The Existential and Metaphysical Value of the Sublime

Abstract

Whereas beauty usually looks back at us with human eyes, and we are being made to stand still and absorb it in a tranquil way, sublimity is dazzling and deeply disturbing. The immense scale and power of sublime objects and environments do not kindly invite us to contemplate their qualities, but defy our cognitive and emotional capacities and force us to withstand their dizzying effect upon us and affirm ourselves against them. In the very awe that we experience we do not, pace Kant, sense our own (moral) superiority to nature’s might, but gain an invaluable insight into our humble place in the world. ¹ In comparison to the greatness of the sublime object, we feel reduced to nothing. In and through sublime aesthetic experience, we become aware of our puny, vulnerable position in the universe. The experience of the sublime, if understood correctly, may engender — in and through aesthetic feeling — a sense of both our nullity and fragility in comparison to nature and an intimation of the possibility of coming to terms with this. By lifting us out of the utilitarian thoughts and egocentric concerns that ordinarily dominate our practical lives, the experience of the sublime offers a unique way of engaging with the world and affirming our relation to it, not in spite of but because of the terror we experience when confronting hostile objects and environments. This type of intense aesthetic experience is a dramatic exemplar of several fundamental ways in which we relate to the world and attempt to make our home in it. This chapter will consider (albeit all too briefly) how our understanding of the sublime might point in the direction of existential and metaphysical insights.