matter into (a) form. Here Lyotard is also aiming at Kant. He writes: It has been a presupposition, or even a prejudice, a ready-made attitude, in Western thought at least, for  years, that the process of art is to be understood as a relating of a matter and a form. This prejudice is still active even in Kant’s analysis. (I )

In Kant not only beauty, but also the sublime is based on the formmatter opposition. To be sure, in Kant’s view the sublime ‘is to be found 11

‘I’ stands for: J.-F. Lyotard, The Inhuman. Reflections on Time, .

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



in a formless object’ (CJ  / B ), but what this actually means is that form does not manage to accomplish itself, whereas matter implies the complete absence of form. Matter—in Kant—does not refer to the sublime, nor to beauty, but rather to the agreeable, where sensibility is without a connection to the higher faculties of understanding or reason, whereas form, in beauty—and even the formlessness of sublimity—does have a connection to these faculties. Lyotard, however, wants to develop ‘an aesthetic ‘before’ forms’ (I ), that is, one which precedes the forms which are applied in the sensibility of the agreeable. Color, for instance, is matter ‘before’ the formation of the visible (AP ). This matter, writes Lyotard, ‘is not expecting form’ (QP ).12 The notion of matter Lyotard refers to ‘is neither the accomplice of form, nor his spouse, nor his enemy’, but ‘precedes the form-matter opposition’ (QP ). Whereas Kant treats matter in a denigrating way, as chaotic diversity, Lyotard asks: ‘but what active unity does the blue need?’—and then laments that ‘Kant forgets the blue event’ (QP –). Lyotard’s ‘aesthetic before forms’ might be inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s work on art, for the latter said that Cézanne’s paintings give an ‘opening to the things’, one which precedes form. Or, in other words, the painter tries to catch ‘perception in its state of birth’, that is, perception before it comes to be dominated by convention. Lyotard agrees with MerleauPonty’s phenomenology up to a certain point, but he also has some critical reservations. First of all, he criticizes Merleau-Ponty’s belief in the ‘originary’ value of Cézanne’s perception of color (I ). According to Lyotard, the work of art should not be understood as the expression of nature or reality in its original state. This observation is reminiscent of Lacoue-Labarthe’s thinking of mimesis in such a way that the origin is always necessarily a supplemented origin. Lyotard, however, adds a further point of criticism. Merleau-Ponty’s idea of a ‘state of birth’ seems to contain only positive possibilities. Lyotard notes that it makes no provision for lack or for death (MP –).13 According to Lyotard, the state of birth is at the same time the struggle of death. In Lyotard’s view, the colors ‘vibrate between outburst and eclipse’. Lyotard writes: The gesture of painting (. . .) admits the colors into shining and rejects them, in one movement. It is a spasm. The color appears, and this appearance is certainly shining, but is destined to disappear. (MP , italics by Lyotard) 12 13

‘QP’ stands for: J.-F. Lyotard, Que Peindre? Adami, Arakawa, Buren, . ‘MP’ stands for: J.-F. Lyotard, Misère de la philosophie, .



frans van peperstraten

Lyotard’s second point of criticism implies a deconstruction of shining. Shining is an aspect of the beautiful figure as conceived of by traditional aesthetics. Things are taken to manifest themselves in a straightforward positive way, namely through their shining or brilliance. In this line of thinking, the beautiful figure is then supposed to demonstrate that the world is both well-ordered and adapted to human perception. We may thus well have some cause for doubt whether Heidegger really did try to think things in a different way when he said that beauty is the shining of truth—at any rate in doing so he did not break with the traditional terminology. We may furthermore note that LacoueLabarthe did not pay much attention to this question of shining in his deconstruction of the beautiful figure. For Lyotard, however, the shining of appearance is always accompanied by death and darkness. He writes: Art puts death’s insignia on the sensible. It ravishes sensation from the (PF ) night and impresses the seal of darkness upon it.14

And precisely here, Lyotard reminds us of the sublime: The beauty of the night is its sublimity, that it ruins the appearance of colors. This moment of disappearance and of death is that of the apparition of the color matter. (AP –, translation modified)

Thus we see that Lyotard does indeed stress a certain negative moment in the sublime. And he is very explicit in doing so, for he connects the sublime variously to a ‘negative ontology’ (PF ), a ‘negative aesthetics’ (AP ), an ‘anti-aesthetics’,15 or ‘an ‘aesthetics’ of the forgotten’—which is also an ‘anesthetics’ (HJ ). But what does Lyotard mean? First of all, he assumes that there is anesthesia in the absence of an event to awaken us. But when this event happens, it occurs first and foremost in the realm of our sensibility. It is dependent on an aisthèton (the thing we perceive, sense, feel). We receive this aisthèton without knowing what it is. This is a second kind of anesthesia. In the first kind we do not feel anything, and in the second kind the aisthèton is present, but as a sort of shock, the content of which does not penetrate to our consciousness. Readers of Freud may recognize the moment of primary repression here. It is this second kind

14

‘PF’ stands for: J.-F. Lyotard, Postmodern Fables, . This is the subtitle of Lyotard’s book Soundproof Room: Malraux’s Anti-Aesthetics, . 15

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



of anesthesia which belongs to the sublime. The sublime is a tension within sensibility, because in what is present, there is also a gap, a lack, an absence. Lyotard states: The painter does not see the color, but is awakened [il s’ éveille] by it and guards [veille] it. The painterly gaze is a vision of the absence of sensation (PF ) in its presence, of the fort in the da.16

Thus the fort and the da are not separated from each other, as if the one were here and the other there, but the one is within the other. I therefore do not see any fundamental difference between this idea of vision in Lyotard, and Heidegger’s notion of truth as revealing and concealing, or Lacoue-Labarthe’s notion of mimesis, in which the origin, or the proper, remains unattainable, is never reached. . Conclusion In conclusion, what can we say after having compared both LacoueLabarthe’s and Lyotard’s interpretations of the sublime? As we have seen, Lacoue-Labarthe relates the sublime to genius, to an overwhelmingly productive imagination. His understanding of art is based on the idea of excess, of an excess of presentation—something which he regards as positive. This seems to fit in well with his conception of mimesis as constituted with an original supplementarity. There is always more to be presented—more than can be conceived (of). I therefore call this an aesthetics of incomprehensible wealth. In contrast, Lyotard’s aesthetics is rather an aesthetics of lack, of failure, of shortage, of a gap, a lack. This I call an aesthetics of poverty. Or perhaps I should rather say: of simplicity. Lyotard does not stress production, but the ascesis which is necessary in order to receive. Whereas Lacoue-Labarthe draws upon the relationship between technè and phusis, upon mimesis as the excess of nature, Lyotard’s understanding of art is as denaturalization. For in his view everything is taken away, even the forms by which sensibility captures nature. And whereas Lacoue-Labarthe draws on imagination, Lyotard’s aesthetics really tries to take the notion of aisthèsis seriously, which in his view means that one has to acknowledge that one’s sensibility is touched before imagination can even start trying to assemble the

16

The first sentence was omitted in the English translation. Presented here is my own translation (FvP).



