Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
In the 1980s, this book contends, an uncritical affirmation of anti-essentialism turned this important feminist critique into a disciplinary dogmatism that constrained and homogenized feminist ...
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In the 1980s, this book contends, an uncritical affirmation of anti-essentialism turned this important feminist critique into a disciplinary dogmatism that constrained and homogenized feminist thinking. Feminist work in the academy became forgetful of both women and nature, and began to exchange an engaged politics for the intensity of sublime experience in its postmodern form. This book works between the modern and postmodern notions of the sublime to show that the gendered politics and effacement of nature, central to the modern sublime, especially in Kant's account, are at the heart of the postmodern sublime as well. It turns to Lyotard's postmodern sublime to argue that this sublime is hard at work in feminist poststructuralism, especially the early texts of Judith Butler. The melting away of the extra-discursively real in these accounts tends to make feminist thinking incapable of meaningfully articulating our relations to the natural world and to one another. Yet these very relations are necessarily tied to powerful aesthetic experiences of beauty and sublimity.Less
In the 1980s, this book contends, an uncritical affirmation of anti-essentialism turned this important feminist critique into a disciplinary dogmatism that constrained and homogenized feminist thinking. Feminist work in the academy became forgetful of both women and nature, and began to exchange an engaged politics for the intensity of sublime experience in its postmodern form. This book works between the modern and postmodern notions of the sublime to show that the gendered politics and effacement of nature, central to the modern sublime, especially in Kant's account, are at the heart of the postmodern sublime as well. It turns to Lyotard's postmodern sublime to argue that this sublime is hard at work in feminist poststructuralism, especially the early texts of Judith Butler. The melting away of the extra-discursively real in these accounts tends to make feminist thinking incapable of meaningfully articulating our relations to the natural world and to one another. Yet these very relations are necessarily tied to powerful aesthetic experiences of beauty and sublimity.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that a feminist account of the sublime is important today because the dominant framework for encountering the sublime is one that leads ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that a feminist account of the sublime is important today because the dominant framework for encountering the sublime is one that leads precisely to the fated efforts toward sovereignty and invulnerability we see all around us. But other responses are possible. The sublime might also be an occasion for the affirmation of relations that are both inevitable and ethically binding. These other sublimes will require a different kind of courage, one that is able to linger with grief when it swells to unmanageable proportions, when it overtakes and overthrows pretensions to a power so grand that it borders on omnipotence. They will require the courage to face the pain that we must live in our encounters with beautiful nature, and with powerful nature, in spite of the fact that this pain takes the punch out of the spectacles of invulnerability we create with ourselves at the center.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that a feminist account of the sublime is important today because the dominant framework for encountering the sublime is one that leads precisely to the fated efforts toward sovereignty and invulnerability we see all around us. But other responses are possible. The sublime might also be an occasion for the affirmation of relations that are both inevitable and ethically binding. These other sublimes will require a different kind of courage, one that is able to linger with grief when it swells to unmanageable proportions, when it overtakes and overthrows pretensions to a power so grand that it borders on omnipotence. They will require the courage to face the pain that we must live in our encounters with beautiful nature, and with powerful nature, in spite of the fact that this pain takes the punch out of the spectacles of invulnerability we create with ourselves at the center.
Paul Crowther
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198239314
- eISBN:
- 9780191597275
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198239319.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Kant's theory of the sublime has become one of the most keenly studied elements in both his own aesthetics and aesthetic theory in general. This book offers a sustained analysis of Kant's theory of ...
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Kant's theory of the sublime has become one of the most keenly studied elements in both his own aesthetics and aesthetic theory in general. This book offers a sustained analysis of Kant's theory of the sublime as found throughout his critical philosophy but, of course, gives closest and most sustained attention to the Critique of Judgement's ‘Analytic of the Sublime’. More specifically, the book offers first an overview of Kant's general aesthetic theory and then a detailed analysis of the structure of argument in Kant's accounts of the mathematical and dynamical sublime, and the feeling of ‘respect’. Various difficulties are identified. The theory is then reconstructed in a more viable form, and extended into the sphere of art by means of the notions of ‘aesthetic idea’ and ‘genius’.Less
Kant's theory of the sublime has become one of the most keenly studied elements in both his own aesthetics and aesthetic theory in general. This book offers a sustained analysis of Kant's theory of the sublime as found throughout his critical philosophy but, of course, gives closest and most sustained attention to the Critique of Judgement's ‘Analytic of the Sublime’. More specifically, the book offers first an overview of Kant's general aesthetic theory and then a detailed analysis of the structure of argument in Kant's accounts of the mathematical and dynamical sublime, and the feeling of ‘respect’. Various difficulties are identified. The theory is then reconstructed in a more viable form, and extended into the sphere of art by means of the notions of ‘aesthetic idea’ and ‘genius’.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter describes one type of sublime experience that often tears open the sealed worlds that tend to mark our contemporary life, called the “the natural sublime”. Natural sublime shows us that ...
