The Limits of the Sublime, the Sublime of Limits: Hermeneutics as a Critique of the

Postmodern Sublime
Author(s): Jerome Carroll
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , Spring, 2008, Vol. 66, No. 2
(Spring, 2008), pp. 171-181
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40206324

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 JEROME CARROLL

The Limits of the Sublime, the Sublime of Limits:

Hermeneutics as a Critique of the Postmodern Sublime

i. introduction: the antinomial sublime or the an attribute of the subject's faculties (albeit insofar
SUBLIME AS A MEDITATION ON LIMITS
as these are of interest to Kant precisely because
they are seen to be more than just "subjective")
The sublime has had almost as many interpreta-
or is seen to belong to raw matter, to those ob-
tions as it has appearances in philosophical
jectsliter-
that precisely resist man's conceptual pow-
ature. Edmund Burke 's indicator of irrepressible
ers; it resists purpose or is seen to evidence man's
instinctive passions becomes Immanuel Kant'scapacityev-to turn anything to his purpose; it is an
idence of man's capacity for reason. Kant's insis- of a possible foundation for conceptual
indicator
tence that the sublime experience, which for him
knowledge, or a source of "oppositionality"; it is
cannot be precipitated by something that the is man-
characteristic quality of our confusing, global-
made, sheds light only on the subjective faculties
ized hyper-capitalist times, what Fredric Jameson
is subverted by T. W. Adorno, who valorizes referstheto as the "cultural dominant" of late capi-
oppositional force of the sublime art object as or
talism, a an important source of resistance to a
point of resistance against the identity-imposing
pernicious and ever more widespread "identity"
subject. This conception of art's oppositional force
thinking.1
is in turn exploded by Jean-Frangois Lyotard, Nonewho
of this is new, of course, and my aim in this
identifies Kant's sublime as the point at which
article is not to trump all of the above ideas with
meaning in a more general sense gets opened up
an all-encompassing definition of the sublime. In-
to radical interpretive indeterminacy, in the deed, face
my argument in this article is compelled by
of which the only plausible response isthe joyous
sense that the concept of the sublime is resis-
openness. tant to this kind of singular definition, evidenced
As such, the sublime appears at the interstices of by the many, often seemingly opposite ideas at-
some of philosophy's age-old and most intractabletached to it: reason, matter, immanence, the in-
problems. It evinces the difficulty of separatingfinite. This presumably begs questions about the
man as a subject from the surrounding world assublime's usefulness as a philosophical concept.
object, but also the impossibility of not doing so. Might its resistance to singular and unambigu-
It expresses the limitations of citing reason andous definition suggest that the sublime no longer
cognition as the basis of man's relationship to therefers to anything that might be considered cen-
world, though it is also seen to give access to firmtral or specific to it, emblematic of what Adorno
foundations for rational thought and knowledge.calls its "unassuaged negativity"?2 Is the sub-
Likewise the objects or qualities that the sublimelime an example of Lugwig Wittgenstein's "fam-
is reckoned to inform us about in all of these ily likeness," whereby related concepts are seen
incarnations tend to be located at the poles of to have no shared and unifying "center"? Does
various antinomies: it refers to the infinite and the sublime refer to any quality that is inalien-
contentless "Idea," or to immanent "matter," able or to its concept, or is it an archetypal "empty"
the mute object that tells us only about itself; it signifier,
is a receptacle for a thinker's preferred

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66:2 Spring 2008

© 2008 The American Society for Aesthetics

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 172 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

investments in the theoretical

philosophical position? Alternatively, figure rangethis
might from
oscillation between antinomial
seeing it as anterms,
indication of this
the "puresense
idea" as
supersensoryto
that it is particularly difficult foundation
answer for knowledge to "sheer
questions
about what quality the sublime designates
matter" as critique or what
of the rational faculties, from a
object it attaches to, point
negativeto a more
constriction persistent
of art's meaning-function to
quality of the sublime, a an alleged affirmative
central pointopenness
inof the
meaning. Wolf-
con-
stellation that makes up gang
theWelsch, a thinker who cites
concept? Lyotardan-
I will as the
key the
swer this latter question in theoristaffirmative,
of the postmodern, spellspropos-
out the polit-
ical dimension
ing that this quality is the sense of this
that latter there
affirmation:comes
the plural
a point at which things and - affirming
people, gesture implicit in the quali-
objects, celebration
ties, and concepts - must of abeloss of forms is "critical"
defined, asprecisely
the ety- because
mology of the term 'sublime' of its refusalsuggests,
to admit of a singular
in and unified
terms
of what limits them, in other meaning. Inwords
this respectwhat
Welsch distinguishes
they in- be-
teract with. I will argue then tween the inpostmodern
what "preference
follows for thethat
plural"
sublime theory might be and the traditional
taken "search for identity."4
to provide This re-
a lesson
of this decisive role that limits
iterates Lyotard'smust
frequentlyplay in on
cited remarks anythe
ontology. This will be elucidated sublime in the "What inIs anPostmodernism"
examina- essay,
tion of how the categoryin of whichthehe prefers a "joyous" sublime
sublime has tobeenwhat he
mobilized in thinking about calls Adorno's
art modern
in "nostalgia
particular,for lost forms."5
its
allegedly "oppositional" force, Welsch distinguishes
and its further between postmod-
philosophi-
cal significance in the second ernism's half
allegedlyofnonhierarchical,
the twentieth "horizontal"
century. model of knowledge and a more traditional and
In the main discussion of this article I will hierarchical, "vertical" legitimation of knowledge.
contrast Jean-Francois Lyotard and Wolfgang This horizontally asserts that there is no funda-
Welsch 's interpretations of the sublime as em- mental "ground" of knowledge nor any claim to
blematic of art's immanence - its refusal to refer final, objective, or universal validity, and needs to
conceive of meaning in terms of an ongoing inven-
beyond itself - and as a locus of heterogeneity with
the more hermeneutically oriented treatments of tion of new forms of knowledge, seemingly never
the sublime in the aesthetics of Adorno and Al- looking backward at how new meaning might re-
brecht Wellmer.3 The latter pair will be enlistedlate to or be sustained by context or convention.6
in a critique of the twin ideas of immanence and That Welsch also celebrates Adorno's quintessen-
heterogeneity, which I view as exemplars of post-tially negative aesthetics as an "aesthetics of the
modern sublime theory's tendency toward an on- sublime" is a tension that remains unresolved in
his work.
tology of abstraction, and as such to be precisely
contrasted with the recognition of the role of lim-This apparent contradiction is also apparent in
Lyotard's notion that the postmodern sublime is
its, of interactions, in any ontology. With refer-
ence to Adorno and Wellmer's ideas I will draw
seen as enacting not only a liberating "opening
on the resources of sublime theory for thinking
up" of meaning, but also a characteristically "neg-
ative" constriction of meaning, evident in claims
about art as a component in a more interdepen-
as to the allegedly immanent force of- usually
dent and triangular conception of the relation-
artistic - artifacts that are labeled sublime. So in
ships between the mind and its freedom, the mind-
four texts on the issue, Lyotard identifies the sub-
external world, and techniques of representative
meaning. lime variously in terms of a "negative presenta-
tion" of the "unpresentable," a temporal sublime
as caesura or the experience of anxiety it causes,
ii. sublime aesthetics: heterogeneity or which Lyotard also conceptualizes as a denial of
HERMENEUTICS
the dialectic, and as an immanent "matter."7 But
in spite of their seemingly opposite terms, the po-
i. Heterogeneity, Immanence, and the Question
"What Is Art?" litical claim made for this immanence is not far
removed from Lyotard's "joyous" and affirma-
Archetypal of sublime theory's antinomies are tive sublime, insofar as both enact a similar re-
the formulations of Jean-Frangois Lyotard, whose jection of the representative model of meaning.

