{"id":1929,"date":"2014-02-25T01:32:21","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T01:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/?p=1929"},"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-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/02\/25\/a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-sublime-and-beautiful-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial notes<\/strong>: This Essay was found as a ‘draft’ entry in Everything2<\/sub>. 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<\/a> and it ends with a number of points for future consideration. It is published here with minor changes.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I had first considered illustrating the beautiful with words like “ineffable” as if it convinces you that it is worth wondering. Instead, let me posit that it is.<\/p>\n

Here’s a\u00a0story.<\/p>\n

I came across A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful while tracing the name of Edmund Burke in the history of philosophy. The book appears as a curious flower in the garden of Burke’s oeuvre. Burke is remembered best for his life as a politician, with its speeches and writings. My own interests have led me to wonder about the question What is beauty, whether as an experience or as something that we discover in the world. Or both. And it doesn’t take very far into the book before I appreciate that Burke has his own approach to the question. Kant accuses Burke of being a mere empirical psychologist, but the attention allowed to experience in a philosophy book can be refreshing. Burke’s written thoughts get me thinking too…<\/p>\n

I shall return to dialogue with Burke on beauty. But first, to talk to the\u00a0dead\u00a0I need the\u00a0directions\u00a0of a history book.<\/p>\n

A Philosophical Enquiry\u00a0was published in 1757. Edmund was 28. I want to see what he sees when he says what he\u00a0writes.<\/p>\n

How to place oneself in a foreign\u00a0milieu. I instinctively start with appearances, fashion (powdered wigs and hooped dresses) and technology (power is mostly animal and water, clocks\u00a0existed\u00a0but were inaccurate curiosities). Then I wonder about social structures (wealthy landowners) and those excluded from it. I imagine fighting for a copy of French-bad-boy\u00a0Voltaire’s newest\u00a0novella\u00a0on the day of its international release.<\/p>\n

The year of 1757 lay in the midst of the European’s latest\u00a0power-balance stranglings.\u00a0Russia\u00a0and\u00a0Austria\u00a0wanted to split\u00a0Prussia,\u00a0France\u00a0and\u00a0Britain\u00a0took sides. And colonies. The war bloodied the soil of every continent except the new one (Cook wouldn’t sight the\u00a0Australian\u00a0coast until 1770). The war set the stage for the\u00a0French\u00a0and\u00a0American\u00a0revolutions and bloodletting. Similarly but even harder to conceive, is the\u00a0transatlantic slave trade, the African holocaust was\u00a0flourishing.<\/p>\n

So what does it mean to put myself in Edmund Burke’s shoes?<\/p>\n

Burke was born to the right family. He was able to go the\u00a0Anglican outpost\u00a0that was the university in Dublin (Catholics and others were\u00a0excluded). Studied law in London. And although he was\u00a0excluded\u00a0from academia (for want of a priesthood), Burke pursued\u00a0personal projects\u00a0for a few years before what became his political career. I hardly trust politicians, and I strongly suspect that power corrupts. That leaves me with the problem of listening to another rich racist sexist\u00a0white\u00a0man. On the other hand, Is Burke already too guilty at age 28 for me to even listen to him, as I’m faced with an opportunity of hearing the words of another culture.\u00a0Complicated.<\/p>\n

Censorship as priorities? Anyway, allow me and I’ll continue to story.<\/p>\n

I see Burke as a witty, intelligent, and fortunate product of his time. His time was exciting, the\u00a0“new” philosophies\u00a0had opened the door for originality and creativity. All the questions, especially the old ones, could be asked again, as if for the first time. What is beauty, asked a young wide-eyed Burke, still warm from the learnings of college. Other Englishmen had wondered this way. The greatly respected\u00a0John Locke\u00a0presented all knowledge as the etchings of\u00a0experience\u00a0upon a canvas born\u00a0blank. And in Locke’s wake,\u00a0others\u00a0considered\u00a0that\u00a0beauty is a quality of things that is sensed, an ephemeral and obscure sense, different-from but analogous-to our sense of smell.<\/p>\n

That, more and less, is the tradition within which Burke was\u00a0writing. So, What is it like to read?<\/p>\n

I easily acknowledge that Burke is more than capable of\u00a0tuning\u00a0an eloquent and expressive phrase, and although I’ve seen his writings lauded for their style, to me he sounds most simply as an old-fashioned early-modern philosopher. What exactly that style entails is harder for me to express. So I hope the following excerpt helps you feel what I mean, a taste of Burke’s\u00a0idiolect. The following quote was\u00a0selected, not for any pithy or gnomic\u00a0virtue, nor for any brilliant insight (although it is not dull in that respect). Instead, I hope you gain some familiarity with Burke’s phrasing, cadence, and sentences that keep\u00a0going; and going.<\/p>\n

\n

“It is no small bar in the way of our inquiry into the cause of our\u00a0passions, that the occasions of many of them are given, and that their governing motions are communicated at a time when we have\u00a0not capacity\u00a0to reflect on them; at a time of which all sort of memory is\u00a0worn out of our minds. For besides such things as affect us in various manners, according to their natural powers, there are\u00a0associations\u00a0made at that early season, which we find it very hard afterwards to distinguish from natural effects. Not to mention the unaccountable antipathies which we find in many persons, we all find it impossible to remember when a steep became more terrible than a plain; or fire or water more terrible than a clod of earth; though all these are very probably either conclusions from experience, or arising from the premonitions of others; and some of them impressed, in all likelihood, pretty late.”<\/p>\n