frans van peperstraten

impressions into well-ordered data. Lyotard retains a critical distance from both genius and form. Actually, it is not immediately apparent how Lacoue-Labarthe would be able to integrate Kant’s notion of genius into his non-metaphysical approach of the sublime, for how would he evade the matter-form opposition which is inherent in genius? Is the genius not supposed to be the master connecting matter to form, and more in general, a sort of super-subject, one who is in control—if not of the world, then at least of art? Lacoue-Labarthe could of course object to this supposition by pointing out that the original supplementarity in creating art will always continue to disrupt the genius’s control over it. Can we choose between wealth and poverty, between positive and negative? And should we choose? Let us have a closer look at LacoueLabarthe’s mimetology, and his emphasis on the fact that there is presentation. But why is there presentation, time and time again? Is this not the case because, as his mimetology precisely makes clear, all presentations up to now have not succeeded in presenting the origin as such? Is this not the case because any presentation by necessity falls short? Is not the positive presentation there because in every presentation a negativity resides? Can we really decide which is primary: the presentation as such, or its failure? In fact, from this perspective it is clear that there is no fundamental difference between Lacoue-Labarthe and Lyotard at all. Both Lacoue-Labarthe and Lyotard regard the sublime as an event. Therefore, Lacoue-Labarthe seems to err when he says that Lyotard has founded his aesthetics on the assumption that there is something unpresentable. At least this is not any one special permanent thing that is supposed to remain unpresentable—a God for instance. Lyotard’s unpresentable is something singular in each and every presentation. And precisely as Lacoue-Labarthe had done, Lyotard also stresses the quod of presentation, the fact that there is presentation. Also at this point there is no real difference between Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe, or between either and Heidegger. There is however a difference, let us say after presentation. If the quid of presentation, the presented being, ‘is perhaps never thinkable except as eidos’, as Lacoue-Labarthe admits (ST ), then the eidetic determination of art still remains important, albeit on a secondary level, after the event. And we remember that this eidetic determination is the foundation of the beautiful figure, which lies at the core of traditional— that is, metaphysical—aesthetics. As for what is presented, then, Lyotard’s aesthetics seems to take the greater distance from metaphysics. Whereas in Heidegger and Lacoue-Labarthe the event of appearing is followed

the sublime and the limits of metaphysics



by the permanence of shining—which traditionally was also assumed to accompany the beautiful figure—in Lyotard’s view, art not only gives us the birth of things, but also the announcement of death. Whereas in Heidegger’s understanding of truth time is at issue only once—namely in the event of unconcealment—in Lyotard’s aesthetics time is at issue twice—in the event, but also in its message, namely: remember that there will be death. Is this negative? Yes and no. Is this metaphysics? If we say yes or no, we assume that we can delimit metaphysics, that we can render the limits of thinking in terms of limits. References Heidegger, M., ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, in: id., Off the Beaten Track, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) . Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der Urteilskraft, B-edition, . ———, Critique of the Power of Judgment, New York (Cambridge University Press) . Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, L’ imitation des modernes. Typographies II, Paris (Galilée) . ———, Heidegger, Art and Politics. The Fiction of the Political, Oxford (Blackwell) . ———, ‘Sublime Truth’, in: Jean-François Courtine [et al.], Of the Sublime: Presence in Question, Albany (State University of New York Press) . ———, Poetry as Experience, Stanford (Stanford University Press) . Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe and Nancy, Jean-Luc, ‘The Nazi Myth’, Critical Inquiry , , Winter . Lyotard, J.-F., Que Peindre? Adami, Arakawa, Buren, Paris (Editions de la Différence) . ———, Heidegger and “the Jews”, Minneapolis / London (University of Minnesota Press) . ———, The Inhuman. Reflections on Time, Cambridge (Polity Press) . ———, The Postmodern Explained. Correspondence –, Minneapolis / London (University of Minnesota Press) . ———, Postmodern Fables, Minneapolis / London (University of Minnesota Press) . ———, Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime, Stanford (Stanford University Press) . ———, Misère de la philosophie, Paris (Galilée) . ———, Soundproof Room: Malraux’s Anti-Aesthetics, Stanford (Stanford University Press) . ———, Karel Appel, Un geste de couleur / Karel Appel, A Gesture of Colour, Leuven (Leuven University Press) .

MELVILLE’S ‘SUBLIME UNEVENTFULNESS’. TOWARD A PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SUBLIME

Ruud Welten The sublime is something strange, beyond our imagination, uncanny even. The word is often used to describe a certain kind of experience, but what does it actually refer to? Can we really have experiences that are ‘sublime’ compared to our ordinary experiences? The term is of great importance to Herman Melville. Moby Dick, the whale, is sublime because of its terrifying existence. But so is the ocean itself. Melville in Moby Dick: There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you . . . (my italics)

Whether with regard to the immensity of the ocean or to the starry sky above, we are all more or less familiar with such experiences. Philosophers call them sublime. The term is important, for instance, to Immanuel Kant. What are philosophers talking about, when they talk about the sublime? At the very least, it is a philosophical concept that plays an important role in Kant’s Third Critique. But does it refer to anything outside this conceptual context? If it refers to nothing but a philosophical discourse, than it is an artificial term without reality. Kant clearly states that it is not a superlative of beautiful, which is how the word is often used in nonphilosophical discourse. Is it an experience? If it is not, then what is it? Is it just a metaphysical term that refers to a system of thought? Again, how does it refer to experience? And if it is based on experience, is it possible to draw near a phenomenological description of the experience of the sublime? How would Kant describe this overwhelming experience of the ocean, or Edmund Husserl? We will focus on Husserl later on in this paper. We will also investigate the consequences of a phenomenology of the sublime as a prime condition for consciousness itself. Kant does indeed mention an experience of the ocean. Let’s focus on this metaphor—or is it more than just a metaphor? What can ‘sublime uneventfulness’ mean phenomenologically? Let’s try to understand it as



ruud welten

the experience of the enigma of awareness as such. For Kant definitely did not experience the ocean firsthand, though we know that this philosopher, who never travelled more than fifty miles from his home, was very imaginative when it came to travel stories. And the author of Moby Dick may have been the obvious person to write about the ‘oceanic experience’, but such an experience is neither exclusive to ocean liner passengers, nor to the rough ‘tropic whaling life’ Melville knew so well. Art, especially according to popular nineteenth-century opinion, is characterized by these kinds of experiences. Art is not so much a Platonic copy of the real world but in art, our subjectivity is overwhelmed by beauty and meaning. Our comprehension falls short when it comes to the sublime. ‘We call sublime that which is absolutely great’, says Kant at a time when the Romantic period is still in a foetal state.1 To Kant, sublime is not just a superlative of beautiful: the sublime exceeds the boundaries of our comprehension. Concepts to describe this feeling are lacking, for it is the deficiency of conceptuality itself that we experience. We feel overwhelmed, even stunned, and words fail us. Let’s focus on this trait of the sublime: the experience of being overwhelmed by perception, and try to draw a phenomenological sketch of this experience. In the context of nineteenth-century art, the experience of the sublime is more than just a mental state. In his journal Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio, the French writer Stendhal describes his experiences during a visit to Florence. In Florence, the writer is confronted with such an overwhelming number of artworks, works of such beauty, that he instantly begins to suffer from a psychosomatic illness. The beauty of the art is simply too much for him. In literature, this experience is since called the Stendhal Syndrome. It is not so hard to empathize with this romantic artist, fainting in the middle of an immense hall filled with huge paintings. Still, the possibility that somebody else is bored to tears by the very same impressions of the very same artworks remains. In other words: the paintings on the wall do not cause the Stendhal syndrome. The experience of the sublime, if we may call it that, is not the result of some particular impression. Sublimity is not a property of objects, for instance of some artworks, but of subjective experience alone. There is no such thing as sublime art without a subject. We have to focus on the nature of experience, not on the characteristics of some sublime works of art—for the latter would push the notion of experience

1

Immanuel Kant, , p.  (:).