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 Carroll The Limits of the Sublime 173

ii. Extremes versusand

In the former, affirmatory Limits "joyous" mean
ing is not constrained by the need to refer back
to singular meanings. InIn the
my view it islatter,
problematic thatthe sublim
Welsch's and
experience or object is said
Lyotard's twinin some
ideas of way
heterogeneity to tel
and imma-
us only "about itself." nence
This leave little room for self-reflexivity
latter an account of contexts
comes straight from Kant's sublime,
or conventionality which
that meaningful tells
experience - u
only about our own ultimately supreme
and the meaningful reception of artworks rationa
in
faculties, albeit uncoupled
particularfrom Kant's
- tends to rely rationalist-
on. Of course, precisely
the point of
humanist orientation. Here some investments
the seemingly in the sublime is
human
capacity to generate meaning
that objects that are - described
evenbyin it arethe
seen to mos
inhospitable surroundings,
defy this kind in theoncase
of reliance context orof Kant's
conven-
sublime - is precisely tion.
that which
This detachment fromis theto beof evaded
specifics any
whereby the sublime art contextobject
is apparent bothisinassociated
cases where that whichwith
a politics of art that defies
is abstractedexternal reference
is intended to perform the function or
correspondence.8 of a philosophical foundation, as in the "idea of
The logic of this politics
reason" or of "ideaimmanence
of humanity" that Kant is made
sees the
clearer by comparisonsublime
with its or
as revealing, opposite,
where it is investednamely
with
what Welsch calls an "input hermeneutics."9
a more countercultural In thi
force, as in Lyotard's and
latter mode of interpretation, art
others' politics of only inattains
the supplement, which the "in- value
comparable
by virtue of what non-art uses quality
it. .is
. does not offer
put to, itself to dia-
what pre
existing perspectives and
logue insights
or dialectic."13 Theit is isemployed
question whether this t
illustrate and promote. In such
abstraction makes sensecases art's
in either case. Both in mymean-
ing and import are seen to
view are be ultimately
symptomatic judged
of a tendency that associates
theoreticalor
according to nonaesthetic investments in the sublime with anti- crite
extra-artistic
nomial extremes,
ria, generating a kind of meaning which is to bethat
contrasted could
with a d
equally well without the receptacle
reading of the
of the sublime as teaching artwork
us about any
which is reduced to a mere
ontology's vehicle of In
dependence on limits. expression.10
this respect it
Such openly committed art worth
is perhaps is drawing
seenattention to forfeit
at this stage to the
intrinsic political force of
the two art's
metaphors that Iformal resource
deployed in my introduc-
and the epistemological tion quality
to this article. Onthat
the one hand,
is the sublime
identified
with the aesthetic dimension, namely,
was seen to appear its
at the interstices heteroge-
of philosophi-
neous nature.11 Lyotard claims
cal issues - the nexuslikewise to
of subject and object, forprefer
in-
"artistic" activity that is which
stance, saidmightto respond
be associated with a sublimeonly
of to
the question "What is limits.
art?"12
On the other This sounds
hand, the elements to which like a
the sublime is attached tend
reprisal of the nineteenth-century to gravitate toof
aesthetic the art-
pour-l'art, whereby art is
poles allegedly
of these divested
issues - the rational subject, the im- from
any ostensible moral or
manent didactic purpose,
object - exemplifying the sublime's ten-or its
twentieth-century variant of
dency to be autotelism
associated with exclusive and associated
extreme
with high modernism substantives
and celebrated by
of any dialectic. In this the
regard the New
Critics. But the hollow
"pureanswers to from
idea" that Kant deduces the
thequestion
sublime
of what remains once this relation to "external" experience is little different from Lyotard's imma-
content has been disavowed - contentless formal nent "matter," which is in turn little different from
devices, the purely sensuous or material - suggest the all-excluding or all-encompassing ideas of the
that such distilling and reducing art to its essence
nonidentical or heterogeneous.14
and separating it off from external factors, at best
a cul-de-sac, is in fact implausible. Lyotard and
others enthusiastically associate this abstraction,
Hi. Positivism and the Sublime of Limits
this short-circuiting of meaning with the sublime,
but my concern is to suggest that the philosophi-One problem with this tendency toward extremes
cal value of the theoretical figure of the sublime
is the inadvertent positivism it exhibits, such as that
which Manfred Frank has identified as inherent
might equally well be interpreted in precisely the
opposite terms. in postmodernism 's extolling of heterogeneity.15