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This chapter describes one type of sublime experience that often tears open the sealed worlds that tend to mark our contemporary life, called the “the natural sublime”. Natural sublime shows us that while the two realms of necessity and freedom are distinct, they are not separate. Either eliding the distinction between them or treating them as quite separate results in the misunderstanding of both realms.Less
This chapter describes one type of sublime experience that often tears open the sealed worlds that tend to mark our contemporary life, called the “the natural sublime”. Natural sublime shows us that while the two realms of necessity and freedom are distinct, they are not separate. Either eliding the distinction between them or treating them as quite separate results in the misunderstanding of both realms.
Malcolm Budd
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199259656
- eISBN:
- 9780191597121
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199259658.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Consists of four self‐contained essays on the aesthetics of nature, which complement one another by exploring the subject from different points of view. The first is concerned with how the idea of ...
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Consists of four self‐contained essays on the aesthetics of nature, which complement one another by exploring the subject from different points of view. The first is concerned with how the idea of aesthetic appreciation of nature should be understood and proposes that it is best understood as aesthetic appreciation of nature as nature—as what nature actually is. This idea is elaborated by means of accounts of what is meant by nature, what is meant by a response to nature as nature, and what an aesthetic response consists in, and through an examination of the aesthetic relevance of knowledge of nature. The second essay, which is divided into three separate chapters, expounds and critically examines Immanuel Kant's theory of aesthetic judgements about nature. The first of these chapters deals with Kant's account of aesthetic judgements about natural beauty; the second with his claims about the connections between love of natural beauty and morality (which are contrasted with Schiller's claim about love of naive nature); and the third examines his theory of aesthetic judgements about the sublime in nature, rejecting much of Kant's view and proposing an alternative account of the emotion of the sublime. The third essay argues against the assimilation of the aesthetics of nature to that of art, explores the question of what determines the aesthetic properties of a natural item, and attempts to show that the doctrine of positive aesthetics with respect to nature, which maintains that nature unaffected by humanity is such as to make negative aesthetic judgements about the products of the natural world misplaced, is in certain versions false, in others inherently problematic. The fourth essay is a critical survey of much of the most significant recent literature on the aesthetics of nature. Various models of the aesthetic appreciation of nature have been advanced, but none of these is acceptable and, it is argued, no model is needed.Less
Consists of four self‐contained essays on the aesthetics of nature, which complement one another by exploring the subject from different points of view. The first is concerned with how the idea of aesthetic appreciation of nature should be understood and proposes that it is best understood as aesthetic appreciation of nature as nature—as what nature actually is. This idea is elaborated by means of accounts of what is meant by nature, what is meant by a response to nature as nature, and what an aesthetic response consists in, and through an examination of the aesthetic relevance of knowledge of nature. The second essay, which is divided into three separate chapters, expounds and critically examines Immanuel Kant's theory of aesthetic judgements about nature. The first of these chapters deals with Kant's account of aesthetic judgements about natural beauty; the second with his claims about the connections between love of natural beauty and morality (which are contrasted with Schiller's claim about love of naive nature); and the third examines his theory of aesthetic judgements about the sublime in nature, rejecting much of Kant's view and proposing an alternative account of the emotion of the sublime. The third essay argues against the assimilation of the aesthetics of nature to that of art, explores the question of what determines the aesthetic properties of a natural item, and attempts to show that the doctrine of positive aesthetics with respect to nature, which maintains that nature unaffected by humanity is such as to make negative aesthetic judgements about the products of the natural world misplaced, is in certain versions false, in others inherently problematic. The fourth essay is a critical survey of much of the most significant recent literature on the aesthetics of nature. Various models of the aesthetic appreciation of nature have been advanced, but none of these is acceptable and, it is argued, no model is needed.
