KANT: THE SUBLIME

AND BEAUTIFUL
 SIMILARITIES
1. Both please for themselves.
This means that in both judgments the subject is
disinterested. The beautiful and the sublime objects do not
exist for us. That is, their existence is neither dependent nor
determined by us and our interests in them. They are simply
there so as to evoke delight and admiration.
Second, from this we may logically infer that if one is
disinterested in both judgments, then the ground of satisfaction is
necessarily based on something universal in quantity.
Thus in appreciating an object as beautiful or sublime, one is not
merely expressing a private kind of judgment but rather a public
one. Consequently, one may be justified in supposing a similar
pleasure for everyone, regardless of whether they agree or not.
 

Third, the beautiful and the sublime are both species

of reflecting judgment which, as a distinct
operation of judgment (from the determining),
proceeds by finding the (not given) universal
(concept) for the given particular.
Fourth, both are thus grounded neither on
agreeable sensation nor determining concept (Sec.
23). Yet while both lay claim to everyone’s assent,
it remains only a subjective universality, hence not
strictly objective.
Fifth, both however refer to indeterminate concepts
(Sec. 23); in the case of the beautiful: the
indeterminate concepts of understanding in
general, whereas in the case of the sublime: the
indeterminate concepts of reason.
Lastly, in both the faculty of imagination is in accord or
harmony “with the faculty of understanding or of reason.”
Although, this is more appropriate in the case of the
faculty of understanding than in the faculty of reason. For
the latter, the relation of the imagination with reason
alternates between pleasure and displeasure, between
harmony and disharmony, between accord and discord.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE
BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME

First, whereas judgment of beauty concerns the

form of the object, the judgment of the sublime,
by contrast, arises in response to a formless
object “insofar as limitlessness is presented in it.”
Second, whilst the beautiful seems to be taken
as “the presentation of the indeterminate
concept of the understanding, but the sublime
as that of a similar (indeterminate) concept of
reason” (Sec. 23).
Third, while the satisfaction in the beautiful is connected
primarily with the presentation of quality, but in the sublime
with that of quantity. For in the case of the latter the subject is
confronted primarily with the formlessness of the object. And
so on how to account for its magnitude, being absolutely great.
For here, the faculty of imagination attempts to comprehend
the noumenal Ideas of reason which by themselves are
boundless in measure.
Fourth, the pleasures involved in both are also very different in
kind (Sec. 23). The beautiful “directly brings with it a feeling of
a promotion of life, and hence is compatible with charms and an
imagination at play.” The feeling of the sublime, by contrast, the
pleasure arises only indirectly, that is, an emotion “seems to be
not play but something serious in the activity of the imagination.
Hence it is also incompatible with charms, and, since the mind is
not merely attracted by the object, but is also always reciprocally
repelled by it, the satisfaction of the sublime does not so much
contain positive pleasure as it does admiration or respect” (Sec. 23).
Fifth, whereas “the feeling of the sublime brings with it as its
characteristic mark a movement of the mind connected with
the judging of the object,” the taste for the beautiful, by
contrast, “presupposes and preserves the mind in calm
contemplation” (Sec. 24). That is, in the beautiful, the
imagination is in harmony and free play with the faculty of
understanding. But in the sublime, the imagination is in
conflict and disharmony with the faculty of reason with its
noumenal ideas.
Sixth, thus whereas in judging of the beautiful the
imagination in unison with understanding finds itself
adequate and secure, in judging the sublime the
imagination in conflict with the ideas reason finds itself
inadequate and threatened. Whereas the beautiful in
nature evokes the feeling pleasure and delight, the
sublime, by contrast, evokes the feeling of admiration
and awe.
Seventh, while both the beautiful and sublime in nature
command the necessary assent of the judgment of other
people, we cannot however have a similar expectation in both
as to the consent and acceptance of others. In the words of
Kant: “There are innumerable things in beautiful nature
concerning which we immediately require consensus with our
judgment from everyone else and can also, without being
especially prone to error, expect it; but we cannot promise
ourselves that our judgment concerning the sublime in nature
will so readily find acceptance by others” (Sect. 29).
But why this is the case? Kant further explains by
noting that, “a far greater culture…seems to be
requisite in order to be able to make a judgment about
this excellence of the objects of nature.”
In particular, what is meant is that “the disposition of
the mind of the feeling of the sublime requires its
receptivity to ideas [of reason].” In fact, according to
Kant, “without the development of moral ideas, that
which we, prepared by culture, call sublime will appear
merely repellent to the unrefined person” (Sec. 29).
Finally, the most important distinction,
according to Kant, is that: while a beautiful
object is purposive for our judgment of it, the
feeling of the sublime “appears in its form to
be contra-purposive” in that it is “unsuitable
for our faculty of representation, and as it were
doing violence to our imagination” (Sec. 23).
In other words, what makes the sublime contra-
purposive, unlike the beautiful, is that it defeats our
capacity to take it in through our senses. But just
because of this defeat of the senses, that the imagination
is thus forced to enlarge its domain and so to operate on
a boundless territory, namely, that of reason and its ideas
of the infinite. Hence, the sublime may not be purposive
for our power of judgment, but it is nevertheless
purposive for the power of reason.