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 174 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

By theseLyotard's
A similar problem attends reservations about positivism
and and ab-
Welsch's
claims about immanence,
straction Iinsofar as that
do not mean to suggest art's
"pos- mean-
ing is said to depend onitive" or "abstracted" meaning
nothing beyond is a bad thingitself. In
per se: we
contrast to this apparent presumably rely on some kind
positivism, of - at
sublime the-
ory read as a meditationleast
on provisionally
limits - positive and separate identi-
might be taken as
a reminder of the contingency,
fication of objects, ideas,in the
selfhood, case
and so forth. In- both of
art's oppositional forcedeed,
and a necessary
of component of thinking in terms
categories like self
of limits is that any
hood or a grounding "idea." The indeterminacy or dialectic
ontological sig-
nificance of the limit isthat might be associated
stated most with the sublime itself
emphatically by
G. W. F. Hegel, whose has a limit. But this self-cancellation
dialectic might alsoreasonably
pre-
be characterized as ancisely refutes the sense that
ontology ofthe sublime
limits. can be He as
all-excluding
serts that "[sjomething is only or self-sufficient,
what it and underlines
is only the in and
sense thatcannot
by virtue of its limit. We any object or quality labeled sublime
therefore regard
the limit as only external
must operateto withinbeing which
a context of convention, just is then
and there. It rather goesas it can only be understoodand
through in counterpoint
through to the
processes ofobvious
whole of existence."16 One identification. example of thi
operation of limits is to be found in the much-cited
/v. Intense
master and slave dialectic, in Interest
whichin Presentation
the identity o
neither position can be said to be self-sufficient
The autotelism
rather is only experienced andthat characterizes to
realized Lyotard's
the and ex-
tent that it depends uponWelsch's and aesthetics is a case in point. with
interacts The for- th
other. mer's question "What is art?" must presumably
Hegel's sense that identity
in a very basic and
sense alsomeaning
refer to that which are
is
generated by virtue of not
the art. operation
It begs questions about
ofhow the cate- sug
limits
gests that the abstractions
gories of artthat
and non-art
sublime
are related to theory
one an-
wants to dignify are not
other, forplausible.
instance, by virtue ofDoes it mak
the epistemological
sense to refer to a "pure idea" strategies
or representative that that must beonsep
each depends
or deploys,
arated from any content, which and how ittheseiscompare
then to equivalent
claimed
to "ground"? Can the strategies
transcendental
outside of art. This givespossibility
the lie to the
of thinking sensibly beeven divorced
muter sounding notionfrom of an "incomparable
the actu
ality of thinking? What could
quality," we say
in which Lyotard about
sees the political forcethis
pared-down "pure idea"? Can residing.18
of the artwork it be Lyotard's
sensibly said
strict idea of
to exist, or might it be immanence
the pointcertainly seems to set the bartranscen
at which very high
dental philosophy is infor what kind of artdanger
greatest may be considered
of sublime,
ending
up in a cul-de-sac of pure presumably only describing the most
self-relation? austere ex-
Analogous
to this is the characterization of selfhood as di- periences of privation or the most self-reflexive
vorced from the limits and interactions that sustain
art objects. Kant already associated the simplic-
it. The seminal example here is Rene Descartes' ity exhibited in minimalism with the sublime in
famous conclusion in the "Second Meditation" his precritical writings, but it is doubtful whether
that the mind enjoys "internal" self-knowledge, even the most abstract and minimalist art can be
rather than knowledge of itself only indirectly,said
by to defy comparison in this way, at the same
virtue of its interactions with the world. In my time
view,as meaning anything at all.19
At the very least, rather than disavowing the
F. W. J. Schelling was right to criticize the claimed
certainty and immediate, internal, and directrepresentative
na- relation, self-reflexive questions
ture of this self-relation as incomprehensible.17about
As what counts as art suggest at the very least an
far as the oppositional force of sublime art is inquiry
con- about the conventions of artistic represen-
cerned, is it convincingly explained in terms oftation.
het- So in works like Malevich's White on White
erogeneity or immanence? Do these qualities (1918),
con- painting's substantive referential content
vincingly replace comparison and friction asgets
thereplaced by a self-reflexivity that places the
formal, technical, and material properties of the
lifeblood of art's mode of resistance, or do they
artwork at center stage. Are Malevich's nonsigni-
sacrifice them at the altar of postmodernist phi-
losophy? fying painted surfaces an instance of Lyotard's

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 Carroll The Limits of the Sublime 175