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



into the background. So, let’s focus on the experience of the sublime and ask the philosopher who pre-eminently starts from experience, Husserl, for help. If we want to understand these kinds of experiences, we have to look at the heart of subjectivity itself. Philosophic language and poetic language presume that subjectivity is overwhelmed by the experience of the sublime. But it is not a force that simply destroys subjectivity. As we will try to describe, it radically exceeds its parameters. This article is an attempt to specify the particular phenomenological characteristics of this transgression. But first: the ‘oceanic feeling’. . The ‘Oceanic Feeling’ Let’s return to the oceanic experience mentioned above. In Civilization and Its Discontents Freud refers to an ‘oceanic feeling’, a concept he borrowed from the French writer Romain Rolland: It is a feeling which he would like to call a sensation of ‘eternity’, a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded—as it were, ‘oceanic’. This feeling, he adds, is a purely subjective fact, not an article of faith; it brings with it no assurance of personal immortality, but it is the source of the religious energy which is seized upon by the various Churches and religious systems . . . One may, he thinks rightly call oneself religious on the ground of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one rejects every belief and every illusion.2

Freud admitted to his friend Rolland that he had not had such an experience himself, but he immediately added that he had encountered many of them in descriptions of so-called religious experiences. This suggestion is relevant to our investigation, because it takes us beyond aesthetic experience. However, we are not looking for any divine operations here, but for a possible phenomenological description of an experience that submerges the subject in a sense of life that is more than the fulfilment of its own expectations. The conclusion of this paper will include some phenomenological suggestions to understand the sublime as not only an aesthetic category, but as the experience of the unveiling of the meaning of life. Kant’s description of the sublime is similar, albeit not exactly the same. To Kant, the sublime is not just a characterization of a specific emotion or experience, but an oscillation between a feeling of displeasure— derived from a sense of the inadequacy of the imagination—and an 2

Sigmund Freud, , p. .



ruud welten

equally important feeling of pleasure—derived from a sense of the contrasting mastery of reason. ‘Sublimity’, states Kant, ‘is not contained in anything in nature, but only in our mind’.3 This statement is not surprising, coming from a philosopher that took the view that it is impossible to know the ‘thing in itself ’. In psychological terms: standing in front of something overwhelmingly immense, like the Florence artworks or the enormity of nature that is the ocean, we are staggered, daunted. We are like Ismael in Moby Dick, stationed in the crow’s-nest of the ship, gazing at the infiniteness of the ocean. During his watch on the masthead, Ismael describes the ocean from his position to the crew below: he is a subject that is both the exposer and exposed. Is he not experiencing, in the crow’s-nest of the ship, that which Kant would call the sublime? There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you . . .

What is striking is that the quote does neither refer to the overwhelmingness of the ocean, nor that of the whales swimming about (although Melville often calls them ‘sublime’) but to ‘uneventfulness’ in connection with an intense feeling of ‘languor’. A phenomenology of the ocean is not a description of water and ‘aquatic creatures’—or, in Kant’s words, ‘The sublime is therefore not to be sought in the things of nature’ (pp. – : )—but the description of a subject, submerged in an experience that is not driven by the intentions of that subject. No doubt one of Kant’s predecessors on the topic of the sublime, Edmund Burke, is right when he states in Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (): A level plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean idea; the prospect of such a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of the ocean: but can it ever fill the mind with anything so great as the ocean itself?4

The quote recalls Descartes’ idea of Infinity, on which he states that it cannot be captured by human mind simply because it is too great for it— which also implies that the ocean itself cannot play the role of a cause of sublimity.

3 4

Kant, , p.  (: ). Edmund Burke, , p. .

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



For what is properly sublime cannot be contained in any sensible form, but concerns only ideas of reason, which, though no presentation adequate to them is possible, are provoked and called to the mind precisely by this inadequacy, which does allow of sensible presentation. Thus the wide ocean, enraged by storms, cannot be called sublime.5

To Kant, the sublime has nothing to do with the causality that is inherent to any sensuous kind of experience. Therefore, the ocean is not the object of an overwhelming experience. To Kant, the sublime: . . . is grounded in the feeling of a vocation of the mind that entirely oversteps the domain of the former (the moral feeling), in regard to which the representation of the object is judged as subjectively purposive.6

Kant is undoubtedly arguing against Burke, to whom the ocean is the supreme example of the sublime. When one looks out over the ocean, says Burke, there is a sense of ‘. . . astonishment . . . that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended.’7 But Kant emphasizes the incapability of our imagination to capture the ocean in itself, not the incomprehensibility of the ocean. Burke cannot understand this because to him, the ocean is something that causes fear and respect and therefore for him, the sublime is an effect of terror. Burke mentions: . . . several causes; but it is owing to none more than this, that the ocean is an object of no small terror. Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime.8

However in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (), Kant writes about the oceanic experience that we: . . . must take it, as we see it, merely as a broad, all-embracing vault; and it must be merely under this representation that we posit the sublimity that a pure aesthetic judgment attributes to this object. In just the same way, we must not take the sight of the ocean as we think it, enriched with all sorts of knowledge (which are not, however, contained in the immediate intuition), for example as a wide realm of water creatures, as the great storehouse of water for the evaporation which impregnates the air with clouds for the benefit of the land, or as an element that separates part of the world from another but at the same time makes possible the greatest community among them, for this would yield merely teleological judgments; rather, one must consider the ocean merely as the poets do, in accordance with what its appearance shows, for instance, when it is 5 6 7 8

Kant, , p.  (:). Kant, , p.  (:). Burke,  p. . Burke,  p. .



ruud welten considered in periods of calm, as a clear watery mirror bounded only by the heavens, but also when it is turbulent, an abyss threatening to devour everything, and yet still be able to find it sublime.9

The oceanic experience, then, is concurrently characterized by tranquillity, and a tsunami. It is not just the psychological experience of terror or fear, for in such fear we will flee from the experience. Kant states: ‘in our aesthetic judgment nature is judged as sublime not insofar as it arouses fear, but rather because it calls forth our power’.10 Hence, the overwhelmingness is not just an experience of terror. It is also an experience of power and joy. Moby Dick, the white whale, strikes terror and yet he is beautiful. Kant: Someone who is afraid can no more judge about the sublime in nature than someone who is in the grip of inclination and appetite can judge about the beautiful. The former flees from the sight of an object that instills alarm in him, and it is impossible to find satisfaction in a terror that is seriously intended. Hence the agreeableness in the cessation of something troublesome is joyfulness.11

These remarks are crucial. They imply that the experience of the sublime does not equal loss of subjectivity, like the one we experience in extreme fear. But how can we understand this double bind? One the one hand, the sublime is the experience of too much, of a lack of control and on the other hand, it is the experience of power and joy. We might say that this reveals the fact that there is more to life than that which we are able to perceive within the horizon or context of our own subjectivity. What is the role of the horizon in this specific example of the ‘oceanic feeling’? Are we talking metaphorically or phenomenologically? The oceanic experience is not just the experience of the ocean—‘a wide realm of water creatures, as the great storehouse of water for the evaporation which impregnates the air with clouds for the benefit of the land’, nor of its immensity. Melville rightly calls it ‘uneventful’, for it is the concrete experience of perceiving nothing but horizon. Only when we see a boat on the horizon, when we perceive something, are we able to fix our view. So ‘oceanic feeling’ might refer to the experience of horizon as such: to our experiencing that we experience. And this experience itself is overwhelming. 9 10 11

Kant, , pp. – (:). Kant, , p.  (:). Kant, , p.  (:).

