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3 THE KANTIAN SUBLIME AND THE REVELATION OF FREEDOM In this book Robert R. Clewis shows how certain crucial concepts in Kant s aesthetics and practical philosophy the sublime, enthusiasm, freedom, empirical and intellectual interests, the idea of a republic fit together and deepen our understanding of Kant s philosophy. He examines the ways in which different kinds of sublimity reveal freedom and indirectly contribute to morality, and discusses how Kant s account of natural sublimity suggests that we have an indirect duty with regard to nature. Unlike many other studies of these themes, this book examines both the pre-critical Observations and the remarks that Kant wrote in his copy of the Observations. Finally, Clewis takes seriously Kant s claim that enthusiasm is aesthetically sublime, and shows how this clarifies Kant s views of the French Revolution. His book will appeal to all who are interested in Kant s philosophy. robert r. clewis is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gwynedd-Mercy College.

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5 THE KANTIAN SUBLIME AND THE REVELATION OF FREEDOM ROBERT R. CLEWIS

6 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Information on this title: Robert R. Clewis 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2009 ISBN ISBN ebook (EBL) hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

7 per Elisa

8 Conversely, even that which we call sublime in nature outside us or even within ourselves (e.g., certain affects) is represented only as a power of the mind to soar above certain obstacles of sensibility by means of moral principles, and thereby to become interesting. I should like to dwell a little on the last point. The idea of the good with affect is called enthusiasm. This state of mind seems to be sublime, so much so that it is commonly maintained that without it nothing great can be accomplished. Now, however, every affect is blind, either in the choice of its end, or, even if this end is given by reason, in its implementation; for it is that movement of the mind that makes it incapable of engaging in free consideration of principles, in order to determine itself in accordance with them. Thus it cannot in any way merit a satisfaction of reason. Nevertheless, enthusiasm is aesthetically sublime, because it is a stretching of the powers through ideas, which give the mind a momentum that acts far more powerfully and persistently than the impetus given by sensory representations. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft 5:272) The color of the sublime is red. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft 5:302)

9 Contents Preface and acknowledgments Abbreviations and notes on Kant s texts page ix xi Introduction 1 1 The Observations and the Remarks The Observations Three forms of the sublime, and the grotesque Virtue The Remarks: history and background Four senses of freedom Enthusiasm: the passion of the sublime Conclusion 52 2 The judgment of the sublime Preliminary issues The mathematical and the dynamical sublime A third kind: the moral sublime Dependent and free sublimity The monstrous and the colossal Sublimity elicited by art Moral feeling and the sublime The moral feeling of respect Sublimity as presupposing freedom Sublimity as supporting morality Various senses of interest and disinterestedness Interest First-order and second-order interests Empirical and morally based interests Conclusion 167 vii

10 viii Contents 5 Aesthetic enthusiasm Enthusiasm in the corpus Affect Enthusiasm as morally ambiguous Enthusiasm as an aesthetic feeling of sublimity Without enthusiasm nothing great can be accomplished Conclusion: Kantian enthusiasm and the revelation of freedom Enthusiasm for the idea of a republic The charge against Kant Means and ends Freedom and the idea of a republic The consistency of Kant s position Conclusion Summary Sublimity s basis in freedom The transition to freedom 226 Appendix 1: On the Remarks 228 Appendix 2: Some features of the feelings discussed in this book 231 Appendix 3: Classification of what elicits sublimity 232 Bibliography 235 Index 250

11 Preface and acknowledgments I would like to thank SAGE Publications for allowing me to use in chapter 6 some of the material found in Kant s Consistency regarding the Regime Change in France, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 32(4) (2006): It is my pleasure to acknowledge the many people who have contributed to the writing and completion of this book. I sincerely regret that there is space to mention only a few of the individuals who have influenced this project. Susan Shell and Richard Kearney read early drafts of selected chapters and offered invaluable advice throughout its various stages. This book could not have been written without Susan Shell, who first shaped my understanding of Kant s Bemerkungen in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen. Richard Kearney selflessly offered his advice and assistance from the beginning of my work on the project, and his comments on an early chapter on enthusiasm encouraged me to expand the chapter into this book. Henry E. Allison constructively influenced my Kant interpretation when I was a graduate student in Boston. I would like to thank him for his honest criticisms and encouragement. As an assistant professor in the Philadelphia area, I have benefited from auditing graduate philosophy courses given by Paul Guyer and by Noël Carroll. Paul Guyer s writings have informed my way of conceiving of sublimity as a feeling of freedom, and I would like to thank him for speaking with me about my project and for sharing his knowledge of eighteenth-century aesthetics. Noël Carroll has helped me think more critically about Kant s notions of interest and disinterestedness, and has enabled me to read Kant with contemporary aesthetic issues in the background. Numerous institutions and foundations have generously supported this project. Krzysztof Michalski and the staff at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen have been incredibly kind to me ever ix

