Abstract
Awe seems to be a complex emotion or emotional construct characterized by a mix of positive (contentment, happiness), and negative affective components (fear and a sense of being smaller, humbler or insignificant). It is striking that the elicitors of awe correspond closely to what philosophical aesthetics, and especially Burke and Kant, have called “the sublime.” As a matter of fact, awe is almost absent from the philosophical agenda, while there are very few studies on the experience of the sublime as such in the psychological literature. The aim of this paper is to throw light on the complex relationship between awe (as understood by psychologists) and the experience of the sublime (as discussed by philosophers). We distinguish seven ways of conceiving this relationship and highlight those that seem more promising to us. Once we have a clearer picture of how awe and the experience of the sublime are related, we can use it to enhance collaboration between these domains. We would be able to use empirical results about awe in a philosophical analysis of the experience of the sublime, which in turn can help us to design novel experimental hypotheses about the contexts in which we experience awe.
Highlights
Since Keltner and Haidt (2003)’s seminal paper, psychologists have become increasingly interested in awe, an affective experience which is difficult to explain within the traditional dichotomy between positive and negative emotions
Awe seems to be a complex emotion or emotional construct characterized by a mix of positive, and negative affective components
A terminological equivalence might recommend itself as the simplest, our goal is to show that alternative explanations of the relationship between awe and the experience of the sublime are worth exploring, opening up new paths of interdisciplinary enquiry
Summary
Since Keltner and Haidt (2003)’s seminal paper, psychologists have become increasingly interested in awe, an affective experience which is difficult to explain within the traditional dichotomy between positive and negative emotions. It is widely acknowledged that experiences of awe produce in general positive outcomes contributing to mental health (increased pro-social behavior, lifesatisfaction and meaning of life – see, e.g., Rudd et al, 2012; Piff et al, 2015), and most psychological studies have investigated awe as a positive emotion (see, e.g., Griskevicius et al, 2010; Campos et al, 2013; Shiota et al, 2017). Awe seems to be a complex emotion or emotional construct characterized by a mix of positive (contentment, happiness), and negative affective components (fear and a sense of being smaller, humbler or insignificant). It is Abbreviations: ES, experience of the sublime. Starry night skies, waterfalls, grand canyons, deserts, thunderstorms are all examples of grand stimuli triggering experiences of the sublime This type of experience arises when we are confronted with an overwhelming vastness or power and nature offers paradigmatic examples of such a grandeur. We will briefly indicate what is in our view the most promising path to understand the complex relationship between awe and the experience of the sublime ( ES)
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