"matter" that art must

importantly
approach
is also an engagement
"withoutwith Hans- re-
Georg
course to the means of Gadamer's hermeneutical position;
presentation"?20 indeed
Presum
ably the very fact that Wellmer's
these treatment
appear of the sublime
in the - its combi-
artwork
render them more than mere "matter." So while nation of critique and tradition - seems to over-
Paul Beidler asserts that "the fact that the sublime come the incompatibilities between Gadamer's
cannot be presented becomes irrelevant when art and Habermas's positions referred to above (see
loses interest in presentation, as is the case with note 3). Like Lyotard, Wellmer celebrates sub-
minimalism," in my view minimalism cannot re- lime art as an innovatory experience that is
ally be characterized by a loss of interest in pre- "unprotected by aesthetic convention."24 As well
sentation, but rather indicates an intense interest as being an uncomfortable departure from con-
in the fate of presentation.21 It is in this respect vention, for Wellmer such aesthetic experiences
that Adorno, in his discussion of the sublime's also precipitate a "loss of objectively assured sys-
transposition into art, characterizes advanced art tems of meaning."25 But this departure from ob-
as "pulling on its concept like on a chain."22 jective meaning is not the kind of radical, anti-
Symptomatic of this enduring interest in pre- foundational openness that Lyotard and Welsch
sentation is the suspicion that the claims about celebrate. Rather it refers to Habermas's con-
heterogeneity and immanence in Lyotard's and viction that any communicative act presupposes
Welsch's work do not convincingly escape the rep- that we are involved in networks of commu-
resentation paradigm, as is their stated aim: rather nicative performance in which we make valid-
they seem to gravitate to its extremes, namely, re- ity claims that we are precisely free to contest?6
spectively to the idea of its explosive proliferation (Of course Habermas's communicative ethics in-
(via total nonidentity) or to its zero degree (unity sists that the contestability of these claims bestows
with itself). The idea of heterogeneity aims to ex- on them an at least quasi-objective status - what
plode representation: where everything is a rep- he calls "strongly universalistic claims" - insofar
resentation everything substantive is eradicated, as they must convince interlocutors without co-
including any notion of self. Conversely, the idea ercion?1) Not unlike Habermas's comments else-
of immanence claims, implausibly, to separate the where, Wellmer sees sublime art as "carrying a
art object off from either mind or world. Clearly potential for opening up communicative relations
this supports my contention that certain uses of the and the relationship that the aesthetic recipients
sublime opt for the extremes of antinomial poles, have to themselves."28 This "opening up" sounds
and, if anything, this is the opposite of "escaping" like an archetype of the contestability that is the
from any representative paradigm. Preferable in crux of Habermas's communicative rationality.
my view is a conception of art (and art that is la- Moreover, as far as Welsch's and Lyotard's au-
beled "sublime" or "oppositional" in particular) as totelism is concerned, this "opening up" is only
a navigation of the boundaries of representation conceivable within and against a background of a
and meaning, boundaries that precisely indicate network of meaning and communication, which
that mind and world, idea and matter, cannot so Wellmer refers to as the "structures of mean-
easily be separated. ing we inhabit in our everyday world."29 Even
artistic innovation - perhaps particularly artistic
innovation - depends on the existence of such net-
v. Wellmer, Communicative Relations, and works. It is in this sense that departures from con-
Absolute Freedom vention must depend on and are to some extent
meditations on convention, as Schonberg asserts:
In my view both mind and world are more"no new technique in the arts is created that has
convincingly included in Wellmer's sublime aes-not had its roots in the past."30 Moreover, the
thetics, who, like Welsch, emphasizes the sub-hope and belief is that such departures can re-
lime component in Adorno's aesthetics. Wellmerflect back on and change habits of thinking be-
treats the sublime most extensively in his es-yond the aesthetic experience. It is in this vein that
say "Adorno, Modernity, and the Sublime," theHabermas demands, in the light of the historical
stated aim of which is to ally Adorno's sublimeavant-garde's failed attempt to integrate life and
aesthetic to a theory of communicative ethics.23art, and in contrast to Lyotard's and Welsch's aes-
This suggests a debt to Jurgen Habermas, buttheticized turn inward, that "aesthetic experience

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176 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

context, life
is drawn into an individual or (extrinsic)
historycontent. This
and afflicts
isboth
ab-
sorbed into shared ways of Kantian
Lyotard's living."31 More
reference to the than
sublime as the
"final destination
just asserting an insertion of art of the mind, freedom"
into life, and his
this
reconnection depends on assertion
a elsewhere
paradigm that the freedomshift that is associ-
from
the view of an individuated
ated with the andsublime separable
is only to be achieved subject
by the
(whose rationalized andsuspension of conceptual faculties.33 The
instrumentalizing appar-
nature
Adorno's aesthetics may ent contradiction
be seen between these positions should
as resisting) to
intersubjective models notof distract us from the connection
meaning, between the
selfhood, and
two: it is Habermas.
rationality, associated with a small step from the absolute
Wellmer, freedom in
that is seen Schein,
an essay entitled "Wahrheit, to propel the mind here to the total
Versohnung:
Adornos asthetische Rettung
"liberation" from der Modernitat,"
meaning-oriented cognitive ac-
tivity. Neither
fruitfully traces Habermas's seems to me to be a shift
paradigm viable way of back
thinking
onto Adorno's view of art. about selfhood or theto
According kindthis
of liberating
read-
strategies
ing, Adorno's view that the sublime art can offers
artwork offer. a "nega-
tion of objectively valid At the very least, thedoes
meaning" view that more
the conceptual than
decenter the artwork's faculties
immediate are somethingmeaning;
to be evaded must it take also
thereby forges critical account
distanceof the obvious fromrejoinder potentially
that works of
oppressive conventionsartof meaning
that deploy this challenge and
to thinking reflects
(or per-
back on and has the capacity
ceiving) also provoke to and alter our
indeed depend mod-
on con-
templation.
els of subjectivity.32 This view An example
of art of thisaskindaofdimen-
overtly
sion of intersubjective thought-provoking
communication, work is Michelangelo in Pisto-
which
art's redemptive moment letto's Cube
is no (1966), longer
whose composition from six
character-
ized in terms of the struggle
inward-facing between
mirrors renders ansubject
important aspect and
object, also offers a newof perspective
the work's "meaning" at once oninfinite
Wellmer and inac- 's
somewhat dated-sounding cessible. The artwork may that
lament evade determinate
our or ev-
eryday structures of meaning have "dried
at least adequate representation in our mind, but up"
and his view that sublimethis is not
art the same
is as a "privation of thought,"
somehow single-
handedly responsible for and may even be quite the opposite.34
re-enchanting It is in this
meaning.
Conceiving art as a dimension
respect that Adorno of referscommunica-
to the "utmost con-
tion that can reflect on centration" that is required in experiencing
and ultimately change sub-the
ways we make meaning lime-art.35
and In thisnot
respectleast the ways
Lyotard's association of
we think about selfhood the sublime with the "inhuman"
- combines might even be
a reception-
theoretical approach thattaken as an acknowledgment
takes account that it is of
an inalien-
tradi-
ably human characteristic
tion and a critical-theoretical approach to search for meaning,
that allows
and begs
the possibility of critical the question of whether this inquiry af-
distance.
ter or production of coherent meaning can be so
simply "suspended."
vi. Adorno, Sublime Art,Like andLyotard's,
the Adorno's ideas are character-
Cognitive Self
ized by an ambivalent attitude toward the human
It is worth noting that the
subject, albeitsuggestion
that in Adorno's case this thatvery am-the
sublime informs us about bivalence
the is consciously
performative, central to the politicalinter-
subjective nature of being
force ofand meaning
his thinking about art. Well isknown at for vari-
his
ance with the essentiallydisparaging
solipsistic
assessments ofKantian
the manipulated mind,read-
ing of the sublime, the Adorno
primary associates theconcern
artistic sublime withof a re-
which
is to describe the interaction between mind and jection of humanism in favor of art that articulates
matter. I have already questioned the tendency ofits own "inhumanity."36 But at the same time he
is unwilling to relinquish the sovereignty or free-
theorizations of the sublime to opt for an exclusive
conception of either mind (or "idea") or matter. dom
In of the individual as a locus of political ac-
tion. Emblematic of this is the sense in which his
my view this reflects a dubious conviction that the
sublime aesthetics does not preclude but rather
coherence of qualities such as selfhood, cognitive
freedom, or art's oppositional force depends on depends on art's cognitive impact. His references
to an aesthetics of shock in the discussion of the
their being extricable from any kind of constraint,

