{"id":1922,"date":"2014-02-22T12:31:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-22T12:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2019-08-25T06:24:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T06:24:31","slug":"a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-sublime-and-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/02\/22\/a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-sublime-and-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial notes<\/strong>: This Essay[I]<\/sup><\/a> was found as a ‘draft’ entry in Everything2<\/sub> and it is not clear whether it was complete and ready for publication. It is published here with minor changes. A follow-up draft<\/a> was recorded a number of days later, containing further thoughts on this matter.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Beauty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The grandest of human values is\u00a0beauty<\/strong>. It is the experience of the beautiful that brings that ineffable admiration to so much that gives us meaning. The desired, the good, the perfected. But it is also the most difficult to describe. It stands at a polar extreme from such treasures as pleasure, for pleasure at least is so easily and tangibly imagined. But the feeling that is the present of the aesthetic is so ethereal and of a dimension too strange to measure.<\/p>\n

We find the\u00a0beautiful\u00a0<\/strong>in so many experiences, whether as the focus of longing, or found in virtue’s blossom, or as one marvel at the sublime. But that is no easy-path towards identifying beauty. These examples can only hint the way, a journey made so difficult by its indeterminate conception, too foreign for us to recognize, as we can the simpler sensations. It is as if we were plotting the shape of a cloud with ever-shifting, porous boundaries.<\/p>\n

It is a great forum that includes all those souls who interrogated their wonder at the aesthetic experience. Such a collection includes the giants Aristotle and Kant – I only mean to convince you that this is a question that has been faced by the Greats – and includes also many other strong men of philosophy and the mind. These include in their ranks one Edmund Burke\u00a0PC.<\/p>\n

The famous Irish politician and thinker, Edmund Burke, is remembered primarily for his political works and astute speeches. But very early in life, Burke was fortunate enough to discover an apt and appreciation for the pursuits of philosophy. The title of one of Burke’s very first works was\u00a0A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and\u00a0Beautiful<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

History<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0history’s<\/strong> setting is this. Published in 1757, Edmund was 28. Early adulthood\u00a0experienced\u00a0university at Trinty College,\u00a0Dublin, very much\u00a0an outpost of the Anglican Church. Then\u00a0London, to qualify for the bar. Having preferred the intellectual climate, but mostly\u00a0prevented from occupying an academic post for want of a priesthood, Burke pursed personal projects. He\u00a0wrote and was also the editor for\u00a0The Annual Register. That is a boring title, and surely the reference publication is better described by its original title\u00a0A View of the History, Politicks and Literature of the Year*.\u00a0His political career was soon to find its roots.<\/p>\n

What else does\u00a0history\u00a0<\/strong>remember of 1757? Most obviously the ongoing, global\u00a0Seven Years War. This war (1756-1763) bloodied the grounds of\u00a0Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines. It has many other names and was terrible. It foreshadows two other upcoming bloodbaths. \u00a0The\u00a0French Revolution(1789-1799) and the smaller \u00a0American Revolutionary War\u00a0(1775-1783). Both were of great interest to the older Burke, a fact for which he is still famous.<\/p>\n

Now that we have met the man, you may ask why I have called him. I have just another brief tale of history, as it helps to know\u00a0when\u00a0to look. Burke’s contribution to the philosophy of beauty stands in a peculiar\u00a0historical\u00a0<\/strong>crux. He clearly followed beneath the long shadow of Aristotle, who’d explained that the aesthetic experience lies in imitation and its recognition. This was followed by a long period during which originality was scarce, although there were at least those who critiqued beauty. Notably, this was a culture (continuing into Burke’s day) that appreciated poetry as the most elevated of the arts (a fact to which I shall return). Aside from a few sporadic lights, only the\u00a0Cartesian\u00a0birthing of modern philosophy could reassure thinkers that they had the right (authority be damned) to ask the question for themselves. The result was a chorus of answers.<\/p>\n

On the heels of Burke wrote\u00a0Shaftesbury,\u00a0Hutcheson, and\u00a0Reid. These three were\u00a0internal state theorists\u00a0(by today’s jargon). In brief, they believed that aesthetic value is sensed, as if it is a mode of perception, like sight no matter that it is far more obscure. And at the other end of this pincer that holds Burke in this\u00a0history’s<\/strong> vise sits most prominently Kant (but note the horde that follows him). Kant could not understand beauty before he could explain the mind’s reception of the world, describing it as a sort of pleasurable juggling within the transcendental categories of the mind.<\/p>\n

So let me ask again, more clearly, What does this young man have to say? What, dear Burke, is the origin of our ideas of the beautiful and the sublime?<\/p>\n

*The publication that Burke had initiated into the world through his editorship and writing, as a young man (who is remembered and admired since his\u00a0death\u00a0twenty-two decades ago) is still being produced regularly. If I may wind back the clock, Have you heard of Voltaire’s final days? I had never heard of\u00a0Reine Philiberte de Varicourt, a girl Voltaire adopted away from being “destined” to a convent. She was educated by Voltaire’s niece.\u00a0Link<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Reading<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

To\u00a0read\u00a0<\/strong>this work from another century is to visit the parlour of a stranger in a strange land. But if we listen respectfully and ask the right questions… there is always so much to learn.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

[I]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful<\/strong>\u00a0is a 1757 treatise on\u00a0aesthetics\u00a0written by\u00a0Edmund Burke. It was the first complete philosophical exposition for separating the beautiful and the sublime into their own respective rational categories. It attracted the attention of prominent thinkers such as\u00a0Denis Diderot\u00a0and\u00a0Immanuel Kant. For further details see\u00a0https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A_Philosophical_Enquiry_into_the_Origin_of_Our_Ideas_of_the_Sublime_and_Beautiful<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial notes: This Essay[I] was found as a ‘draft’ entry in Everything2 and it is not clear whether it was complete and ready for publication. It is published here with minor changes. A follow-up draft was recorded a number of days later, containing further thoughts on this matter. Beauty. The grandest of human values is\u00a0beauty. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,302,204,256,20,243],"tags":[],"metadata":[101],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-classicalphilosophers","category-everything2","category-kant","category-philosophy","category-philosophy-briefs","metadata-editor_notes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1929,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/02\/25\/a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-sublime-and-beautiful-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1922,"position":0},"title":"A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful #2","author":"Pala","date":"February 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This Essay was found as a 'draft' entry in Everything2. It seems to be a continuation of the thought process recorded a few days earlier in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful and it ends with a number of points\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2400,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/04\/17\/meta-conspiracies-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1922,"position":1},"title":"Meta-conspiracies","author":"Pala","date":"April 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This Essay was found as a 'draft' entry in Everything2. It was last updated on 17\/04\/2013. Here's an idea: What if a conspiracy does not need its members to be knowing participants? What next? We could go ahead and define a type of conspiracies as being those entities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1779,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/05\/03\/defining-molecular-biology-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1922,"position":2},"title":"Defining molecular biology","author":"Pala","date":"May 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This Essay was found as a 'draft' entry in Everything2. It was last updated on 03\/05\/2011. To\u00a0me,\u00a0molecular biology is that part of\u00a0biology\u00a0that is concerned with the\u00a0molecules\u00a0that make up biological systems. It is concerned with those molecules' lives, and the way they interact with each other. 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Just hovering over them will give you some insight into Shai's unique way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2425,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/02\/06\/philosophy-readings-through-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":1922,"position":4},"title":"Philosophy readings through time","author":"Pala","date":"February 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In February 2013, Shai adds\u00a0Evernote\u00a0to his suite of repositories. This is an application designed specifically for note-taking, organising, task lists and archiving. 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