12 x Preface and acknowledgments since my stay there in Norbert Fischer and Hermann Schnackertz welcomed me to the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt in Otfried Höffe kindly hosted me as a visiting scholar at the Universität Tübingen in I would like to thank Manfred Frank for welcoming me to his reading group during that time. The Bradley Foundation, Katholische Universität Eichstätt Stiftung, the Boston College Philosophy Department, and the Ernest Fortin Foundation provided some funding in the early stages of the manuscript, and the Bosch Foundation generously provided financial assistance in the summer of For their insights and assistance, I thank Patrick Byrne, Richard Cobb- Stevens, Alfredo Ferrarin, Jean-Luc Marion, Rob Miner, David Rasmussen, William J. Richardson, Eileen Sweeney, and Jacques Taminiaux; as well as Ralph Kennedy, Win-chiat Lee, Charles Lewis, Josefine Nauckhoff, Byron Wells, and Ralph Wood. I would like to thank the Wake Forest University philosophy department for inviting me to present and discuss an early version of chapter 4. I am grateful to my friends and colleagues at Gwynedd-Mercy College, PA, for their support as I researched this book. Michael Clinton kept me honest about taking Kant too seriously, and Donald Duclow pushed me to evaluate the entire Kantian project. The staff at Lourdes Library was very helpful in preparing the manuscript. This project has benefited in various ways from discussions with Andrew Bickford, Jim Boettcher, Jason Broverman, Corey Dyck, Christine Gottstein-Strobl, David Kim, Claudia Neudecker, Brian Treanor, Andrew Valins, and Joseph Westfall. I am indebted to Hilary Gaskin, Tom O Reilly, and Gillian Dadd at Cambridge University Press, and to the Press s anonymous readers, for their encouragement, advice, and help in the production of this book. I would like to thank Kate Mertes for preparing the index. I would like to express gratitude to those individuals who read parts or drafts of the manuscript. Reidar Maliks read a draft of chapter 6, and Peter Lamarque graciously commented on an early version of chapter 5. Uygar Abaci and Dan Heider read a late draft of the manuscript. I am indebted to the reviewers of parts or drafts of this manuscript. Needless to say, all of the errors and infelicities that remain are entirely my own. I am especially thankful to have received the support of my wonderful family. I gratefully dedicate this book to my wife, Elisa.

13 Abbreviations and notes on Kant s texts Except for the references to the Critique of Pure Reason, references to Kant are to the volume:page number of Kants gesammelte Schriften (KGS ), published by the Deutsche (formerly Königlich Preußische) Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902 ). The references to the Critique of Pure Reason are to the A and B pagination of the first and second editions, respectively. References to the Remarks are to the volume:page number of the KGS followed by the page number in the Rischmüller edition (Bemerkungen in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen, ed. Marie Rischmüller [Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1991]). Translations from the Remarks are my own, as are translations from works for which no English translation is listed below. References to the Observations are to the volume:page number of the KGS followed by the page in the Goldthwait translation from which I quote (Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, trans. John Goldthwait [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960]). The abbreviations below are used to cite Kant s texts; any texts not abbreviated below are cited only by the KGS volume:page number. English translations that are used in citations are listed below. It should be noted, however, that I have occasionally modified these translations. Translations that were consulted but not cited from can be found in the bibliography. Finally, it should be pointed out that bold font is used throughout this book to reproduce Kant s original emphasis. AM AP ApH FI Anthropologie Mrongovius Anthropologie Parow Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. Victor Lyle Dowdell. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978 Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft. Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge University Press, 2000 xi

14 xii G GTP IAG ID JL KpV KrV KU M MA MS Obs PP PPH R Refl Rem Abbreviations and notes on Kant s texts Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor, in Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1996 Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent, trans. Ted Humphrey, in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983 De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis [Inaugural Dissertation] Jäsche Logik. Jäsche Logic, trans. J. M. Young, in Lectures on Logic. Cambridge University Press, 1992 Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft. Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Mary Gregor, in Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1999 Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. Critique of Pure Reason,trans.Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge University Press, 1997 Kritik der Urteilskraft. Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge University Press, 2000 Menschenkunde Mutmaßlicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte Die Metaphysik der Sitten. The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor, in Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1999 Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, trans. John Goldthwait. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960 Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein philosophischer Entwurf. Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Project, trans. Mary Gregor, in Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1996 Praktische Philosophie Herder Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft. Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, trans. George di Giovanni, in Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge University Press, 1996 Reflexionen Bemerkungen in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen

15 SF TP VK Abbreviations and notes on Kant s texts Der Streit der Fakultäten. The Conflict of the Faculties, trans. Mary Gregor and Robert Anchor, in Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge University Press, 1996 Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis. On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, But It Is of No Use in Practice, trans. Mary Gregor, in Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1996 Versuch über die Krankheiten des Kopfes xiii