Paul Crowther
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198236238
- eISBN:
- 9780191597268
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198236239.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Considerable controversy has raged around the question of postmodern culture and its products. This book attempts to overcome some of the antagonistic viewpoints involved by developing themes from ...
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Considerable controversy has raged around the question of postmodern culture and its products. This book attempts to overcome some of the antagonistic viewpoints involved by developing themes from the work of Kant, Benjamin, and Merleau–Ponty in the context of themes from contemporary culture. Attention is paid to such topics as the relation between art and politics, the problematics of poststructuralist and feminist approaches to art, the emergence and re‐emergence of theories of the sublime, and the continuing possibility of artistic creativity. The central theme is that there are experiential constants around which art and philosophy constellate. At the same time, however, due account must be given of the ways in which such constants are historically mediated. By articulating various aspects of this relation, it is shown how postmodern sensibility can be more than that of an alienated consumerism. Understood in the proper theoretical context, it is grounded on experiences and artefacts that humanize.Less
Considerable controversy has raged around the question of postmodern culture and its products. This book attempts to overcome some of the antagonistic viewpoints involved by developing themes from the work of Kant, Benjamin, and Merleau–Ponty in the context of themes from contemporary culture. Attention is paid to such topics as the relation between art and politics, the problematics of poststructuralist and feminist approaches to art, the emergence and re‐emergence of theories of the sublime, and the continuing possibility of artistic creativity. The central theme is that there are experiential constants around which art and philosophy constellate. At the same time, however, due account must be given of the ways in which such constants are historically mediated. By articulating various aspects of this relation, it is shown how postmodern sensibility can be more than that of an alienated consumerism. Understood in the proper theoretical context, it is grounded on experiences and artefacts that humanize.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter focuses on the notion of the postmodern sublime. It considers Lyotard's late work to illustrate what is disturbing and what might be important in feminist appropriations of the sublime. ...
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This chapter focuses on the notion of the postmodern sublime. It considers Lyotard's late work to illustrate what is disturbing and what might be important in feminist appropriations of the sublime. It begins by contextualizing Lyotard's treatment of the sublime in terms of his broader project of developing a “philosophical politics” of “bearing witness to the differend.” It then looks more closely at Lyotard's reading of the Kantian sublime and at his discussion of language using the famous example of “Albert.” The chapter addresses the following questions: what happens to place in Lyotard's philosophical politics? What political possibilities are opened or closed in the process? Finally, one of Lyotard's essays on feminism, or as he terms it “women's struggles,” is discussed, which paves the way for looking at how the postmodern sublime is at work in feminist thinking in the next chapters.Less
This chapter focuses on the notion of the postmodern sublime. It considers Lyotard's late work to illustrate what is disturbing and what might be important in feminist appropriations of the sublime. It begins by contextualizing Lyotard's treatment of the sublime in terms of his broader project of developing a “philosophical politics” of “bearing witness to the differend.” It then looks more closely at Lyotard's reading of the Kantian sublime and at his discussion of language using the famous example of “Albert.” The chapter addresses the following questions: what happens to place in Lyotard's philosophical politics? What political possibilities are opened or closed in the process? Finally, one of Lyotard's essays on feminism, or as he terms it “women's struggles,” is discussed, which paves the way for looking at how the postmodern sublime is at work in feminist thinking in the next chapters.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter focuses on Judith Butler's early work in order to clarify some central stakes (or mis-takes) of feminist postmodernism. It begins by acknowledging and responding to her insistence that ...