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



. Husserl and the Impossibility of the Sublime Experience Since we have described the sublime as an experience, it makes sense to develop a phenomenology of the sublime. It is not our aim to draw on Kant’s transcendental agenda, but to scrutinize the phenomenological structures of the sublime. Let’s try and describe such a phenomenology and investigate its effect on the classic phenomenological concept of the subject. Let’s return to the seemingly paradoxical features of the sublime uneventfulness of the oceanic experience. In phenomenological terms, the sublime (a) is not a property of the object, but a description of the condition of the subject: it is an experience, (b) the sublime experience is characterized by the sensation of too much and (c) this too much is transgressive and tranquil at the same time: it does not destroy subjectivity, but exceeds its horizons. Attempting to sketch the oceanic experience from a classic (Husserlian) phenomenological viewpoint, we are immediately confronted with some fundamental problems. Are these problems inherent to classic phenomenology itself, or are they inherent to the topic of the sublime? The oceanic example might help us out here, because as we have seen, the ocean (like the horizon) is more than just a metaphor for the sublime. So, when we aim to create a phenomenological description of our experiencing a sense of too much, the problem we encounter from a phenomenological point of view is that the two main principles of phenomenology itself forbid a literal use of words like too much. Let’s focus on this problem. The example of the sublime uneventfulness of the oceanic experience constitutes a link with one of the most fundamental characteristics of Husserlian phenomenology. Within a phenomenology of intentionality, perceptual objects are characterized by horizontal givenness. Husserl does not follow Kant’s claim that we cannot perceive the objects themselves. For Husserl, objects are always embedded in a horizon of experience: they could be given in principle, but we experience a restricted profile. This means that objects are transcendent. The horizon is never an object in itself. To Husserl, our intuitive consciousness of an object is always accompanied by an intentional consciousness of the object’s horizon of absent profiles. Therefore to Husserl, it makes no sense to focus on the horizon as such. In the literal oceanic experience (‘There you stand . . . ’), we are not ‘gazing at the horizon’ but just ‘gazing’. If we compare this perception to the perception of a boat on the horizon, it is correct to say that we are drawn toward the object-horizon. The object-horizon is the



ruud welten

object of what Husserl calls an intention. Husserl formulates his famous dictum of classical phenomenology in Ideas: Under intentionality we understand the own peculiarity of mental processes ‘to be consciousness of something’.12

Hence, the field of investigation is that of intentionality. Husserl: The concept of intentionality apprehended in its undetermined range, as we have apprehended it, is a wholly indispensable fundamental concept which is the starting point at the beginning of phenomenology.13

Focusing on the matter of a phenomenology of the oceanic experience, we are faced with the impossibility to understand the state of mind we call experiencing the sublime as a consciousness of something. As our intentionality is suspended, would it not be better to say that something thrusts itself upon us? It is as if the of in the Husserlian dictum changes direction. Is this reversed intentionality? And if this makes sense, how does it affect the horizon? It is crucial to note that to Husserl, intentionality is not possible without givenness—or rather, there is such a thing as intentionality without givenness but Husserl calls ‘empty’. In the case of the sublime, exactly the opposite occurs: the givenness is simply too much. In order to understand this problem we have to focus on the phenomenological structure of the experience of too much. Within Husserlian phenomenology, every form of consciousness must be understood as an act of consciousness. Husserl describes the multiple kinds of acts and their structures.14 They are all characterized by a two-fold structure: that of the difference between intention and fulfilment. This means that every act of consciousness is aimed at its fulfilment (intends to be fulfilled). An act of desire, for instance, is aimed at the fulfilment of the desire; an act of supposition (e.g., that there may be life on Mars) is aimed at its confirmation by empirical evidence. The intention is aimed at its fulfilment, at the maximum realization of the object of consciousness.15 For Husserl, this structure is the most precise characterization of consciousness. This means that it does not only apply to psychological acts, such as desiring or wishing, but that it characterizes the structure of intuition (Anschauung) as well. But is it the structure of the sublime? Is the sublime marked by intentionality and if not, then by what? According to Kant, teleological 12 13 14 15

Edmund Husserl, , § , p. . Husserl, , § , p. . Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations VI, , pp. –. Cf. J.N. Mohanty, , p. .

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



structure is abandoned in the experience of the sublime. The experience of the sublime cannot be intentional, for there is nothing that is exceeding or overwhelming about Husserl’s fulfilment. The only option Husserl leaves open is that the fulfilment fails to occur and that we are disappointed. Even in Husserl’s later work, this scheme of intention / fulfilment is never abandoned. The structure of intentionality is what makes experience possible, and that’s final. To Husserl, any talk of an exceeding experience immediately raises the question what it is, precisely, that is being exceeded. The only possible answer would be that it is the intention itself that is not just fulfilled, but exceeded. But now we face two more major problems. First, intention is a finite concept. Its finiteness is reached when fulfilment occurs. It is not a vague notion of consciousness but it is a living movement toward fulfilment. Second, the term fulfilment is bound to the term intention and does not have the autonomy to go beyond the expectation of the intention. Jean-Paul Sartre translated the play of intention and fulfilment into the language of dialectics, implying that fulfilment was exclusively dependent on intention. To Sartre, consciousness itself is nothing but a series of fulfilments, whereas the subject itself is literally nothing. This radicalisation of Husserl’s scheme might help us to understand Melville’s ‘uneventfulness’ as the nothingness of the subject itself, help us to understand Melville’s ‘everything resolves you into languor . . . ’ (a very important early Sartrian theme) but still, it does not make an experience sublime. We are looking for the possibility to exceed the intention, in such a way that it is not just ‘fulfilled’ but saturated, in accordance with Kant’s interpretation of the sublime as something that is simply too much. . Surplus Husserl’s commentators, especially Jean-Luc Marion and Emmanuel Levinas, introduced the non-Husserlian possibility of exceeding the fulfilment. Marion describes a phenomenology of saturation, deconstructs Husserl’s theory of intentional phenomenology, and even attempts to reveal that Husserl’s thought actually implies saturation (exceeding, or a too much). In order to do this, Marion focuses on a particular moment within the description of intention and fulfilment in Husserl’s Logical Investigations. In the sixth Logical Investigation, Husserl mentions the word surplus (Überschuß). Although in Husserl’s work, ‘surplus’ is not a technical term, Marion isolates it because he wants to show that this



ruud welten

surplus is not incidental, but in fact fundamental to Husserlian phenomenology. According to Marion, surplus is fundamental to all acts of consciousness in which intention cannot be fulfilled, and where, as a result, consciousness fills the gap. If Marion is right, a phenomenology of the sublime is not only possible, but surplus becomes a condition for consciousness. I will return to this argument later, but let’s first focus on Marion’s deconstruction of Husserl’s scheme of intention / fulfilment. First, let’s focus on what Husserl calls apperception or, more precisely, surplus of apperception. This refers to the fact that perceiving always means perceiving something, and that perceiving something always means that perceiving includes some form of interpreting. To see a tree is to take an object for a tree. To describe this ‘seeing as something’, Husserl does not speak of perception, but of apperception (or ‘Auffassung’, apprehension or interpretation).16 Remarkably, apperception is actually realised by means of a surplus: our apperception goes beyond the thing that is merely given in, presents itself to, perception. Apperception is our surplus (Überschuß), which is found in experience itself, in its descriptive content as opposed to the raw existence of sense.17