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17 Introduction In 1797, approximately seven years after Kant published the Critique of the Power of Judgment, the Grand Prix de Rome in history painting was awarded to Louis-André-Gabriel Bouchet for illustrating the death of Cato of Utica (95 46 bce). 1 Cato the Younger, or Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis, was renowned in the eighteenth century for having stabbed and killed himself upon learning that the Republic was lost to Caesar. As inspection of the painting reveals, Bouchet presents us with a defiant Cato, full of scorn and unafraid of death. He looks like a man who is free, and who knows it. In 1764, Kant describes Cato as an exemplar of enthusiasm. Like Bouchet, Kant characterizes Cato as a symbol of freedom. Enthusiasm (Enthusiasm or Enthusiasmus, not Schwärmerei), the pre-critical theory maintains, is the passion of the sublime. Enthusiasm takes principles that are good in themselves, such as freedom, to an excessive degree. Kant even goes so far as to say that without enthusiasm nothing great can be achieved. At the same time, Kant condemns Cato s suicide as taking a good principle, freedom, and applying it in the wrong way. Of course, it is precisely the features of Cato s suicide itself that so forcefully demonstrate Cato s freedom. Cato defiantly shows that he is free even to take his own life and thus to rise above his sensible interests, above all the interest in self-preservation. His demonstration of freedom is partially what, for Kant, makes Cato s act a demonstration of sublime enthusiasm. In the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), Kant modifies his earlier views regarding enthusiasm. Kant no longer claims that enthusiasm is necessary for achieving something great. Instead, he holds that 1 Pierre Bouillon and Pierre-Narcisse Guérin also depicted Cato and won the prize in the first competition to be held since the contest was discontinued during the Revolution. Unlike the paintings of the other two winners, Bouchet s The Death of Cato of Utica depicts a defiant yet serene Cato. Philippe Grunchec, The Grand Prix de Rome: Paintings from the École des Beaux-Arts, (Washington, DC: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1984), p

18 2 The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom enthusiasm is only sublime from an aesthetic point of view, or aesthetically sublime, because it shows the superiority of the mind to sensibility and sensible interests (KU 5:272). Enthusiasm reveals human freedom, but, as aesthetic, it does not help us to achieve any ends at least not directly. A spectator s aesthetically sublime enthusiasm thus differs from Cato s agent-oriented enthusiasm. In 1796, Kant returns to the concept of enthusiasm in a short essay, An Old Question Raised Again: Is the Human Race Constantly Progressing? published in The Conflict of the Faculties in Thus, Kant was thinking and writing about enthusiasm at approximately the same time that the Grand Prix de Rome was awarded to Bouchet. As in the pre-critical theory, the enthusiasm described in An Old Question concerns the fate of a republic, namely, the first French Republic. However, Kant s account of enthusiasm in An Old Question differs substantially from the pre- Critical account. Enthusiasm is now (as in the third Critique) what a spectator feels, an aesthetic response, not what drives an agent to achieve a goal or end. Enthusiasm is a sign of human progress and the moral character of humanity, not a necessary condition for achieving morally good (or otherwise great) acts. Finally, in An Old Question Kant describes enthusiasm in terms of the sublime, calling it a grandeur of soul (SF 7:86). He seems to hint at the connections between enthusiasm and the sublime that he made in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. This book examines Kant s views regarding the sublime, enthusiasm, and freedom. I am particularly interested in how the sublime can reveal human freedom and in how enthusiasm can be considered to be a form of the sublime in the Critical sense, since Kant s texts imply that it can be so conceived. Although in the first chapter I discuss the views that Kant held in the mid 1760s, the book focuses largely on Kant s Critical account. I do not attempt to fill in what happened in Kant s development between the middle of the 1760s and the writings of the 1790s. This task would require me to go beyond my present knowledge of Kant as well as necessitate more pages than can be contained in this book. 2 An Old Question was apparently written in 1795, but it was published in 1798 in The Conflict of the Faculties. Kant s interest in enthusiasm for the ends of the French Revolution thus apparently carried on into 1798, even if a sober and even pessimistic assessment of the likely outcome of the Revolution probably dates from See Conflict, Editor s introduction, pp Other versions of what was to become An Old Question can be found in 15:650 1; 19:604 12; 22:619 24; 23:455 8; and in a text (the Krakauer Fragment ) called Ein Reinschriftsfragment zu Kants Streit der Fakultäten, ed. K. Weyand and G. Lehmann, in Kant-Studien, 51 ( ): On these texts, see Peter Fenves, A Peculiar Fate: Metaphysics and World-History in Kant (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991), 171 n.1.