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This chapter focuses on Judith Butler's early work in order to clarify some central stakes (or mis-takes) of feminist postmodernism. It begins by acknowledging and responding to her insistence that the term “postmodernism” is misleading and masks a “ruse of authority” that distorts rather than clarifies the issues at hand. It is argued that establishing the feminist postmodern over and against a foreclosed“essentialism” amounts to a disavowal of the realm of necessity. A dual conception of “nature” as “human nature” and the natural world is foreclosed at the moment that inaugurates the textual space in which feminist postmodernism sets to work. This disavowed realm returns on the inside of Butler's theory as a discursive “nature,” which makes constant trouble in regards to the subject's agency, the subject's freedom. It is shown that Butler's approach to the relation between extradiscursive being and speech authorizes the displacement of feminism from its foundation, but not a foundation in the unitary subject so much as a foundation in a certain set of historical projects. The return of the repressed realm of necessity (or otherwise said, the repressed relation to the earth) in Butler's early texts, its return as discursive determinacy, pushes toward exactly what Butler turns to in her later work: the theme of embodied vulnerability in relation to other persons.Less
This chapter focuses on Judith Butler's early work in order to clarify some central stakes (or mis-takes) of feminist postmodernism. It begins by acknowledging and responding to her insistence that the term “postmodernism” is misleading and masks a “ruse of authority” that distorts rather than clarifies the issues at hand. It is argued that establishing the feminist postmodern over and against a foreclosed“essentialism” amounts to a disavowal of the realm of necessity. A dual conception of “nature” as “human nature” and the natural world is foreclosed at the moment that inaugurates the textual space in which feminist postmodernism sets to work. This disavowed realm returns on the inside of Butler's theory as a discursive “nature,” which makes constant trouble in regards to the subject's agency, the subject's freedom. It is shown that Butler's approach to the relation between extradiscursive being and speech authorizes the displacement of feminism from its foundation, but not a foundation in the unitary subject so much as a foundation in a certain set of historical projects. The return of the repressed realm of necessity (or otherwise said, the repressed relation to the earth) in Butler's early texts, its return as discursive determinacy, pushes toward exactly what Butler turns to in her later work: the theme of embodied vulnerability in relation to other persons.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter focuses on feminist notions of pornography. It argues that feminist celebrations of pornography make no effort to dismantle the Euro-masculinist projects of mastery, nor to dismantle the ...
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This chapter focuses on feminist notions of pornography. It argues that feminist celebrations of pornography make no effort to dismantle the Euro-masculinist projects of mastery, nor to dismantle the master narratives that support the subordination of women to men. The melting away of the social world that occasions entrance into the discursive universe of pornography becomes both its justification and purpose, fulfilling as it does the imperative to be anti-essentialist at all cost. Just as Lyotard's “philosophical politics” failed to become a politics at all by eliminating the possibility of political solidarity with victims of historical wrongs, pro-pornography feminism fails to be feminist when it offers women no place to stand outside the pornographic text from which to bear witness to the harm pornography does to women.Less
This chapter focuses on feminist notions of pornography. It argues that feminist celebrations of pornography make no effort to dismantle the Euro-masculinist projects of mastery, nor to dismantle the master narratives that support the subordination of women to men. The melting away of the social world that occasions entrance into the discursive universe of pornography becomes both its justification and purpose, fulfilling as it does the imperative to be anti-essentialist at all cost. Just as Lyotard's “philosophical politics” failed to become a politics at all by eliminating the possibility of political solidarity with victims of historical wrongs, pro-pornography feminism fails to be feminist when it offers women no place to stand outside the pornographic text from which to bear witness to the harm pornography does to women.
Bonnie Mann
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195187458
- eISBN:
- 9780199786565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195187458.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter describes one type of sublime experience that often tears open the sealed worlds that tend to mark our contemporary life, called “the liberatory sublime.” The liberatory sublime is the ...
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This chapter describes one type of sublime experience that often tears open the sealed worlds that tend to mark our contemporary life, called “the liberatory sublime.” The liberatory sublime is the aesthetic experience of the opening of worlds onto a space between, in which the claims of one woman on another, of one person on another, can be heard and lived. It is the aesthetic experience of the other's presence as a person that interrupts the comfort of a world organized to reduce other persons (women in relation to men, women in relation to one another) to mere functions. Sublime experience is orienting for feminism because it breaks open a space for feminist practice across all kinds of differences. And if that space is a ground of fierce contestation, then it is also a common ground, a ground on which we are called to give an account of how we live, think, and work in relation to one another.Less
This chapter describes one type of sublime experience that often tears open the sealed worlds that tend to mark our contemporary life, called “the liberatory sublime.” The liberatory sublime is the aesthetic experience of the opening of worlds onto a space between, in which the claims of one woman on another, of one person on another, can be heard and lived. It is the aesthetic experience of the other's presence as a person that interrupts the comfort of a world organized to reduce other persons (women in relation to men, women in relation to one another) to mere functions. Sublime experience is orienting for feminism because it breaks open a space for feminist practice across all kinds of differences. And if that space is a ground of fierce contestation, then it is also a common ground, a ground on which we are called to give an account of how we live, think, and work in relation to one another.