(A Philosophical Enquiry\u00a0Part IV Ch 2)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Biography, history,\u00a0language. Surely the punchline is due. What does Burke say, What is the origin of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful?<\/p>\n

In\u00a0a nutshell. Beauty is an idea that derives from a type of love, and the sublime from a type of terror.<\/p>\n

Burke’s approach is to investigate the likely causes of the beautiful and the sublime. The reader is gifted chapter titles such as\u00a0Proportion not the Cause of\u00a0Beauty in Vegetables,\u00a0Magnitude in Building,\u00a0Why Darkness is Terrible, and\u00a0The Effects of Succession in Visual Objects Explained. Moving through the book as a whole, Burke begins by describing the system of human passions. In part II he explores the\u00a0sublime, finding its close association to terror – a sort of dissociated apprehension of pain – and by consequence with properties like\u00a0magnitude\u00a0and\u00a0power. Next, he applies his method to beauty, ruling out its dependency on proportion or perfection in themselves, and instead associates it with properties like\u00a0smallness\u00a0and graduation (e.g. of colour or\u00a0contour). Having completed his main mission, part IV delves into some\u00a0technical\u00a0details. For example, he asks\u00a0Why Things not Dangerous Produce a Passion Like Terror\u00a0(e.g. sublime visuals strain the\u00a0optic nerves\u00a0by their intensity) or\u00a0Why Smoothness is Beautiful\u00a0(because it soothes and relaxes the nerves and muscles), often producing unconvincing answers, but which thankfully are not absolutely necessary to the total’s worth.<\/p>\n

A final part on aesthetic language feels like an appendum. In it, Burke notes that poetry’s effect is not merely by\u00a0raising ideas, which it does in an indefinite manner. Rather it achieves its art by prompting: sympathy for others’ passions, appreciation of the abstract, and imaginations.<\/p>\n

I should say a few more words on what Burke means by linking love and fear to the beautiful and sublime. And then I can close with some thoughts of my own.<\/p>\n

{<\/p>\n

A little more explanation.<\/p>\n

My own thoughts on Burke. Saying that I appreciate elements of his methodology. My own route via his method. Then consideration of his relating passions to aesthetics.<\/p>\n

Caveats include: I’m ignoring most of what makes Burke unique, and conflating him with other 18th century British aestheticians, which isn’t the worst possible thing for non-specialists.<\/p>\n

}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 for future consideration. It is […]<\/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":[159,302,103,204,256,20,243],"tags":[],"metadata":[101],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-classicalphilosophers","category-essay","category-everything2","category-kant","category-philosophy","category-philosophy-briefs","metadata-editor_notes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1922,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/02\/22\/a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-sublime-and-beautiful\/","url_meta":{"origin":1929,"position":0},"title":"A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful","author":"Pala","date":"February 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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":1929,"position":1},"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. This proves to be the ideal tool for him to better control his ever-growing research notes, stored primarily up to this point, in handwritten notebooks and\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":4030,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/06\/21\/lockes-theory-of-knowledge\/","url_meta":{"origin":1929,"position":2},"title":"Locke’s theory of knowledge","author":"Pala","date":"June 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: Shai documents his interpretation of\u00a0Locke\u2019s Theory of Knowledge[I]\u00a0which, he explains, \u201cis famous for being based on the principle that the mind is a blank slate\u201d and that the mind is \u201cgaining everything it knows by experience\u201d. The need to acquire experience in order to gain knowledge is a\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":1704,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/10\/14\/anaximander-and-the-beginnings-of-greek-philosophy-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1929,"position":3},"title":"Anaximander and the beginnings of Greek philosophy","author":"Pala","date":"October 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"History\u00a0has recorded Anaximander as one of the first of the\u00a0Ancient Greek\u00a0philosophers, preceded only by his teacher\u00a0Thales. Anaximander lived around 2600 years ago, in the large\u00a0Ionian\u00a0city of\u00a0Miletus, which can be found on the West coast of modern day Turkey. Anaximander is famous, together with his teacher Thales and his own student\u00a0Anaximenes\u00a0for\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":81,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/21\/contextualizing-hegels-philosophy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1929,"position":4},"title":"Contextualizing Hegel’s Philosophy","author":"Pala","date":"September 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Experiencing\u00a0the history of philosophy Reading \"Hegel\" by Charles Taylor, about the ideas, beliefs, opinions and motivations that flowed and ebbed in western Europe between the time of the Enlightenment and Hegel's philosophical career. As I read Taylor, and my mind emulates and empathizes with the various zeitgeists, I discover that\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":2435,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/02\/28\/lucretius-the-nature-of-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":1929,"position":5},"title":"Lucretius – The Nature of Things","author":"Pala","date":"February 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Some essential part of stories lies in their telling. Here is a story: Kant has the idea of the sublime, whereby the aesthetic is significantly determined by its ability to transcend (and hence terrify) our senses. For instance the magnitude of a mountain or a storm - both threaten our\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":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-v7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}