19 Introduction 3 To put it another way, the present work examines how, according to Kant, pure aesthetic judgments of the sublime might contribute indirectly to the realization of the ends of morality in the natural order. 3 I use the word indirect advisedly: an aesthetic judgment of the sublime cannot directly actualize morality by making a moral will efficacious in the world. Moreover, the role played by the sublime is not identical to that played by the feeling of beauty. Nevertheless, in its own way, the experience of the sublime can, for Kant, reveal human freedom. By having phenomenological and structural affinities with the moral feeling of respect, the sublime can prepare us for moral agency. The sublime mental state, enthusiasm, is especially worthy of consideration when examining the indirect contribution of aesthetic experience to morality. Enthusiasm is worth discussing in this context for several reasons. Kant describes enthusiasm as the idea of the good with affect (KU 5:272). Accordingly, this kind of enthusiasm reveals that the subject has an idea of the good. This in turn implies that he or she is free, or has the capacity for morality. Moreover, by giving us a strong affective response to the morally good, enthusiasm may be able to help us recognize the morally good. Under the throes of affect, we can see, or more precisely feel, the good for what it is. Finally, Kant interprets enthusiasm, which he stresses is an empirical phenomenon, or an occurrence (Begebenheit) that unfolds within the natural order, as a morally encouraging sign. He sees it as evidence of a moral predisposition or capacity for morality, a moral tendency (Tendenz). For these reasons, it seems that we should take a closer look at the role of the sublime in general, and at the aesthetically sublime experience of enthusiasm in particular (KU 5:272). Doing so might help us better understand a central concern of the third Critique, the so-called transition problem concerning the realization of morality in the natural order. Before we turn to the transition problem, however, a few clarifications are in order. First, it is worth pausing for a moment to distinguish what I call aesthetic enthusiasm from practical enthusiasm. The latter necessarily involves an interested determination of an agent s will. Although Kant does not use the term, something that corresponds to what I am calling practical enthusiasm can be found in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Kant there describes an enlivening of the will that causes an enthusiasm of good intentions (ApH 7:254; cf. 314). Such enthusiasm, he says, must be attributed to the faculty of desire rather than to sensibility. 3 Paul Guyer, in The Values of Beauty: Historical Essays in Aesthetics (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 20, examines this issue and has influenced the present interpretation.

20 4 The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom By contrast, aesthetic enthusiasm has an aesthetic orientation; that is, it is merely a feeling that is not based on a previous intention or desire. Practical enthusiasm is interested in a sense in which aesthetic enthusiasm is not. It directly leads to or involves action by an agent. Aesthetic enthusiasm, by contrast, is disinterested. It is in the practical, interested sense of enthusiasm that, in the Vorarbeit zu den Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, Kant states, I am an enthusiastic defender of common sense ( Ich bin ein enthusiastischer Vertheidiger des gesunden Menschenverstandes ) (23:59). If Kant is defending something, he is taking a practical stance and is interested. A spectator is not defending anything at all. Second, it must be emphasized that enthusiasm (practical or aesthetic) is not the same as fanaticism. Kant uses fanaticism (Fanaticismus, Schwärmerei) to refer to raving with reason and to the tendency to take oneself to have access to the supersensible realm. 4 He does not use enthusiasm (Enthusiasm, Enthusiasmus) in this context. While even enthusiasm is morally ambiguous, fanaticism is significantly more undesirable than enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the affective response to the good, but fanaticism has little or nothing to do with the good. Fanaticism is a delusion of being able to see something beyond all bounds of sensibility (KU 5:275). Unfortunately, in English language editions of Kant s work Schwärmerei is translated in many different ways, sometimes even inconsistently within the same text. Schwärmerei is rendered as fanaticism, 5 visionary rapture, 6 zealotry, 7 and, perhaps worst of all, enthusiasm. 8 Enthusiasm and Enthusiasmus, unsurprisingly, are 4 On Martin Luther s term Schwärmer, see Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation , trans. James Schaaf (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp ; and John S. Oyer, Lutheran Reformers against Anabaptists (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964), chapter 1. For a sense of enthusiasm that approximates Kantian Schwärmerei, see John Locke s An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book iv, Chapter xix (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp ; Earl of Shaftesbury, A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, in Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp The Conflict of the Faculties, trans. Mary Gregor and Robert Anchor, in Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Mathews (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p See Kant, Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss and trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge University Press, 1990). Nisbet explains that he translates Schwärmerei with zealotry because he finds fanaticism unsatisfactory; see pp Peter Fenves mentions this point in his introduction to Raising the Tone of Philosophy: Late Essays by Immanuel Kant, Transformative Critique by Jacques Derrida (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. x. 8 See Critique of the Power of Judgment, p.407; Religion and Rational Theology, p.499; Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 647; and The Conflict of the Faculties, p.145.