David Kyuman Kim
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195319828
- eISBN:
- 9780199785667
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195319828.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter focuses on so-called projects of regenerating agency in late modernity and postmodernity. It begins by recapping Taylor's diagnosis of the problem of agency in modernity: a diagnosis ...
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This chapter focuses on so-called projects of regenerating agency in late modernity and postmodernity. It begins by recapping Taylor's diagnosis of the problem of agency in modernity: a diagnosis that turns out to be a revised version of the secularization thesis. It then moves to Taylor's suggested therapy for the problem of agency, namely, his invocation of the aesthetic and poetic as epiphanic, that is, as a revelation of held moral orientations, ideals, values, and ends. Taylor's treatment of the epiphanic is critiqued through a discussion of the relationship between the sublime and agency. It is argued that Taylor's invocation of the epiphanic as sublime remains a gesture, that is, a promising movement and hope for a glimpse of transcendence. The promise of the epiphanic and the sublime for projects of regenerating agency becomes clearer when interpreted as part of the ends and aims of the disciplines of self-cultivation and self-transformation.Less
This chapter focuses on so-called projects of regenerating agency in late modernity and postmodernity. It begins by recapping Taylor's diagnosis of the problem of agency in modernity: a diagnosis that turns out to be a revised version of the secularization thesis. It then moves to Taylor's suggested therapy for the problem of agency, namely, his invocation of the aesthetic and poetic as epiphanic, that is, as a revelation of held moral orientations, ideals, values, and ends. Taylor's treatment of the epiphanic is critiqued through a discussion of the relationship between the sublime and agency. It is argued that Taylor's invocation of the epiphanic as sublime remains a gesture, that is, a promising movement and hope for a glimpse of transcendence. The promise of the epiphanic and the sublime for projects of regenerating agency becomes clearer when interpreted as part of the ends and aims of the disciplines of self-cultivation and self-transformation.
Paul Crowther
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199579976
- eISBN:
- 9780191722615
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579976.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, History of Philosophy
This chapter rectifies shortcomings in the author's previous sustained treatment of this subject in his book The Kantian Sublime: From Morality to Art. The structure of Kant's account of the ...
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This chapter rectifies shortcomings in the author's previous sustained treatment of this subject in his book The Kantian Sublime: From Morality to Art. The structure of Kant's account of the mathematical sublime is analyzed, suggesting that the role played by infinity should be regarded as contingent rather than necessary, and that an austere reconstruction of his theory is to be preferred over Kant's own rather baroque account. A similar exposition is performed in relation to Kant's account of the dynamical sublime. In revising Kant's theory, special attention is paid to the hitherto neglected question of the specific perceptual cues that trigger experiences of both varieties of the sublime. The theory is also extended to cover artworks, including some of an avant-garde nature.Less
This chapter rectifies shortcomings in the author's previous sustained treatment of this subject in his book The Kantian Sublime: From Morality to Art. The structure of Kant's account of the mathematical sublime is analyzed, suggesting that the role played by infinity should be regarded as contingent rather than necessary, and that an austere reconstruction of his theory is to be preferred over Kant's own rather baroque account. A similar exposition is performed in relation to Kant's account of the dynamical sublime. In revising Kant's theory, special attention is paid to the hitherto neglected question of the specific perceptual cues that trigger experiences of both varieties of the sublime. The theory is also extended to cover artworks, including some of an avant-garde nature.
Martin Schöneld
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195132182
- eISBN:
- 9780199786336
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195132181.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter explores Kant’s second book, Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755). Section 1 describes the context of the book and Kant’s critique of static and anthropocentric ...
