Reassessing Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature in the Kantian Sublime

Abstract

The sublime has been a relatively neglected topic in recent work in philosophical aesthetics, with existing discussions confined mainly to problems in Kant’s theory.1 Given the revival of interest in his aesthetic theory and the influence of the Kantian sublime compared to other eighteenth-century accounts, this focus is not surprising. Kant’s emphasis on nature also sets his theory apart from other eighteenth-century theories that, although making nature central, also give explicit attention to moral character and mathematical ideas and generally devote more discussion to art and artifacts than Kant did.2 Recent postmodern and poststructuralist theories of the sublime tend to concentrate on the concept in art and literature.3 New work in aesthetics of nature has mined Kant’s discussion of natural beauty, yet little attention has been given to his treatment of the sublime or, indeed, to non-Kantian understandings of the sublime.4 In this essay I examine the ambiguous place of aesthetic appreciation of nature in Kant’s theory of the sublime. Given the significance and influence of his theory, I take my project to be a prolegomenon to any contemporary debate on the relevance of the sublime to aesthetics of nature more generally. Critical discussions of Kant’s mature theory of the sublime, as it appears in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, point to the difficulties and complexities of his ideas and the ambiguous positioning of the sublime between aesthetic and moral concerns in his critical philosophy.5 Although Kant’s theory is deeply indebted to eighteenth-century accounts of the sublime, it is this aesthetic-moral positioning within the framework of transcendental idealism that sets his account apart from them. It may also explain to some extent why his views have had a stronger impact than Burke’s on subsequent