21 Introduction 5 translated as enthusiasm. I will consistently refer to Schwärmerei as fanaticism and to Enthusiasm as enthusiasm. 9 Confusion, or at least a lack of clarity, regarding the two concepts is widespread not only in translations of Kant s work, but also in the secondary literature. Several studies do not properly distinguish Schwärmerei from Enthusiasmus. 10 Moreover, enthusiasm is sometimes referred to as a kind of sympathy. One commentator, for instance, writes: Kant not only defended the French Revolution as a sign of moral progress but attributed this advance to the moral character of humanity as demonstrated by the public response of disinterested sympathy. 11 While this view characterizes the feeling correctly as disinterested, in my view it is more accurate to call this feeling enthusiasm, not sympathy. As we shall see, Kant himself does so in An Old Question. Moreover, recognizing that it is enthusiasm allows us to make connections with the characterization of enthusiasm that is found in the third Critique. The quotation is also representative of a common but mistaken view that the sign of 9 Fenves, in Raising the Tone, introduction, p. xi, correctly distinguishes Schwärmerei from Enthusiasmus. Fenves translates Schwärmerei with exaltation, but, since exaltation is used in connection with Enthusiasm (SF 7:87), the term is misleading. Fenves himself refers to the enthusiasm in An Old Question as exaltation ; Fenves, A Peculiar Fate, p On the term Exaltation, see SF 7:99; and On a Newly Arisen Superior Tone in Philosophy 7:398. Fenves notes that exaltation is doubtless too positive, too closely connected with an uplifting emotion, to do justice to Schwärmerei, though he believes that it nevertheless retains a note of danger (Raising the Tone, p. xii). He correctly notes that although enthusiasm was used by Shaftesbury as a term of abuse, it has a far nobler heritage than Schwärmerei, since Platonic enthusiasm was associated with divine inspiration (Raising the Tone, p. xi). 10 E.g., John Zammito, The Genesis of Kant s Critique of Judgment (University of Chicago Press, 1992), p (though Zammito, in Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology [University of Chicago Press, 2002], p. 193 correctly distinguishes the Schwärmer from the enthusiast); and Gregory R. Johnson, The Tree of Melancholy: Kant on Philosophy and Enthusiasm, in Kant and the New Philosophy of Religion, ed. Chris L. Firestone and Stephen R. Palmquist (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), pp Johnson argues that Kant s attitude toward Schwärmerei is better described as an ambivalent fascination rather than unalloyed hostility (p. 43). If Enthusiasm(us) is less unwholesome than Schwärmerei, and Schwärmerei itself is ambiguous and not wholly undesirable, certainly Enthusiasm(us) has some desirable features. In section 5.3 I argue that Enthusiasm(us) is ambiguous for Kant, but this study focuses on its positive and beneficial features (above all, the fact that it reveals freedom). Johnson s thesis about Schwärmerei suggests that this focus is justified, but he accentuates the positive in Schwärmerei more than does Fenves, who writes: Kant, like other German writers of the eighteenth century, never tired of trying to distinguish a thoroughly repugnant Schwärmerei from an Enthusiasmus without which nothing great in the world could take place ; see Raising the Tone, p. xi. Unlike Fenves, I do not view Schwärmerei as a form of enthusiasm. See APeculiarFate, p JaneKneller, inkant and the Power of Imagination (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 13, 55 n.34, , conceives of the enthusiast as a fantast, visionary, or fanatic (which in my view is better associated with Schwärmerei) and connects enthusiasm with metaphysical speculation and imaginings. 11 See Sharon Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil: History and Moral Progress in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), pp. 2 3.

22 6 The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom moral progress is the French Revolution, 12 when in fact the morally encouraging sign is the onlookers enthusiasm and expressions thereof. Fortunately, several commentators have noticed that the moral sign is the spectator s affective state and the expressions of or judgments about this state. 13 Enthusiasm is an empirical event, a phenomenon. It functions for Kant as an intimation, a historical sign, a signum of a moral tendency in humanity (SF 7:84). It is a given occurrence (Begebenheit) that takes place within the natural order (SF 7:85). Thus, enthusiasm should be distinguished from the alleged otherworldly intuitions of the pious fanatic (fromme Schwärmer) (SF 7:81). 14 But how does this signing and intimating relate to nature and to freedom, that is, how does it help us understand the transition problem? The transition problem requires some explanation. In the Second Introduction of the Critique of the Power of Judgment (Section II), Kant raises the problem of the transition or passage (Übergang) from our way of thinking about nature to that of freedom (KU 5:176). In nature, all events or occurrences are determined in time by preexisting states of the world in accordance with empirical causal laws or necessary rules (KrV a189/b232; a532 4/b560 2). Freedom, for its part, can be understood in several ways. 15 Transcendental freedom is the faculty or power of beginning a state from itself (vom selbst). It is a spontaneity that can start to act from itself without needing to be preceded by any other cause that in turn determines it to action according to the law of causal connection (KrV a533/b561). Practical freedom is the independence of the power of choice from necessitation by impulses of sensibility, a faculty of determining oneself from oneself (KrV a533/b561). Practical freedom has both negative and positive senses. The negative sense refers to the independence of necessitation by sensible impulses (G 4:446). The positive sense points to one s ability to adopt norms, including a priori maxims or subjective rules of 12 E.g., Rudolf Makkreel, Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies (Princeton University Press, 1975), p E.g., Howard Williams, Kant s Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), p. 209; Jane Kneller, Kant and the Power of Imagination, p. 108; Peter Fenves, Late Kant: Towards another Law of the Earth (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), p The translation by Mary Gregor and Robert Anchor misleadingly renders fromme Schwärmer as pious enthusiast ; see Religion and Rational Theology, p My understanding of these senses is influenced by Allen W. Wood and Henry Allison. See Allen W. Wood, Kant s Ethical Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 172; and Henry Allison, Kant s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp