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This chapter explores Kant’s second book, Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755). Section 1 describes the context of the book and Kant’s critique of static and anthropocentric conceptions of nature by the Pietists, Physico-Theologians, Newton, and Wolff. Section 2 describes the goal of Kant’s teleology, its naturalized thrust toward well-ordered complexity or “relative perfection.” Section 3 examines the means of Kant”s teleology, the dynamic interplay of attractive and repulsive forces. Section 4 analyzes the application of teleology to cosmic phenomena such as the solar system, Wright’s earlier stipulation, Laplace’s later conjecture, and the eventual confirmation of Kant’s nebular hypothesis. Section 5 explores Kant’s arguments for life, humanity, and reason as products of cosmic evolution. Section 6 discusses Kant’s “static law” — that the mean planetary density determines the biospherical potential of reason — and its incongruity with the racism in Physical Geography (1756-60) and Beautiful and Sublime (1764). Section 7 describes Kant’s dynamic cosmology, explicates his “phoenix”-symbol, and discusses his various scientific aperçus.Less
This chapter explores Kant’s second book, Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755). Section 1 describes the context of the book and Kant’s critique of static and anthropocentric conceptions of nature by the Pietists, Physico-Theologians, Newton, and Wolff. Section 2 describes the goal of Kant’s teleology, its naturalized thrust toward well-ordered complexity or “relative perfection.” Section 3 examines the means of Kant”s teleology, the dynamic interplay of attractive and repulsive forces. Section 4 analyzes the application of teleology to cosmic phenomena such as the solar system, Wright’s earlier stipulation, Laplace’s later conjecture, and the eventual confirmation of Kant’s nebular hypothesis. Section 5 explores Kant’s arguments for life, humanity, and reason as products of cosmic evolution. Section 6 discusses Kant’s “static law” — that the mean planetary density determines the biospherical potential of reason — and its incongruity with the racism in Physical Geography (1756-60) and Beautiful and Sublime (1764). Section 7 describes Kant’s dynamic cosmology, explicates his “phoenix”-symbol, and discusses his various scientific aperçus.
Martin Schöneld
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195132182
- eISBN:
- 9780199786336
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195132181.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter explores Kant’s crisis in the early 1760s and its result, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766). Section 1 discusses Kant’s development after the Prize Essay: the essay on Beautiful and Sublime ...
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This chapter explores Kant’s crisis in the early 1760s and its result, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766). Section 1 discusses Kant’s development after the Prize Essay: the essay on Beautiful and Sublime (1764), the Negative Quantities paper (1764), and the Lecture Announcement (1765). Section 2 examines the context and inspiration of Kant’s treatise — the attack on Swedenborg’s mysticism. Section 3 explores the fallout of Kant’s Swedenborg-attack for the pre-critical project — the acknowledged impossibility of a synthesis of natural science and metaphysics, and the consequent need for a methodological bifurcation between the sensible and the intelligible.Less
This chapter explores Kant’s crisis in the early 1760s and its result, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766). Section 1 discusses Kant’s development after the Prize Essay: the essay on Beautiful and Sublime (1764), the Negative Quantities paper (1764), and the Lecture Announcement (1765). Section 2 examines the context and inspiration of Kant’s treatise — the attack on Swedenborg’s mysticism. Section 3 explores the fallout of Kant’s Swedenborg-attack for the pre-critical project — the acknowledged impossibility of a synthesis of natural science and metaphysics, and the consequent need for a methodological bifurcation between the sensible and the intelligible.
Frederick Beiser
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199282821
- eISBN:
- 9780191603068
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019928282X.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book is an attempt to rehabilitate Schiller as a philosopher. It defends his philosophy against his Marxist, post-modernist and Kantian critics. Some chapters are exegetical, others thematic. ...