The surplus is distinguished from the actual perception. Or, as Husserl says: ‘Apperceptions transcend their immanent content’.18 In short: the fact that I perceive something as something already implies that a certain surplus of intention is given. This is remarkable, because Husserl himself claims that all phenomenology must be understood as intentionality. As we have noted above, there is no room for surplus within the twofold structure of the difference between intention and fulfilment. Now, if it makes sense to speak about a phenomenology of the sublime on Husserl’s conditions, then it could be in terms of what Husserl calls apprehension. This would be in line with Kant’s ideas, since the sublime is not found in the object but in the subject. It would also explain why Stendhal was overwhelmed in Florence while others were not. Secondly, the famous thesis that objects in a space are always given to us in adumbrations (Abschattungen) implies a surplus or a too much as well. Our perception of objects in space is never complete. Fulfilment is accomplished by intentional acts that are not fully supported by actual 16 17 18

Husserl, Logical Investigations VI, § , p. . Husserl, Logical Investigations VI, § , p. . Edmund Husserl, Analyses, , p. .

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



perceptions. If we look at a cube, we only see three sides of it at the most. With regard to our deliberations on the sublime, this implies a shift in our idea of perception: we never see the object exactly ‘as it is’ (Kant can easily agree on that!), but we literally see it more or less. From this perspective, the sublime is not a perception that is too much, for our perception itself is what defines experience. In other words, the sublime may be a kind of adumbration itself. Husserl’s famous theory of adumbration inevitably implies something he is trying to avoid: that intention and fulfilment never, or seldom, coincide. We always perceive more than our eyes actually see. Maybe the sublime can be found in this more?19 Thirdly, after analysing the ideal of the final fulfilment in the first part of the sixth Logical Investigation, Husserl calls attention to a large gap (‘eine große Lücke’) in his theory so far.20 Husserl fills this gap with the notion of categorial intuition, which is fundamentally different from simple sensory perception. Categorial intuition implies an extension of the word intuition: these intuitions, such as multiplicity or any other property, are not perceptible in the same way as the material objects of intuitions. When I see two apples, I see the apples, not the two. I can touch the apples I see, but not the sum of them. The sum is another kind of intention, different from the intuitive intention. Multiplicity defies sensory perception. I can see the colour of something, but not its property of having a colour. Categorial intuitions are intuitions that are fundamentally not sensible. In Logical Investigations, Husserl needs categorial intuition to explain why objects appear to us as significant wholes. The entirety of the signification of the thing perceived cannot be reduced to perception. Let’s call a sheet of paper ‘white’. We perceive 19 We can go one step further. Intuitive acts, acts in which I see things whether they are actually present or not, can never reach the level where intuition and fulfilment coincide. When I see my friend, I see his face from one side or the other but never from all possible sides. My intuition is just partially fulfilled. This does not mean that I doubt whether he is indeed my friend, but simply that my recognition is not fully based on intuition. Intuitive acts are characterized by what Husserl calls ‘the ideal of final fulfilment’ (Logical Investigations VI, § ). This ideal implies that intuition always strives after what is called adequation (in metaphysics). Adequation always concerns an identity between two poles. In the case of intuition and fulfilment, Husserl speaks of adequation when the thing is not given in representation, but is actually present (wirklich gegenwärtig). If the object is identical with that which is intended, then the ideal of final fulfilment is adequately achieved. This means that the object is no longer given in adumbrations, but is evidently given as itself. Thus, if intuition is maximally fulfilled, the thing itself (‘die Sache selbst’) is given. Adequation implies what you see is what you get. 20 Husserl, Logical Investigations VI, § , p. .



ruud welten

that it is white, but signification of the word white does not depend on our perception of this particular piece of white paper. As Husserl says: The intention of the word ‘white’ coincides only partially with the colouraspect of the apparent object; a surplus (Überschuß) of meaning remains.21

Also: The realm of meaning is, however, much wider than that of intuition, i.e., than the total realm of possible fulfilment.22

The gap between intention and fulfilment creates a surplus on the side of signification, which implies some deficiency on the side of intuition. As a result, we have to conclude that in the domain of signification, intuition is never enough: what you get is more than you see (instead of what you see is what you get). The deficiency / surplus structure is sustained even by the later Husserl, who has left the notion of categorial intuition behind. This means that the fundamental surplus is not only typical of Husserl’s thought in Logical Investigations. Twenty years later, Husserl says: We cannot even image a mode of appearance in which the appearing object would be given completely. [ . . .] Every appearance implies a plus ultra.23

And in his very last work, he says: The things we see (die gesehen Dinge) are always really and actually more than what we see of them . . . 24

In other words, seen objects are apprehended only because of a surplus. Though this analysis gives us arguments for a possible Husserlian phenomenology of the sublime, it lacks the sensational, even dramatic connotations of Stendhal, Burke or Melville. To Marion, the described deficiency is a deficiency in Husserlian phenomenology itself. Husserl aims to go back to the things themselves and yet, the fundamental, and not accidental, status of the surplus shows that this going back is beyond his reach! Husserl, says Marion, frustrates his own project.25 Givenness is subordinated to conditions (intention, apperception, adumbration, categorial intuition) that are outside givenness itself. Like Descartes, Husserl wants to reach the highest degree of truth: evidence.26 Evidence is the 21 22 23 24 25 26

Husserl, Logical Investigations VI, § , p. . Husserl, Logical Investigations VI, § , p. . Edmund Husserl, Analyses, , p. . Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis, , § , p. . Jean-Luc Marion, , pp. –; p. . Jean-Luc Marion, , p. .

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



experience of consciousness of adequation. Sadly, since intuition is in need of a completion that can only be fulfilled on the noetic side, the adequation strived for can never be reached. Marion is searching for a phenomenality that will uphold givenness in its purest form within or, if necessary, beyond the intention / fulfilment structure: givenness that is not fully reduced to noetic conditions, givenness that is not merely the result of intentional constitutions. Hence, Marion’s counter-question is: can there be a phenomenon that is not marked by deficiency, but by excess or abundance: a saturated phenomenon— with saturation referring not only to fulfilment but also to an excess of fulfilment?27 Such a phenomenon would at least accord with the connotations we have with the sublime as described in the beginning of this paper. Marion’s thought on the saturated phenomenon does not concern a phenomenology of some special kind of phenomenon. He is thinking in terms of a radical phenomenology and therefore the saturated phenomenon concerns phenomenality itself, a phenomenality that is very nearly a revelation. Like the religious revelation, the saturated phenomenon is not a phenomenon of something, but it includes the appearance of phenomenality itself. Therefore, the saturated phenomenon cannot be fulfilled by a fixed term, not even by God. It always remains an unfulfilled possibility.28 This is also why the saturated phenomenon finds its metaphysical equal in Descartes’ idea of the infinite, or in Kant’s idea of the sublime.29 Like the saturated phenomenon, these are metaphysical manifestations that cannot be understood on the basis of a fixed object. So with Marion, we wonder if there can be a phenomenon that is not marked by deficiency, but by excess or abundance; if there can be a saturated phenomenon—with saturation not only referring to fulfilment, but also to an excess of fulfilment.30 In fact, says Marion, the history of philosophy offers many examples of such saturated phenomena. In addition to the sublime in Burke and Kant, there are Descartes’ idea of Infinity and Rudolf Otto’s description of Das Numinose: trying to look at the sun, my eyes inadvertently close and my hand comes up to cover my eyes and I turn away. In this case, intuition does not fail me. The phenomenon does not show itself inadequately. On the contrary, the 27 28 29 30