23 Introduction 7 action, and so to determine oneself in accordance with laws that one legislates for oneself (G 4:447; KpV 5:33). Perhaps rather cryptically, Kant addresses the transition problem in Section ix of the third Critique: The effect in accordance with the concept of freedom is the final end, which (or its appearance in the sensible world) should exist, for which the condition of its possibility in nature (in the nature of the subject as a sensible being, that is, as a human being) is presupposed. That which presupposes this a priori and without regard to the practical, namely, the power of judgment, provides the mediating concept between the concepts of nature and the concept of freedom, which makes possible the transition [Übergang] from the purely theoretical to the purely practical, from lawfulness in accordance with the former to the final end in accordance with the latter, in the concept of a purposiveness of nature; for thereby is the possibility of the final end, which can become actual only in nature and in accord with its laws, cognized... And thus the power of judgment makes possible the transition from the domain of the concept of nature to that of the concept of freedom. (KU 5:196) Although recent commentators have shown a renewed interest in the transition problem, few have noticed that Kant wrestled with a version of the problem in the marginal notes known as the Remarks (Bemerkungen in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen ), written between 1764 and I examine these remarks to the Observations in the first chapter. One of these notes reads: The question is whether, in order to move [bewegen] my affects [Affecten] or those of others, I should take my standpoint [Stützungspunkt] outside of the world or within it. I answer: I find it [my standpoint] in the state of nature, that is, the state of freedom. (Rem 20:56; 46) 16 Kant here seems to identify the state of nature with the state of freedom. This identification is puzzling since elsewhere in the remarks Kant distinguishes and opposes nature and freedom, as we shall see. Freedom, conceived as harmony or agreement with nature, is not the only sense of freedom found in the notes. Kant there characterizes freedom in several 16 A complete edition of Bemerkungen in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen presently remains unpublished in English. The quoted passages from the Remarks are my own translations, and are cited from the Akademie Ausgabe and the Meiner edition, respectively, as follows: (Rem 20:2; 3) refers to the second page of the twentieth volume of the Akademie Ausgabe and to the third page of the richly annotated Meiner edition, i.e., Bemerkungen in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen, ed. Maria Rischmüller (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1991). While I recognize that the collection of remarks does not constitute a genuine Kantian work, sometimes it may be necessary to capitalize and italicize the name Remarks as if it were a work rather than Kant s notes in his own copy of the Observations.

24 8 The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom distinct ways, including a metaphysical sense in which one overcomes nature. In the first chapter, I will clarify the other senses of freedom that are found in the notes. The transition problem is not just the problem of filling in a gap (Lücke) in the Critical system, although the First Introduction does emphasize this function (FI 20:244). 17 As the Second Introduction underscores, the problem also concerns actually throwing a bridge (Brücke) across the immense gulf or chasm (Kluft) that separates freedom from nature, the supersensible from appearances, or what ought to happen from what actually happens (KU 5:195, 175). 18 In the present work, the problem of the transition is conceived primarily in the practical and non-systematic sense. The transition has to do with promoting in the natural order the ends of freedom as dictated by the moral law. It deals with the influence of the concept of freedom on nature. The transition concerns how the supersensible in the subject can determine the sensible, or the natural realm, not with regard to the cognition of nature but with regard to the consequences in nature (KU 5:195). These consequences are produced by the idea of freedom and the practical rules that it contains (KU 5:195). In particular, I am interested in what aesthetic experience, especially the sublime, can offer to help make this passage actual. A crucial step in the transition is the preparation of the mind for moral feeling: The power of judgment s concept of a purposiveness of nature still belongs among the concepts of nature, but only as a regulative principle of the faculty of cognition, although the aesthetic judgment on certain objects (of nature or of art) that occasions it is a constitutive principle with regard to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. The spontaneity in the play of the faculties of cognition, the 17 Henry Allison, following Klaus Düsing, interprets the basis of the transition in the Second Introduction as moral, rather than systematic, and I follow them. See Allison, Kant s Theory of Taste (Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 204; and Klaus Düsing, Die Teleologie in Kants Weltbegriff (Bonn: H. Bouvier Verlag, 1968), pp Kant mentions the transition problem in four other places in the Critical period: in the Transcendental Dialectic in the first Critique, KrV a339/b 386; in the Preface to the second Critique, KpV 5:7; at the conclusion of On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy (1788), GTP 8:182 3; and, finally, in section xi of the First Introduction to the third Critique, FI 20:241 and FI 20:246. For a discussion of these, see Allison, Kant s Theory of Taste, pp At FI 20:246 Kant says that not judgments of taste alone but aesthetic judgments, including therefore judgments of the sublime, refer sensible intuitions to an idea of nature. In the Second Introduction, too, Kant refers to aesthetic judgment on certain objects (of nature or of art), which, along with the references to the feelings of pleasure and displeasure, suggests that the sublime should be thought of as contributing to the transition (KU 5:197). Allison refers to this passage as a discussion of the function of taste with respect to the Übergang (p. 213), and in my view he downplays the role of the sublime in the Übergang.

