ABSTRACT
In §26 of his Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant argues that “nature is sublime in those of its appearances whose intuition [Anschauung] carries with it the idea of their infinity” (5:255). Kant argues that judging the mathematically sublime involves not a mathematical method of measuring, but a (vain) attempt to take an overwhelming object in a single intuition through aesthetic comprehension (Zusammenfassung). Through imagination’s effort to comprehend aesthetically the size or power of, for instance, a canyon or volcano, we are made aware of our capacity to intuit overwhelming objects, and we become aware of “the feeling of a supersensible power in us”—namely, reason (§25, 5:250). Furthermore, Kant insists that the sublime is a matter of aesthetic presentation or exhibition (Darstellung), but he is adamant that sublime pleasure (that is, “rührendes Wohlgefallen” [§26, 5:252]) is ultimately grounded in our susceptibility to moral ideas. I explore the complex roles of Anschauung and Darstellung in Kant’s account of the sublime, discuss some of the crucial flaws in his theory, and argue that Kant unwarrantedly downgrades the aesthetic nature of the sublime and hence makes it impure.