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 Carroll The Limits of the Sublime 111

sublime in Asthetische Theorie

figure of the sublime issuggest
a complement to aapsychol-
similar
suspension of the cognitive faculties
ogy that stresses its own limits.41that Lyotard
It is also implicit
in Adorno's ideas,
celebrates, but his remark about though the
this idea recipient's
of being "in a
"utmost concentration"circuit with" the world
suggests is different from Welsch's
otherwise. In this
"horizontality"
respect, precisely in this difficult inasmuchaesthetic
as the ontology of experi
lim-
its does not presume
ence, the reflective individual to do away with pivotal
remains the subject t
tout court, rather beyond
the possibility of "glimps[ing] to recognize that the
it can only ex-
prison
that itself is."37 Adornoist byinsists
virtue of that that
which surrounds
theand delimits
"liquida-
tion of the I" that this it.experience
So, for instance, the sense
of inshock
Adorno's sublime
precip
itates arrests the usualaesthetics
habits that the
of subject's freedom is bound upin a
subjectivity
way that is the subject'swith saving
the indeterminacy of the objects
grace: for that it expe-
Adorno
riences indicates
this liquidation is precisely the the mutual dependency
opposite of and the in- cul
terpenetration
ture industry's "weakening of of the
mind andI."38
matter. Insofar as
sublime art is associated Moreover,
within a mydefamiliarizing
view this sense of a circuit of re-
man and world isand
newal of habits of representing not justseeing,
about an aesthetics
the of self
is acknowledged as the resistance, necessary rather it tellsstarting
us important thingspoint
about o
looking beyond its own the limited
ontology that theand sublime self-centered
of limits, as opposed
perspective. to the gesture of abstraction, emphasizes. Hie idea
At the same time, the fact that Adorno himself of a circuit of matter and self reminds us that in
refers to the art object's "inhumanity" is indicative a significant sense we are out there in the world
of the fact that he thinks we should avoid giving as much as we relate internally to a kind of prior
too much weight to the human, cognitive effects of notion of selfhood. This reassertion of a life-world
art. Simply enlisting his sublime to an aesthetics of might offer one interpretation of the topos of na-
consciousness raising, which is not the same thing ture in Adorno's writings on the sublime. The sub-
as the "most progressive consciousness" of social lime experience is seen to bring home to man the
and artistic antagonisms that Adorno celebrates in fact of his "being bound to nature," which Wellmer
some artworks, would be to ignore Adorno's warn- more extravagantly calls the "remembrance of na-
ing in Minima Moralia that any approach to the ture in the subject."42 Evidently Adorno wants to
world that turns everything into knowledge about overturn the elevation of man above nature that
the self and how it relates to the world, that makes Kant's sublime enacts, but the point is that this in-
man the "measure of all things," sees man "from volvement with nature is more than just a noniden-
the first as an object."39 This misgiving about re- tical counterpoint to man's rational, conceptual
ducing man to the status of an object reiterates modus operandi. Rather, in terms very similar to
the fact that the subject and its cognitive free- hermeneutical theory, it may be taken to indicate
dom are still at stake for Adorno, albeit that this the subject's prior involvement with the world.
freedom depends on acknowledging the (partic- Martin Heidegger, for instance, makes a very sim-
ularly aesthetic) object's inherent indeterminacy. ilar philosophical point with recourse to the term
In this respect Martin Jay identifies Adorno's re- iek-sistence> in the "Letter on Humanism."43 (Paul
fusal "to short-circuit a negative dialectic that pre- Fry convincingly associates this state of ekstasis,
served some distinction between the [subject and standing outside of oneself, with the sublime.44 By
object]."40 contrast, Wellmer reads Adorno's conception of
But implicit in the idea of a paradigm shift to the "ecstatic moment of aesthetic experience" as
an intersubjective or communicative model of aes- something quasi-religious and "not of this world,"
thetics is that the converse is also true: to develop a utopic moment that the communicative reading
Jay's metaphor, alongside any such preserved dis- of Adorno's aesthetics can correct.45) In his "Age
tinction between subject and object, the sublime of the World Picture," Heidegger decries both the
has also been taken to insist that subject oper- privileging of the subject that metaphysics has en-
ates at the same level as - in a circuit with - those
acted since Descartes and the concomitant sepa-
objects that make up its life- world. This was al- ration of the world into subject and object: "The
ready the point of Johann Georg Hamann's cri- world is not an object that stands opposite us and
tique of Kant's sublime, and might inform Thomas can be looked at. [Welt ist nie ein Gegenstand,
Weiskel's more recent remark that the theoretical der vor uns steht und angeschaut werden kann.]"46

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 178 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