25 Introduction 9 agreement of which contains the ground of this pleasure, makes that concept [purposiveness of nature] suitable for mediating the connection of the domain of the concept of nature with the concept of freedom in its consequences, in that the latter at the same time promotes the receptivity of the mind for the moral feeling. (KU 5:197) Although Kant is apparently referring to the beautiful here, there is no good reason to deny that the sublime can in some way contribute to the transition to freedom. By virtue of an affinity between the structures of the sublime and the moral feeling (among other ways), the experience of the sublime can prepare the mind for moral feeling (section 3.3). Moreover, the sublime, like the beautiful, involves spontaneity. In the case of the sublime, the spontaneity is on the part of the faculties of reason and even (to an extent) the imagination, which is stimulated by reason and feels a kind of exhilaration and extension in trying to complete reason s demand for totality. The interrelation and coordination of these two faculties of cognition, though disharmonious at first, are harmonious even in their contrast and produce a subjective purposiveness that satisfies reason (KU 5:258). 19 Kant s commentators have recently demonstrated a renewed interest in the role of aesthetic experience in morality 20 and, conversely, of morality s role in aesthetic experience. 21 Paul Guyer, for instance, argues that there are four conditions for us to act morally We must understand the moral law and what it requires of us. 2. We must believe that we are in fact free to choose to do what is required of us rather than to do what all our other motives, which can be subsumed under the rubric of self-love, might suggest to us. 3. We must believe that the objective or ends that morality imposes upon us can actually be achieved. 19 Kant s table of higher faculties in the Second Introduction characterizes reason as one of three faculties of cognition (KU 5:198). In the First Introduction Kant characterizes reason as the faculty of desire (FI 5:245 6). 20 E.g., Guyer, Values of Beauty; Scott Roulier, Kantian Virtue (University of Rochester Press, 2004); Patrick Frierson, Freedom and Anthropology in Kant s Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2003); Kneller, Kant and the Power of Imagination; Robert Louden, Kant s Impure Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2000); Wood, Kant s Ethical Thought; and Felicitas Munzel, Kant s Conception of Moral Character: The Critical Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment (University of Chicago Press, 1999). 21 See Guyer, Values of Beauty, p. 190; and Berys Gaut, Art, Emotion, and Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2007). Gaut offers a defense of ethicism in the critical evaluation of works of art and an overview of the contemporary debate between moralists, immoralists, and autonomists. 22 See Guyer, Values of Beauty, pp

26 10 The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom 4. We must have an adequate motivation for our attempt to do what morality requires of us in lieu of the mere desirability of particular goals it might happen to license or even impose in particular circumstances. Guyer then describes how beauty and sublimity can contribute to the fulfillment of each of the four conditions of the possibility of morality The sensuous presentation of moral ideas, above all through aesthetic ideas in the case of works of artistic genius, offers a sensuous presentation of the moral law itself, as well as of other thought connected with the very idea of morality. 2. The feeling of our freedom to choose to live up to the demands of morality in spite of all threats of nature that we experience in the dynamical sublime, as well as the tendency to interpret the beautiful as a symbol of the morally good, are ways in which the freedom of will that we can intellectually infer from our consciousness of the moral law becomes palpable to us as sensory creatures. 3. The hint from the experience of beauty that nature is amenable to the realization of our objectives is sensible evidence for that which is otherwise only a postulate of pure practical reason, namely, the consistency of the laws of nature and the law of freedom. Both the experience of natural beauty and the experience of the purposiveness of organisms (the latter being less important for the aims of the present book) offer us what we experience as evidence rather than a mere postulate that the system of morality can be realized in nature. This gives rise to an intellectual interest or morally based 24 interest in beauty The experience of beauty prepares us to love disinterestedly and that of the sublime to esteem even contrary to our own interest, and aesthetic 23 Guyer, Values of Beauty, pp Kant uses intellectual interest as synonymous with morally based interest, although these are distinct concepts in ordinary English and I find the latter more suited to Kant s purposes. Intellectual interest brings to mind what one is interested in from an intellectual point of view, as in scholarship or research. I prefer morally based, since in English it seems to be a stretch to use intellectual as Kant does, namely, to designate a concern that the world should support our efforts to be moral or a satisfaction that it is already so constituted. 25 Bart Raymaekers argues that the unity of nature and freedom is realized through our aesthetic experience, but adds that a teleological reflection on nature, an analysis of the internal finality within the organism, is also required for the link between nature and freedom. See Bart Raymaekers, The Importance of Freedom in the Architectonic of the Critique of Judgment, in Kants Ästhetik/Kant s Aesthetics/L esthétique de Kant, ed. Herman Parret (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), pp