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This book is an attempt to rehabilitate Schiller as a philosopher. It defends his philosophy against his Marxist, post-modernist and Kantian critics. Some chapters are exegetical, others thematic. The exegetical chapters (2-4) re-examine the arguments and context of some of his most important writings, Kallias Briefe, Anmut und Würde, and the Äesthetische Briefe. The thematic chapters treat Schiller’s intellectual development, his concept of freedom, his theory of tragedy, and his dispute with the Kantians. In defense of Schiller, it is argued that his project for an objective aesthetic was not misguided in principle, that he does not conflate aesthetic and moral values, that his concept of the beautiful soul should not be confused with its Rousseauian variants, and that his concept of grace does not mean acting from natural sentiment. It is also contended that Schiller offers a plausible revision of Kant’s moral philosophy, an interesting response to the problem of freedom in post-Kantian philosophy, and a much underrated theory of tragedy, and a remarkable attempt to square the demands of aesthetic autonomy with moral purpose in the arts. The aim is not to sanctify or whitewash Schiller, but to show that his critics have largely misunderstood him.Less
This book is an attempt to rehabilitate Schiller as a philosopher. It defends his philosophy against his Marxist, post-modernist and Kantian critics. Some chapters are exegetical, others thematic. The exegetical chapters (2-4) re-examine the arguments and context of some of his most important writings, Kallias Briefe, Anmut und Würde, and the Äesthetische Briefe. The thematic chapters treat Schiller’s intellectual development, his concept of freedom, his theory of tragedy, and his dispute with the Kantians. In defense of Schiller, it is argued that his project for an objective aesthetic was not misguided in principle, that he does not conflate aesthetic and moral values, that his concept of the beautiful soul should not be confused with its Rousseauian variants, and that his concept of grace does not mean acting from natural sentiment. It is also contended that Schiller offers a plausible revision of Kant’s moral philosophy, an interesting response to the problem of freedom in post-Kantian philosophy, and a much underrated theory of tragedy, and a remarkable attempt to square the demands of aesthetic autonomy with moral purpose in the arts. The aim is not to sanctify or whitewash Schiller, but to show that his critics have largely misunderstood him.
Carolyn Korsmeyer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199756940
- eISBN:
- 9780199895212
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756940.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Disgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion ...
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Disgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion can constitute a positive, appreciative aesthetic response when exploited by works of art—a phenomenon we might consider “aesthetic disgust.” While the reactive, visceral power of disgust contributes to its misleading reputation as a relatively “primitive” response mechanism, it is this feature that also gives it a particular aesthetic power when manifest in art. Most treatments of disgust mistakenly interpret it as only an extreme response, thereby neglecting the many subtle ways that it operates aesthetically. This study calls attention to the diversity and depth of its uses, analyzing the emotion in detail and considering the enormous variety of aesthetic forms it can assume in works of art and, unexpectedly, even in foods. In the process of articulating a positive role for disgust, the nature of aesthetic apprehension is scrutinized and an argument developed for the distinctive mode of cognition that disgust affords—an intimate apprehension of physical mortality. However, despite some commonalities attached to the meaning of disgust, this emotion assumes many aesthetic forms: it can be funny, profound, witty, ironic, unsettling, and gross. To demonstrate this diversity, several chapters review examples of disgust as it is aroused by art. The book ends by investigating to what extent disgust can be discovered in art that is also considered beautiful.Less
Disgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion can constitute a positive, appreciative aesthetic response when exploited by works of art—a phenomenon we might consider “aesthetic disgust.” While the reactive, visceral power of disgust contributes to its misleading reputation as a relatively “primitive” response mechanism, it is this feature that also gives it a particular aesthetic power when manifest in art. Most treatments of disgust mistakenly interpret it as only an extreme response, thereby neglecting the many subtle ways that it operates aesthetically. This study calls attention to the diversity and depth of its uses, analyzing the emotion in detail and considering the enormous variety of aesthetic forms it can assume in works of art and, unexpectedly, even in foods. In the process of articulating a positive role for disgust, the nature of aesthetic apprehension is scrutinized and an argument developed for the distinctive mode of cognition that disgust affords—an intimate apprehension of physical mortality. However, despite some commonalities attached to the meaning of disgust, this emotion assumes many aesthetic forms: it can be funny, profound, witty, ironic, unsettling, and gross. To demonstrate this diversity, several chapters review examples of disgust as it is aroused by art. The book ends by investigating to what extent disgust can be discovered in art that is also considered beautiful.
Lecia Rosenthal
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823233977
- eISBN:
- 9780823241200
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823233977.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book examines the writing of catastrophe, mass death, and collective loss in 20th-century literature and criticism. With particular focus on texts by Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, and W.G. ...