But in contrast to this, of

the definition
artistic of
innovation but equally the
that self in
of evolution
terms of limits might in be permitted
meaning to must
more generally, which retain
accommo- the
date elements
categories of subject and object, whosebutpositiondivests
and meaning have them
not already been
of the need to be considered mapped out. Any strict separa- Th
"substantively."
subject and its object are not
tion of this to be
supplement considered
from the context that gives as
separate and self-identical, but
it its freedom define
and its and
oppositional force deter
is anath-
mine one another. So, for
ema: "theinstance,
surplus is not simplythe individual
the context of the
elements,
subject need not be taken tobut an Other,amediated
have center by thatas context
such,
and yet
but is what it is (and not distinct from
least it."48 Art'sby
"free") connection
virtue to its of
its interactions. context is clearly complicated, but it does not make
sense to assert that art's
Of course, radical hermeneutics' meaning is in
strong some wayof
sense
"immediate," much is
this kind of prior involvement less that
what its oppositional
Habermas force
is responding to whenprecisely
he sees depends on Gadamer's concep
this self-sufficiency. The cen-
tral concern of Adorno's
tions of tradition and language Negative Dialektik
as closed andis hege to
monic.47 For Habermas these
refute notions
the suggestion of can
that the dialectic the eithersub
be evaded,
ject's decentering and its prior an evasion that would then be cele-
involvement are in
brated as a critical
danger of banishing crucial human force "in itself," or that it can lik
capacities
rational, critical ideological reach an endpointreflection, whereby
in positive and self-sufficient
he thinks we can intervene in such handed-down meaning.
structures of understanding. His intersubjective Adorno's and Lyotard's remarks about the Ab-
model of rationality thinks we cannot conceive of solute are emblematic of their different ontologies.
Sounding like a crude version of Kant, Lyotard
rationality in terms of separable subjects, but in my
view this is not so different from the hermeneuti- is happy to refer to the sublime in terms of the
cal view that we cannot separate ourselves from possibility of a "concretisation of an objective in-
our life-world. Habermas's mistake in my view is finity," and as a representation of the "universal
precisely to posit the subject as straightforwardly Idea."49 Adorno by contrast takes his lead from
separable from these structures: the main prob- Hegel, for whom the absolute is never positively
lems with his intersubjective ethics center on their stated, never positively appears. This is not a Hera-
retention of a self-identical and authoritative sub- clitean statement that the manifold phenomena of
ject, removed from precisely the relations of con- reality are always in flux, but rather an acknowl-
ventions and habits - not to say instances of coer- edgment that, just as identity depends on refer-
cion and authority - that make ethics difficult and ence to what it is not, nonidentity is inconceivable
reflection on it necessary. In this respect Adorno's without identity, and more practically that no po-
sense that freedom depends on being "open" to litical emancipation follows necessarily from it. So
the indeterminacies of the objective world might while Adorno shares the same concern that man
be taken as a corrective to Habermas's more end- imposes meaning on the world, a concern that Ly-
oriented critical reflection. otard addresses with the idea of "immanent mat-
This notion of "openness" is vague, and still ter," for Adorno there is no easy way out: one cer-
seems somewhat beholden to an idea of the ob- tainly cannot simply state that certain experience
ject as "immanent" and somehow "good in itself," is resistant to mind or indeed that all experience is
as well as to the conception of the world in termsinofsome respect thoroughly open-ended. Adorno
a competition between subject and object. Indeed sees meaning as a process that tends to work in the
at times Adorno seems to subscribe to the same opposite direction, toward identity, characterized
kind of politics of immanence as Lyotard, as in his for example by abstractions, exclusions, and sim-
references to the notion of "das Mehr," the surplus plifications. For Adorno this means that the onus
or supplement whose political force derives fromis on us to consciously oppose this tendency, al-
the sense in which it evades recuperation by instru-beit that this, paradoxically, can only be done with
mental use or determinate meaning. But, crucially, "utmost concentration."
Adorno is more reticent than Lyotard to assert It is symptomatic of the sublime that this non-
this politics of supplementarity in positive, self- identity can always tend toward positive state-
identical terms. For Adorno supplementarity is ment, a insofar as it is readily "absolutized," as in
necessary component in any dialectic, such as that Lyotard's remark about the artwork's immanent

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 Carroll The Limits of the Sublime 179

