Bart Vandenabeele

Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Aesthetically Sublime

Much has been written on the relationship between Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. Much remains to be said, however, concerning their respective theories of the sublime. First, I shall argue against the traditional, dialectical view of Schopenhauer’s theory of the sublime that stresses the crucial role the sublime plays in bridging the wide gap between aesthetics and ethics. Although this traditional interpretation is definitely influenced by Nietzsche, I do not maintain it is exclusively Nietzschean as such. Second, I would like to offer some points of contention concerning their accounts of the feeling of the sublime. I will try and show that, although Nietzsche’s account of the Apollonian and the Dionysian is highly influenced by Schopenhauer’s analysis of the sublime feeling, his analysis of Dionysian intoxication cannot be taken to simply develop out of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Moreover, by way of (a not so innocent) example, it is shown that Nietzsche’s philosophy of music — although highly influenced by Schopenhauer’s — cannot as easily be reconciled with Schopenhauer’s theory as is commonly believed, due to their differing accounts of the nature of the feeling of the sublime.

Beauty, Disinterested Pleasure, and Universal Communicability: Kant’s Response to Burke

Abstract: Although Kant (wrongly) holds that the universal communicability of aesthetic judgments logically follows from the disinterested character of the pleasure upon which they are based, Kant’s emphasis on the a priori validity of judgments of beauty can be viewed as a rebuttal of the kind of empiricist arguments that Burke offers to justify the social nature of the experience of beauty. I argue that the requirement of universal communicability is not a mere addition to the requirement of universal validity and is far more relevant to an adequate characterisation of the beautiful than has customarily been assumed. I further argue that the ‘exemplary necessity’ of pure judgments of taste, if understood correctly, reveals beauty’s primordial social significance, enabling us to become alive to a profound universal solidarity among aesthetic subjects.

The Existential and Metaphysical Value of the Sublime

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.

Pessimism, Aesthetic Experience, and Genius

The purpose of the present book is to develop and modify Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the sublime so as to establish the sublime as a viable aesthetic concept with a broader existential and metaphysical significance. The first part of this book offers the necessary preliminaries in order to develop Schopenhauer’s theory in a more fruitful way, and this first chapter provides the broader philosophical context in which his theory is to be interpreted.

The Aesthetics of the Sublime

The main concern of this chapter is Schopenhauer’s aesthetic doctrine of the sublime and the role pleasure plays in grounding this type of aesthetic experience. But I will come to that main concern obliquely, beginning instead with Kant’s formidably difficult account of the sublime, which heavily influenced Schopenhauer’s theory.

A Psychological Alternative to Schopenhauer’s Theory of the Sublime

The argument of the previous chapter contains a vital suggestion about the sublime, namely, that it comes to us as part of a profoundly relational state of mind. The sublime is a high point in our demand that the world be meaningful to us, and our attempt to come to terms with its overwhelming and distressing aspects. The experience of the sublime thus has deep existential and metaphysical significance, the scope of which will be tackled in the final chapter of the present book. That an experience has metaphysical value does not, however, imply that the experience itself can be reduced to this specific value, and neither does it imply that the pleasure procured is the effect of metaphysical reflection. For the sublime is, first and foremost, an aesthetic feeling, not a philosophical, moral, or transcendental insight.

The Aesthetics of the Beautiful

In On the Genealogy of Morality, Friedrich Nietzsche deplores that ‘Schopenhauer made use of the Kantian version of the aesthetic problem’, and ‘could not break free of the spell of Kant’s definition’ of beauty as disinterested pleasure. 1 However, even though Nietzsche rightly emphasises that Schopenhauer will incorporate Kant’s notion of disinterestedness into his own aesthetic theory, Schopenhauer also fundamentally transforms Kant’s Analytic of the beautiful into a highly original aesthetic attitude theory 2 and focuses on the cognitive and ethical values of aesthetic perception instead of on the logic of aesthetic judgment. Schopenhauer holds that the purely disinterested, objective stance is inextricably connected with knowledge of, what he calls, Platonic Ideas and is hence cognitively valuable. This heightened state of awareness is pleasurable not only because it frees us from the thraldom of the will, but also because it yields genuine cognition of ‘the purely objective inner nature of things, namely the Ideas appearing in them’ (WWR I, 369). 3

Sensory Perception and Aesthetic Contemplation

As has been pointed out in the previous chapter, Schopenhauer contends that the whole organic and inorganic world is ultimately governed by an insatiable, blind will. Life as a whole is purposeless: there is no ultimate goal or meaning, for the will is only interested in manifesting itself in (or as) a myriad of phenomena which we call the ‘world’ or ‘life’. Human life too is nothing but an insignificant product or ‘objectivation’ of a blind, unconscious will, and because our life is determined by willing (i.e. by needs, affects, urges, and desires) and willing is characterised by lack, our life is essentially full of misery and suffering. We are constantly yearning for objects that can satisfy our needs and desires and once we have finally found a way to satisfy one desire, another one crops up and we become restless willing subjects once again, and so on in an endless whirlpool of willing, suffering, momentary satisfaction, boredom, willing again, and so on. Life is not a good thing. The only way, Schopenhauer argues, to escape from these torments of willing is by ‘seeing the world aright’, as Wittgenstein would have it, that is to say, by acknowledging the pointlessness and insignificance of our own willing existence, and ultimately by giving up willing as such — which in fact really means abandoning our own individuality, our own willing selves — which is momentarily possible in aesthetic experiences of beauty and sublimity, and permanently achievable only in the exceptional ethical practices of detachment, mysticism, and asceticism, in which the will to life is eventually denied and sheer nothingness is embraced – either through harsh suffering or through sainthood.

Tragedy, Ethics, and the Sublime

A lot and perhaps even most of Schopenhauer’s insightful account of the arts can be reduced to a kind of enlightened aesthetic attitude theory that relates all artistic achievements back to the value of the aesthetic experiences afforded. But Schopenhauer’s account of tragedy reveals some reticence about the ‘aesthetic experience’ approach that is mostly attributed to him. Although Christopher Janaway (and many other commentators) is right to emphasise the crucial importance of the pleasure of will-less tranquillity, Schopenhauer’s analysis of the significance of tragedy at least suggests that the value of all art cannot be explained wholly in terms of the pleasurable experience afforded.1 We do not value a work of art merely because it offers us pleasure, nor do we repudiate it because it fails to do so.

Burke and Kant on the Social Nature of Aesthetic Experience

According to Burke in his Philosophical Enquiry, aesthetic pleasure and taste are grounded in our essential sociability. On the one hand, the experience of the beautiful is based on our profound ties with our fellow human creatures. The sublime, on the other hand, is rooted in our desire for self-preservation, but it also fortifies our sociable instinct. Indeed, for Burke, the delight aroused by the sublime makes us interested in the tragic fate of others, and lies at the root of morality. Like Burke, Kant emphasises the social nature of aesthetic experience. Kant is not interested in concrete sociability with the suffering other, however. For him, the social nature of aesthetics is transcendental and is exemplified in the universal communicability of aesthetic judgements. Although Kant does not reject the relevance of the senses and the body in aesthetic judging, he rebuts Burke’s empiricist and physio-psychological arguments, because these cannot justify the universal validity claim that for Kant are inherent in judgements of taste.