27 Introduction 11 experience helps bridge the gaps between different social classes and interest-groups that inevitably arise in a complex polity. My claims about the experience and role of sublimity are likewise intended to show how, within the Kantian framework, the sublime can contribute to morality. I can clarify some of the aims of this work by touching on each of Guyer s points. First, I do not address the presentation of aesthetic ideas in works of art that elicit the sublime. The reason for this is not that such an examination would be uninteresting, but that I focus on enthusiasm, and the latter does not seem to be closely associated with Kant s stated views regarding aesthetic ideas in fine art. Indeed, there are very intriguing connections to be made between inspiration, genius, and enthusiasm which can be traced back to enthusiasm s Platonic origin. But I do not pursue these connections in this book. Second, Kant holds that the concept of the sublime in nature indicates something purposive only in the possible use of its intuitions to make palpable [fühlbar] in ourselves a purposiveness that is entirely independent of nature (KU 5:246). I argue that aesthetic enthusiasm makes palpable human freedom in this sense. Enthusiasm is, among other things, a feeling of freedom to do the morally good. Third, the sublime is noticeably absent in Guyer s discussion of the third condition. Admittedly, there are some good reasons for this. The purposiveness of nature with respect to the sublime is indirect at best, as Allison likewise notes. 26 For this reason Kant s theory of the sublime is perhaps best seen, as Kant puts it, as a mere appendix to the aesthetic judging of the purposiveness of nature (KU 5:246). We should keep in mind here, however, that for Kant enthusiasm can be an empirical and phenomenal moral sign, that is, one that unfolds in the course of nature. In fact, Guyer himself indicates that Kant holds that such enthusiasm can encourage us by providing concrete evidence and grounds for hope that is based on actual moments in our history. 27 By the end of this book, it should be clear how enthusiasm as an encouraging moral sign is connected to the ways in which the sublime can contribute to morality, awakening a morally based or intellectual interest of reason. Finally, in An Old Question Kant describes enthusiasm as being contrary to the sensory interests of the spectators (even if it accords with and is grounded in their rational idea of a just republic), for they risk 26 Allison, Kant s Theory of Taste, p Paul Guyer, Kant (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp

28 12 The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom being persecuted by oppressive governments for expressing their enthusiasm. Such an experience can prepare an individual for both the disinterestedness and even the conflicts with sensory interests that are associated with morality. Moreover, one has the impression that the spectators, even if they identify with different social classes, are linked together by their shared enthusiasm and expressions thereof. Indeed, Kant describes their feeling not only as disinterested and even against their interests, but also as universally valid (SF 7:85). A brief overview of the sublime will help us put Kant s theory in its intellectual and historical context, which may be unfamiliar to some readers. 28 Let us begin with a few examples of objects that could be judged to be sublime. Kant s own list comprises both natural and nonnatural objects. He mentions clouds, icebergs, storms, volcanoes, shadowy wastelands, the starry sky, St. Peter s Basilica in Rome, a tragic poem, an edifying sermon, and the ideas of infinity and of freedom (see Appendix 3). To add to this list: products of human creative activity that can inspire the sublime include Aeschylus Prometheus Bound; certain paintings by Albert Bierstadt, Caspar David Friedrich, Thomas Cole, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, or Jackson Pollock; some Richard Serra sculptures; Kubrick s Spartacus and Gibson s Braveheart; Wagner s Tannhäuser overture; or some landscape photographs of the Dolomites. 29 The concept of sublimity ( ýwoò, sublimitas) has its roots in rhetoric, referring to that quality of genius in great literary works that irresistibly delights, inspires, and overwhelms the reader. 30 The isolation of the sublime as a central aesthetic category is largely the achievement of an early first-century ce treatise eqì ýwotò (Peri hypsous), or On the Sublime, which was traditionally but mistakenly attributed to Cassius Longinus. 31 The treatise seems to have had little or no impact upon ancient rhetorical theory, and purportedly survived into the Middle Ages in the form of a single, incomplete manuscript. Although the treatise was rediscovered in the Renaissance, it entered literary discussion only after 28 For the history of the sublime, see Samuel Monk, The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-Century England (New York: MLA, 1935); and James Kirwan, Sublimity (New York and London: Routledge, 2005), which focuses on the sublime in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Cf. Bjørn Myskja, The Sublime in Kant and Beckett (New York and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), pp Cf. James Kirwan s list in The Aesthetic in Kant (London: Continuum, 2004), p For Kant s relation to rhetoric, see Robert J. Drostal, Kant and Rhetoric, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 13(4) (1980): Longinus, On the Sublime, in Aristotle in Twenty-Three Volumes, vol. xxiii (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).