not theself-sufficient
meaning. Rather than this polarity of complete negativity and recon- the
truth,
lesson of the sublime seems to be that art's truth ciled spirit; [the sublime experience] is rather the
or oppositional force must be cognitively experi-price that has to be paid by subjects who are trying
enced, and that this experience is characterizedto emancipate themselves from tradition and con-
by its fragility. Adorno's remarks in Asthetische vention."52 In my view, the ontology of limits does
Theorie that the sublime is essentially dialecti- not admit of any sense that the world is "ready-
cal, that it always readily turns into its opposite, made" and that we are separable from it, and that
seem to be the obvious corollary of the model ofour knowledge of the world can only be assessed
the sublime that conceives of meaning in terms ofaccording to how well it corresponds to this ready-
limits.50 Welsch refers likewise to the "precariousmade world. It is in this sense that Christopher
dynamic" of the sublime, underlining the brittle-Butler, in his book Early Modernism, reminds us
ness of art's critical or oppositional force.51 that conceptual art should perhaps not be thought
of in terms of a direct correspondence to reality;
rather "[s]uch signs may reveal the way in which
in. conclusion: representation beyond the we conceive of the external world, which means
"ready-made world" that art of this kind does not (really) represent,
but rather shows us how the mind might use signs
Equally, thinking in terms of limits need nottodis-
remind itself of aspects of the external world."53
pense with the relation of representation. Hei- This interplay between mind, art, and ways of
degger, Lyotard, and others see representation
interacting
as with the external world is well exem-
plified in John Cage's silent musical pieces and
enacting a deleterious and metaphysical separa-
his ideas about art. His infamous silent pieces are
tion of the subject from the world, while reflec-
tion theory after Kant posits it as a necessarynot
me- - or at least not only - a reduction of repre-
diating moment in all our involvements withsented
the content to nil, but also aim to explore the
world. Sublime theory is nothing if not a medi-cultural habits and corporeal and cognitive pro-
tation on representation, whether to mind or in that underlie how we make meaning. This
cesses
art, and whether one asserts the decisive failure
underlines the difficulty of excluding broader cul-
tural or cognitive inputs in our experience of even
of representative faculties, art's evasion of them,
or their ultimate recuperation. But I have already
the most austere art. In this respect, for Cage, as
suggested that the heterogeneity and immanence David Revill notes, the silent piece represents "the
in Lyotard 's and Welsch 's work do not escapeultimate
the elision of art and life."54 It also underlines
the
representative paradigm, merely gravitating to its fact that hard and fast barriers between art and
extremes. By contrast, Adorno's and Wellmer's non-art reality, meaning and indeterminacy, mind
formulations on the sublime seem to derive their and matter are hard to sustain.
force precisely from the difficult triangular con-
ference of susceptible mind, difficult object, and
JEROME CARROLL
changeable conventions and habits that constitute
the life- world around us. This does not just teachDepartment of German
us about the internal workings of the artwork orUniversity of Nottingham
those of the mind, but also reminds us about the Nottingham, United Kingdom NG7 2RD
ways in which we interact with the external world, internet: jerome.carroll@nottingham.ac.uk
the ways in which we as subjects already mutually
define each other. This cannot exclude a degree
1. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism or, the Cultural
of self-reflexivity - that it is to some extent also
Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1991), p. 6.
about the mind. It certainly does not attempt to 2. Theodor W. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, Gesammelte
simply erase the gap between the subject and ob- Schriften Band 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag
ject that is invoked by the representative order,1970), p. 296; trans, by Robert Hullot-Kentor as Aesthet
but suggests that the two cannot be conceived inTheory (London: Athlone Press, 1997), p. 199. In subsequen
references to these volumes, the first page number refers t
such separate terms in the first place. It is in this re-
the original German edition, the second, in parentheses, t
spect that Wellmer reads the sublime in terms notthe English translation.
of a "dialectics of subjectification and reification 3. Adorno is, of course, more usually associated with
(i.e. the dialectics of enlightenment) and thereforeCritical Theory, whose concerns and approach overlap with

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 180 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

17. F. W.
but are by no means identical to J. Schelling,
those Zur Geschichte der neueren
of hermeneutics,
as became apparent in the exchanges
Philosophie: Munchener Vorlesungen between
(Stuttgart: Kohlham- Haber-
mas, Gadamer, and others around 1970. See, for in- mer, 1926), pp. 9-32, quote from p. 10.
stance, Theorie-Diskussion: Hermeneutik und Ideologiekri- 18. Lyotard, The Inhuman, p. 141.
tik, ed. Jiirgen Habermas et al. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 19. See Immanuel Kant, Beobachtungen iiber das Gefu'hl
1971). The positions are well sketched out by Peter Chris-des Schbnen und Erhabenen (Leipzig: Im Insel Verlag, 1913),
tian Lang in Hermeneutik - Ideologiekritik - Asthetik: iiber p. 48.
Gadamer und Adorno sowie Fragen einer aktuellen Asthetik 20. Lyotard, The Inhuman, pp. 110, 139.
(Konigstein: Forum Academicum, 1981), and center on the 21. Paul Beidler, "The Postmodern Sublime: Kant &
issue of the status of reflection in their ideas. Habermas sees Tony Smith's Anecdote of the Cube," The Journal of Aes-
Gadamer, because of the latter's deference to tradition, as thetics and Art Criticism 53 (1995): 177-186, quote from
failing to acknowledge that reflection can intervene in our p. 179.
inherited ways of seeing things. Gadamer replies that it is im- 22. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. 32 (16), translation
plausible in hermeneutical terms to think that we can reflect amended.
our way out of the traditions and conventions that sustain 23. Albrecht Wellmer, "Adorno, die Moderne und das
understanding of anything and everything. As such, reflec- Erhabene," in Endspiele: Die unversonliche Moderne: Es-
tion is little more than "false objectification" of states ofsays und Vortrdge (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993), pp.
affairs (see Lang, Hermeneutik - Ideologiekritik - Asthetik, 178-203; translated by David Midgley as "Adorno, Moder-
pp. 103 ft). Lang cites Albrecht Wellmer as the first thinkernity, and the Sublime," in Endgames: The Irreconcilable Na-
to attempt to integrate ideological criticism into hermeneu- ture of Modernity. Essays and Lectures (MIT Press, 1998), pp.
tical awareness (see Lang, Hermeneutik - Ideologiekritik - 155-181. In each case the first page reference refers to the
Asthetik, p. 109). For Wellmer, the ability to rationally ques-original German edition, the second in parentheses to the
tion attitudes and knowledge that is handed down to us is English translation. Wellmer, "Adorno, die Moderne und
precisely part of our tradition. Wellmer's primacy in this re- das Erhabene," p. 184 (162).
gard may be the case as far as explicit engagement goes, 24. Wellmer, "Adorno, die Moderne und das Erhabene,"
but I will suggest that the positions taken up by Adorno as p. 187 (165).
well as Wellmer in relation to the sublime offer a specifically 25. Wellmer, "Adorno, die Moderne und das Erhabene,"
hermeneutical corrective to investments in the postmodern p. 184 (161).
sublime. 26. Wellmer, "Adorno, die Moderne und das Erhabene,"
4. Wolfgang Welsch, Asthetisches Denken (Stuttgart: p. 197 (174).
Philipp Reclam, 1990), pp. 91, 93 (where no published trans- 27. Jiirgen Habermas, "Die Philosophie als Platzhalter
lation is indicated, translations are my own). und Interpret," in Moralbewufitsein und kommunikatives
5. Jean-Francois Lyotard, "Presenting the Unpre- Handeln (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), pp. 9-28,
sentable: The Sublime," trans. Lisa Liebmann, Artforum 20 quote from pp. 23, 26; translated by Christian Lenhardt as
(1982): 64-69, quote from p. 68. "Philosopher as Stand-in and Interpreter," in After Philos-
6. Welsch, Asthetisches Denken, pp. 91-92. ophy: End or Transformation? ed. Kenneth Baynes, James
7. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Bohman, and Thomas McCarthy (MIT Press, 1986), pp. 296-
Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian 315.
Massumi (Manchester University Press, 1984), pp. 73-81; 28. Jtirgen Habermas, "Die Moderne - ein unvollen-
see Jean-Francois Lyotard, "The Sublime and the Avant- detes Projekt," in Kleine politische Schriften (Frankfurt am
Garde," trans. Lisa Liebmann, Geoffrey Bennington, and Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 444-464, see in particular pp.
Marian Hobson, Paragraph 6 (1985): 1-18; Jean-Francois 460-461; translated by Seyla Benhabib as "Modernity- An
Lyotard, "After the Sublime: The State of Aesthetics," Incomplete Project," in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Post-
in The States of Theory: History, Art, & Critical Dis- modern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (London: Pluto Press, 1985),
course, ed. David Carroll (Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 3-15. In subsequent references, the first page reference
pp. 297-304, quote from p. 303; Jean-Francois Lyotard, The refers to the original German edition, the second in paren-
Inhuman: Reflections on Time, trans. Geoffrey Bennington theses to the English translation. Wellmer, "Adorno, die
and Rachel Bowlby (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 110. Moderne und das Erhabene," p. 190 (167).
8. Welsch, Asthetisches Denken, p. 158. 29. Wellmer, "Adorno, die Moderne und das Erhabene,"
9. Ibid. p. 192 (169).
10. Ibid. 30. Cited in Christopher Butler, Early Modernism: Lit-
11. Welsch, Asthetisches Denken, p. 159. erature, Music and Painting in Europe 1 900-1 91 6 (Oxford
12. Lyotard, The Inhuman, pp. 135-136. University Press, 1994), p. 47.
13. Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft (Stuttgart: 31. Habermas, "Die Moderne," pp. 460-461 (12), trans-
Philip lation amended.
Reclam, 1963), p. 154; Lyotard, The Inhuman, pp. 141-
142. 32. Albrecht Wellmer, "Wahrheit, Schein, Versohnung:
14. Lyotard, The Inhuman, p. 110. Adoraos asthetische Rettung der Modernitat," in Zur Di-
15. See Manfred Frank, Was ist Neostrukturalismus?alektik von Moderne und Postmoderne: Vernunftkritik nach
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), p. 16. Adorno (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), pp. 9-47,
16. G. W. F. Hegel, System der Philosophie, I. Teil,see in particular pp. 26-37; translated by David Midgely
Sdmtliche Werke: Jubilaumsausgabe in 20 Banden, Band 8, as "Truth, Semblance, Reconciliation: Adorno's Aesthetic
ed. Hermann Glockner (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1927-1930), Redemption of Modernity," in Albrecht Wellmer, The
p. 220. Persistence of Modernity: Essays on Aesthetics, Ethics, and