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This book examines the writing of catastrophe, mass death, and collective loss in 20th-century literature and criticism. With particular focus on texts by Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, and W.G. Sebald, the book engages the century's signal preoccupation with world-ending, a mixed rhetoric of totality and rupture, finitude and survival, the end and its posthumous remainders. Fascinated with the threat of apocalypse, the century proliferates the spectacle of world-ending as a form of desire, an ambivalent compulsion to consume and outlive the end of all. In conversation with recent discussions of the century's passion for the real, and taking on the century's late aesthetics of subtraction, the book reads the century's obsession with negative forms of ending and outcome. Drawing connections between the current interest in the category of trauma and the tradition of the sublime, it reframes the terms of the modernist experiment and its aesthetics of the breaking-point from the lens of a late sublime.Less
This book examines the writing of catastrophe, mass death, and collective loss in 20th-century literature and criticism. With particular focus on texts by Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, and W.G. Sebald, the book engages the century's signal preoccupation with world-ending, a mixed rhetoric of totality and rupture, finitude and survival, the end and its posthumous remainders. Fascinated with the threat of apocalypse, the century proliferates the spectacle of world-ending as a form of desire, an ambivalent compulsion to consume and outlive the end of all. In conversation with recent discussions of the century's passion for the real, and taking on the century's late aesthetics of subtraction, the book reads the century's obsession with negative forms of ending and outcome. Drawing connections between the current interest in the category of trauma and the tradition of the sublime, it reframes the terms of the modernist experiment and its aesthetics of the breaking-point from the lens of a late sublime.
Fred Botting
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719077548
- eISBN:
- 9781781701904
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077548.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Horror is not what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last 200 years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to ...
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Horror is not what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last 200 years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. This book, moving from gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for understanding contemporary culture and subjectivity. Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, it advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Sigmund Freud's idea of the death drive.Less
Horror is not what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last 200 years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. This book, moving from gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for understanding contemporary culture and subjectivity. Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, it advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Sigmund Freud's idea of the death drive.
J. R. Watson
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198270027
- eISBN:
- 9780191600784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019827002X.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
Discusses Hymn writing and the sublime and the influence of Coleridge. Also talks about James Montgomery, Reginald Heber, John Keble and also reviews Keble and sacred poetry: The Christian Year.
Discusses Hymn writing and the sublime and the influence of Coleridge. Also talks about James Montgomery, Reginald Heber, John Keble and also reviews Keble and sacred poetry: The Christian Year.
John Gatta
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195165050
- eISBN:
- 9780199835140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165055.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
By the early nineteenth century, in writings by Bryant, Cooper, and Emerson, one can observe a growing Romantic tendency to imagine Nature in religious terms--as a favored site of worship and a ...
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By the early nineteenth century, in writings by Bryant, Cooper, and Emerson, one can observe a growing Romantic tendency to imagine Nature in religious terms--as a favored site of worship and a source of revelation largely superseding the Christian scriptures. Both literary artists and Hudson River painters highlighted their impressions of the sacred sublime in American landscapes. And as civilized settlements continued to replace the older freedom of life on the frontier, James Fenimore Cooper dramatized the problematic ethical consequences of this change in his Leatherstocking novels, above all in The Pioneers. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vision of the nonhuman world as divine “cosmos,” or “beauty” is most memorably presented in his book Nature (1836), which celebrates the intersection between Nature and Civilization he discovered on the “common” space of a village green in Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson’s poem “The Adirondacs,” which describes a camping excursion interrupted by news of laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable, underscores the point that no part of nature could henceforth be wholly removed from human presence or influence.Less
By the early nineteenth century, in writings by Bryant, Cooper, and Emerson, one can observe a growing Romantic tendency to imagine Nature in religious terms--as a favored site of worship and a source of revelation largely superseding the Christian scriptures. Both literary artists and Hudson River painters highlighted their impressions of the sacred sublime in American landscapes. And as civilized settlements continued to replace the older freedom of life on the frontier, James Fenimore Cooper dramatized the problematic ethical consequences of this change in his Leatherstocking novels, above all in The Pioneers. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vision of the nonhuman world as divine “cosmos,” or “beauty” is most memorably presented in his book Nature (1836), which celebrates the intersection between Nature and Civilization he discovered on the “common” space of a village green in Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson’s poem “The Adirondacs,” which describes a camping excursion interrupted by news of laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable, underscores the point that no part of nature could henceforth be wholly removed from human presence or influence.