Marion, , p. . Marion, , p. . Marion, , p. . Marion, , p. .



ruud welten

phenomenality of the sun is characterized by a surplus: it blinds me; there is too much light. My intuition is not inadequate: it is saturated. Examples such as these explain phenomenality in terms of light and visibility. However, a burning passion, for instance, might also show itself as a saturated phenomenon. In this case, the phenomenality is not about light or visibility but about love, attention, or affection. We can imagine that saturation is the complete fulfilment of my senses past the point of overflowing, like a river overflowing its boundaries after heavy rains. Saturation, in this respect, exceeds limits and involves extravagance, excess. This excess is not only found in single phenomena, like the sun. A phenomenality that cannot be reduced to a purely intentional structure but is tributary to a non-phenomenal origin is nonetheless called saturated by Marion. Obviously, the saturated phenomenon is not just an alternative to Husserl’s deficient phenomenology. Instead, since Marion has demonstrated that the deficient phenomenon renders phenomenology impossible, the saturated phenomenon actually offers phenomenology its sole chance of survival. . Toward a Phenomenology of the Sublime Now that we have suggested that a phenomenology of the sublime is not just feasible but might be a condition for consciousness itself, let’s return to our initial question. What would a phenomenology of the sublime look like? Marion’s analysis implies that the experience of the sublime cannot be understood as something rare in life, unique to a trip to Florence, but that it is, in a Heideggerian sense, original to the possibility of consciousness. We have also suggested that the ‘sublime uneventfulness’ of the oceanic experience is the experience of nothing but horizon. We will return to this interpretation of the oceanic experience in the last part of this paper. We have described the oceanic experience as form of consciousness that is independent of subjective intentionality. Marion may be right in saying that in this case, intentionality is ‘reversed’, but then we are left with the problem of explaining what reversed intentionality is. Perhaps the oceanic gaze is simply unintentional. Yet, we feel we are being overwhelmed—just not overwhelmed by something. So, the phenomenological structure of the sublime uneventfulness of the oceanic experience is not characterized by intentionality—and where there is no intention there cannot be fulfilment—and the intention / fulfilment structure

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



is insufficient to describe what actually happens. We are now left with a negative description, unintentional, while we agreed with Marion that the oceanic experience is marked by fullness, even by saturation. So unintentional will not do. Continuing this line of reasoning, perhaps we could say that the experience we seek to describe is ‘non-intentional’, sidelining both fulfilment and saturation. Michel Henry describes such a ‘non-intentional’ phenomenology which, in plain terms, abandons the prime condition of intentionality. The object of consciousness cannot resolve the consciousness issue, which is what Husserl is implying when he states that consciousness is always consciousness of something. What is needed, according Henry, is a phenomenology of consciousness itself : How does consciousness reveal itself to itself? This addition to our analysis of intentionality is crucial. In this non-intentional sphere, the sublime is not so much understood as affluence of impression, but rather as a regaining of consciousness. This regaining of consciousness, however, is not thought as the gaining of consciousness of an object for a second time, but as the awareness of being conscious. It means being overwhelmed, not by the perceptibility of an object such as a pyramid or a painting, but by the imposing presence of our own consciousness. Like Marion, Henry does not dismiss the project of phenomenology itself, but rather its Husserlian (intentional) grounds. Husserl, agree Henry and Marion, fails to appreciate the grounds of phenomenology. In general terms, Henry accuses Husserl of fundamentally failing to unveil the feasibility of his own philosophical method, phenomenology. Henry states that phenomenology can be understood in two different ways. The first way, the Husserlian way, is naive. Husserlian phenomenology pretends to be true to the phenomena and independent of every possible interpretation or transcendental construction. According to Henry however, this kind of phenomenology actually misses the point by neglecting the necessary condition for phenomenality itself. The second way to understand phenomenology includes the necessary condition for phenomenology.31 It suggests that the actual phenomenon is not the object, nor its phenomenality but the condition for the object’s phenomenality— which Henry calls ‘the object in its how’. For him, pure phenomenology refers to the phenomenology of the appearing of phenomena, not 31 The object of phenomenology in a philosophical meaning is never constituted by phenomena in the ordinary sense of the word, but it is their phenomenality, or more precise, it is the original way according to which this pure phenomenality itself phenomenolises. Michel Henry, , p. .



ruud welten

only to the phenomena. According to Henry, classic—or Husserlian— phenomenology is build upon indefinite presuppositions.32 The appearing of phenomena remains totally indefinite, while Husserl’s desire to go back to the things themselves cannot but lead him to the condition, that they actually appear! The fact that objects appear cannot be reduced to the object that appears, for the thing in itself, says Henry, does not have the capability to appear. Henry provides us with some quite deep-seated criticism on Husserlian phenomenology. Classic phenomenology is after all modelled on the primacy of vision, because vision implies distance. Though Husserlian phenomenology is not simply a phenomenology of sensual perception— one can also see the images in ones dreams—intentionality causes us to see things, mind images or essences. The possibility of vision is based on distance or, in other words, intentionality distances itself. Distance from what? From subjectivity itself. This, contends Henry, is exactly the definition of ‘ob-ject’.33 What appears, what is being revealed by intentionality, is the object, fundamentally external to vision itself.34 So what about the subject? Does the subject reveal itself? The object can only be revealed because of the self-revelation of the subject. Again, this is difficult to understand in a Husserlian context as even in Husserl’s later works, phenomenological structures are primarily governed by intentionality. While according to Husserl, consciousness is characterized by transcendence and intentional involvement in the phenomenal world, Henry holds that it is constituted by immanence. Immanence necessarily precedes transcendence, for every experience or Erlebnis is an experience of consciousness: every experience is essentially a revelation of the self. The self cannot be understood as a psychological hypothesis, or as a person that thinks. What is given is manifestation itself, not some external object or thing in itself. Can we understand the experience of ‘sublime uneventfulness’, which is not caused by an external object or any impression this object might be able to make, as an immanent experience? Its uneventfulness is what creates an experience that is independent of every kind of intention, expectation or impression. And this is precisely what characterizes the sublime: nothing happens beyond us, but things happen inside, our 32 33 34

Michel Henry, , p. . Michel Henry, , p. . Michel Henry, , p. .

toward a phenomenology of the sublime



outlook is transforming—religion calls such an experience a kind of conversion. Similarly, the unveiling nature of the experience of ‘sublime uneventfulness’ becomes understandable. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you . . . (My italics)

