ABSTRACT
Immanuel Kant's aesthetics of the dynamically sublime in Nature can be adapted to illuminate and explain some of the central philosophical and phenomenological claims of the non-violent, Japanese martial art, aikido. In Kant's initial formulation, the emphasis is very much on visual perception as providing the most ready access to the sublime. In this light, aikido as a kinesthetic practice may not appear an obvious candidate for appreciating the sublime. However, given the practical non-violent nature of aikido, the 'vantage point of safety' that Kant claims as requisite to sublime experience may be sufficiently met via kinesthesia insofar as the techniques of aikido enable one to literally close the gap between oneself and the otherwise dominating might of an opponent, both safely and without negating the force of the attack. This then, is the central claim herein: by utilising Kant's account of the sublime to explore certain claims of aikido, Kant's original vision-based account explicates to include kinesthetic appreciation also.