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 Carroll The Limits of the Sublime 181

Postmodernism (MIT Press,42. 1991), pp. 1-35.

Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. In subsequen
295 (198), transla-
references, the first pagetion amended. Wellmer,
number "Adorno, dieto
refers Moderne
the und das Er-
origina
German edition, the second inp.parentheses
habene," 200 (177). to the English
translation. 43. Martin Heidegger, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit
33. Lyotard, The Inhuman, p. 137. Lyotard, The Sublime mit einem Brief tiber den 'Humanismus' (Bern: Verlag A.
and the Avant-Garde, p. 2. Francke, 1947), p. 70; translated by Frank A. Capuzzi with J.
34. Lyotard, The Sublime and the Avant-Garde, p. 2. Glenn Gray and David Farrell Krell as "Letter on Human-
35. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. 364 (245), translation ism" in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell
amended. Krell (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 217-265, 228.
36. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. 293 (197). 44. See Paul H. Fry, "The Possession of the Sublime,"
37. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. 364 (245). Studies in Romanticism 26 (1987): 188.
38. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie; see also p. 401 (269). 45. Wellmer, "Wahrheit, Schein, Versohnung," pp. 26, 19
39. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. 285 (191). Theodor (18, 11).
W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, Gesammelte Schriften Band 4 46. Martin Heidegger, "Die Zeit des Weltbildes," in
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997), p. 70; Theodor Holzwege (Stuttgart: Vittorio Klostermann, 1950), p. 30; my
Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life, translation.
trans. E. F. N. Jephcott (London: NLB, 1974), p. 63. 47. Jurgen Habermas, "Der Universalitatsanspruch der
Hermeneutik," in Theorie-Diskussion: Hermeneutik und
40. Martin Jay, "Is Experience Still in Crisis? Reflections
on a Frankfurt School Lament," in The Cambridge Compan- Ideologiekritik, ed. Jttrgen Habermas et al. (Frankfurt:
ion to Adorno, ed. Tom Huhn (Cambridge University Press, Suhrkamp, 1971), pp. 120-159.
2004), p. 141. 48. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. 122 (79), translation
41. See Hans Graubner, "Hamanns Asthetik des Er- amended.
habenen und die Wiederkehr des Erhabenen im 20. Jahrhun- 49. Lyotard, "Presenting the Unpresentable," pp. 66, 68.
dert," in Die Gegenwartigkeit Johann Georg Hamanns. Acta 50. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie, p. 295 (198).
des achten Internationalen Hamann-Kolloquiums an der 51. Welsch, Asthetisches Denken, p. 116.
Martin-Luther-Universitdt Halle-Wittenberg, 2002, ed. Bern- 52. Wellmer, "Adorno, die Moderne und das Erhabene,"
hard Gajek (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), p. 221. p. 184 (161).
See Thomas Weiskel, The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the 53. Butler, Early Modernism, p. 72.
Structure and Psychology of Transcendence (Johns Hopkins 54. David Revill, The Roaring Silence: John Cage: A Life
University Press, 1976), p. 17. (London: Bloomsbury, 1992), p. 165.

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