So here you stand, just watching the waves ruffle, for hours. When you try to focus your view, the ocean just laughs at your tininess: it is too big for you. In this moment, you feel that you are not your own subjective ground. You are assimilated into something bigger than yourself, something beyond your horizon. The feeling fills you with fear and with joy at the same time. You are being assimilated into life itself. Here we have something that is closer to Kant’s description of the feeling of life (Lebensgefühl): standing on a boat on the ocean, the overwhelming experience of the ocean invests me. But the of in of the ocean is not the Husserlian of : is not the keyword of intentionality. It is intentionality without of : it is ‘uneventful’. The experience unrolls as ‘sublime uneventfulness’. Life is not a chain of experiences of this, that or the other: it is pure experience. From this angle, to experience being overwhelmed is to be overwhelmed by the capacity of consciousness itself. References Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, New York (Digireads) . Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents, (Translated by James Strachey) New York (Norton & Company) . Henry, Michel, Généalogie de la psychanalyse. Le commencement perdu, Paris (PUF), . ———, Phénoménologie matérielle, Paris (PUF) . ———, Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair, Paris (Éditions du Seuil) . Husserl, Edmund, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book. General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. (Translated by Fred Kersten) Dordrecht/Boston/London (Kluwer) . ———, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Hamburg (Felix Meiner) . ———, Logical Investigations VI, (translated by J.N. Findlay edited by Dermot Moran), London and New York (Routledge) . ———, Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. Lectures on Transcendental Logic (translator A.J. Steinbock) Dordrecht/ Boston/ London (Kluwer Academic Publishers) .



ruud welten

Kant, Immanuel, Critique of the Power of Judgment. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Cambridge/New York (Cambridge University Press) . Mohanty, J.N., The Concept Intentionality, St. Louis (Warren H. Green) . Marion, Jean-Luc, Étant donné. Essai d’ une phénoménologie de la donation (seconde édition corrigée) Paris (PUF, ‘Épiméthée’) . ———, ‘Le phénomène saturé’, in: Jean-François Courtine (ed.), Phénomenologie et théologie, Paris (Criterion) .

CONTRIBUTORS

Paul Cobben is Professor of Philosophy at Tilburg University (The Netherlands) and chairman of the Dutch-Flemish Center for German Idealism. His publications focus on practical philosophy, combining a systematic and historical approach. Among his books: Das endliche Selbst, Würzburg (Königshausen und Neumann) ; Das Gesetz der multikulturellen Gesellschaft, Würzburg (Königshausen & Neumann) , HegelLexikon (ed.), Darmstadt (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) ; The Nature of the Self. Recognition in the Form of Right and Morality, Berlin/ New York (De Gruyter) ; Institutions of Educations: then and today (ed.), Leiden/Boston (Brill) . Simon Critchley is Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research (New York, USA) and Professor of Philosophy at Tilburg University (The Netherlands). His work concentrates on Continental philosophy; phenomenology; philosophy and literature; psychoanalysis; the ethical and the political. Recent Publications: Der Katechismus des Bürgers (); On Heidegger’s Being and Time (); The Book of Dead Philosophers (); Infinitely Demanding (); EthicsPolitics-Subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas, and Contemporary French Thought (); The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas (). Herman van Erp retired in  as associate professor for social philosophy and ethics at Tilburg University, but is still a member of the Tilburg research group “Morality and Ethical Life”. He also teaches regularly as adjunct professor for philosophy at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. Recently, he was co-redactor of the translations into Dutch of Kant’s Critics and of Marx’s Das Kapital (Boom Publishers, –) and a member of the QANU-committee for accreditation of philosophical programs at Dutch universities. His research focuses on questions of fundamental ethics in a Kantian and Levinassian spirit, which he tries to confront and connect with a more Hegelian and Rawlsian political philosophy. Publications: Political Reason and Interest. A philosophical legitimation of the political order in a pluralistic society, London (Ashgate), . “Democracy without demos? Reflections on a European res



contributors

publica” and “The European Union: a Step Towards a World Republic?” both in: Jean-Christophe Merle (Hg.), Globale Gerechtigkeit / Global Justice, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt (Frommann-Holzboog), , resp. pp. – and –. Van Erp wrote also the lemmata concerning philosophy of history in Hegel-Lexikon, (Paul Cobben, Paul Cruysberghs, Peter Jonkers, Lu De Vos Hgs) Darmstadt . Arthur Kok achieved his Research Master in philosophy (Tilburg). Since  he writes his Ph.D. at Tilburg University (The Netherlands). His research discusses the comparability of Kant’s idea of a transcendental subject and Hegel’s idea of self-consciousness from a systematic and historical perspective. Recent article: “Absoluter Geist und Schöpfung. Jan Hollaks neothomistischer Hegelkritik”, in: Der Eine oder der Andere. »Gott«in der klassischen deutschen Philosophie und im Denken der Gegenwart. Ch. Asmuth, K. Drilo (ed.), Mohr Siebeck . Christian Krijnen is a professor for philosophy at the University of Tilburg and the VU University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on Modern Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy of Culture, Social Philosophy, Philosophy of Economics and Organization. Dissertation: Nachmetaphysischer Sinn. Eine problemgeschichtliche und systematische Studie zu den Prinzipien der Wertphilosophie Heinrich Rickerts, Würzburg . Habilitation: Philosophie als System. Prinzipientheoretische Untersuchungen zum Systemgedanken bei Hegel, im Neukantianismus und in der Gegenwartsphilosophie, Würzburg . Cf. for further publications: https://sites.google.com/site/christian krijnen/. Donald Loose is associate professor for Philosophy at Tilburg University and Thomas More professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His main research deals with fundamental ethics, Kant and Enlightenment, postmodern French political philosophy and religion in the public domain. Publications: Loose, D.A.A., ‘The highest good and the kingdom of God in the philosophy of Kant: a moral concept and a religious metaphor of the good life.’ in: M. Sarot & W. Stoker, Religion and the Good Life. Assen (Royal Van Gorcum) , pp. –; ‘Marcel Gauchet: politique, religion et christianisme’ in: A. Braeckman, La démocratie à bout de souffle? Une introduction critique à la philosophie politique de Marcel Gauchet, Louvain (Peeters), , pp. –; ‘Kant on Contingency in Christian Religion’ in: D.M. Grube & P. Jonkers, Religions Challenged by

contributors



Contingency. Theological and Philosophical Approaches to the problem of Contingency, Leiden (Brill) , pp. –; ‘ “Der Augapfel Gottes”. Das Recht als Integrationsfaktor der interkulturellen Gesellschaft’ in: H. Goris & M. Heimbach-Steins, Religion in Recht und politischer Ordnung heute, Würzburg (Ergon) , pp. –. Frans van Peperstraten is associate professor in the department of philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities, Tilburg University. He teaches Social Philosophy and Philosophy of Art and Culture. In his research he specializes on Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe and Lyotard. Some recent publications: ‘Modernity in Hölderlin’s Remarks on Oedipus and Antigone’, in: Arthur Cools, Thomas Crombez, Rosa Slegers, Johan Taels (eds.), The Locus of Tragedy, Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology, Vol. , Brill, Leiden/Boston , –; ‘Displacement or composition? Lyotard and Nancy on the trait d’ union between Judaism and Christianity’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion,  (), no. , –; ‘Der Nazismus-Vorwurf: Wo wird das Denken zur Ideologie?’, in: Alfred Denker und Holger Zaborowski (Hrsg.), Heidegger und der Nationalsozialismus II. Interpretationen (Heidegger-Jahrbuch ), Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg/München , –; ‘Bringing our Essence to Stand. Heidegger on Die Gestalt’, Existentia Meletai Sophias. An International Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XX (), –. Birgit Recki is Professor of practical philosophy at Hamburg University and editor of Ernst Cassirer in the “Hamburger Ausgabe”. Habilitation Ästhetik der Sitten: die Affinität von ästhetischem Gefühl und praktischer Vernunft bei Kant, Frankfurt am Main (Klostermann) . Some further publications: Kultur als Praxis: eine Einführung in Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Berlin (Akad.-Verlag) , , ; Die Vernunft, ihre Natur, ihr Gefühl und der Fortschritt: Aufsätze zu Immanuel Kant. Paderborn (Mentis) ; ‘Ästhetische Einstellung und moralische Haltung: die Perspektiven der Vernunft im Gefühl des Erhabenen.’ in: Perspektiven des Perspektivismus: Gedenkschrift für Friedrich Kaulbach, hrsg. von V. Gerhard und N. Herold, Würzburg, , –. Jacob Rogozinski is Professor at the University of Strasbourg, where he succeeded J.L. Nancy in . His research is focusing on contemporary French Philosophy and on phenomenological thinking of the Ego and the Body. He published recently in French Faire part—cryptes de Derrida, Lignes—Léo Scheer, , Le moi et la chair, Paris (Cerf) 



contributors

(English translation: The Ego and the Flesh, Stanford University Press, ), Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe—le césure et l’ impossible, Nouvelles Editions Lignes,  and Guérir la vie—la Passion d’ Antonin Artaud, Paris (Cerf) . Some of his essays have already been published in English in different collections, as Bodies of Resistance, Northwestern University Press, , Heidegger and Practical Philosophy, SUNY Press, , Rethinking Facticity, SUNY Press, , Law and Evil, Routledge, . Ruud Welten (Ph.D.) is lecturer Philosophy at Tilburg University and Professor Ethics at Saxion University of Applied Sciences. His Ph.D. entailed a research on the role of the imagination in religion, especially in the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion. He publishes mainly on contemporary French phenomenology from Jean-Paul Sartre to Michel Henry.

INDEX

agreeable , –,  analogy –, , , , , , – anesthesia ,  antagonism , ,  appearance , , –, –, , , , –, , – , , – appearing , –, , –  art –, , –, , –, , , –, –, – , – autonomy , , , , , , , , , , –, , , – , , , ,  awe , , , , –, , , ,  awesome –,  beauty , –, –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –,  Burke, E. , –, , , , –, –,  Calderón  choice , , –, –, –, ,  consciousness –, , , –, , , , –, , , , – , –, , , , , –, – consciousness, self- , , , –, –, –, , , – ,  Crowther , –, , , 

cultural –, –, , , , , , –,  culture –, , –, , –, –, –, – death –, , –, –, –, –, , – , , , –, –, –,  delight , , , , , , , ,  Derrida, J. –, , , , – Descartes , –, , –, , – disagreeable –,  disgust –, , – displeasure , –, , , , – , –, –,  dualism , , , , , , –, ,  education , –, , , , , , ,  emotion , , , , –, , , , –,  end –, , , , –, , , –, –, –, –, , –, , –, –, , –, , , –, –,  end in itself –,  end, final , , , –, , , , , – end, ultimate , , , –, – evil , , –, –, , ,  evil, radical , 



index

fear , , –, –, , , , –, , , –, – ,  fear of death –, –, – , , – feeling of life , ,  feeling, oceanic – feelings –, –, –, –, –, –, –, , , – , –, , –, , , –, , , –,  finality –, –, , –, , , – finitude , –, –,  Foessel, M. – freedom –, –, , –, –, –, –, , –, ,  Freud, S. , , ,  frightening , ,  genius , , , , , –  Goodreau, J.R. ,  Guyer, P. , , , , , ,  harmony –, –, –, – , , , , , ,  Hegel , –, , , , , , –, , –, – Henry, M. , – Herder  highest good –, ,  Hölderlin , –, , , ,  horrible , , , ,  Hume , –,  Husserl, E. , –, , , – idea –, , –, –, , – , –, , –, – , –, –, –, – ideas, aesthetic , , , –, –

ideas, intellectual ,  imagination –, –, –, – , –, , –, –, , –, , –,  infinitude  infinity –, –, ,  intentionality –, –, – intuition , , –, –, , –, –, –, – , , , – intuition, intellectual , , ,  Isis ,  judgment –, –, –, – , –, –, –, –, –, , , –, – , –, , – judgment, determining , , , , –, , , , , – judgment, direct  judgment, dynamical –,  judgment, indirect – judgment, mathematical – judgment, reflecting , –, , , , –, , , –, –, – Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. , –, – law –, –, –, –, – , –, –, –, –, , –,  law, moral , , –, –, – , , , , , , –, – , , , –,  Levinas, E. , ,  life , , , , , , –, , , , –, , , , –, –, , –  limit , , , , , , –, , – Longinus , –, , , , 

index Lord –, , , , – Lyotard –, , , –, –,  Marion, J.L. , – mathematical , , , , , – , –,  Melville, H. , –,  metaphysics –, –, , , –, –, –, , – mimesis , , , , , ,  monster , – monstrous –, – moral –, –, –, –, –, , , , , , –,  nausea – necessity –, , , , –, – , , , –, , , – , –, , , , – , –,  Nietzsche, F. –, –,  noumenal , , , –, – , –, –, , , ,  Noumenon –, , , , , – , –, –, –, –,  organic , , , –,  organism , , , , , – , , ,  pain –, , , –, ,  passion –, , ,  perception , –, , , , , , –, , , – ,  play , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  play, free , , , –,  pleasure , , , –, , – , –, –, –, –,



–, , –, –, –, ,  politics , , , , –, ,  presentation –, , , , , , , –, –, – , –, –,  purpose , , , –, –  purpose, final  purposelessness –, – purposiveness , , , –, –, –, , –, –  reason –, , –, –, – , –, –, –, , –, , , –, – , –, –,  reflection , , –, , –, , , , , , , ,  religion –, –, –, , , –, –, –, , – representation –, , –, – , , , –, –, –, –, , –, , –, –, –, , , , , ,  representation, symbolic , –, , – resistance , , , –, –, ,  respect –, –, –, –, , , , –, –, , – , , , , , , – , ,  Sartre, J.P. ,  saturation , – Schelling, F.W.J. , , , – schema ,  Schiller, F. –, –, ,  Schopenhauer, A. ,  sense, inner –, , , – , 

 sense, outer – sensibility , , , , –, , , , , –, , –, –, , , , – Shakespeare, W. –,  Shaw, G.B. ,  Stendhal , ,  sublation , , – sublime, dynamic , , , , – , , –, , , , , – , –, ,  sublime, mathematic , –,  supersensible , –, , –, –, , –, , , –, , , , –, , ,  super-sensual  symbol , , –, , –, , , , –, , ,  teleological , , –, –, – , –, –, , –, , , , ,  teleology , –, –, , , , –, , – terrible –, ,  terror , , , –, , – totality , , , , , , , –

index tragedy , , , –, – ,  tragic –, , , –, , –, – transcendental –, , , –, , , –, , , , –, –, , , –, – , , –, , , , , , , ,  Tugendhat, E.  understanding –, –, –, –, , –, –, –, , –, , –, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , – uneventfulness , , , , , – Ungeheuer –, , –, – , – unpleasant  unpresentable , , –, –,  Wagner , , , –, ,  war , , , –, 