bservations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime

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Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (German edition).jpg
Author Immanuel Kant
Original title Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen
Language German
Subject Aesthetics
Published 1764
Media type Print
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Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (German: Beobachtungen
über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen) is a 1764 book by Immanuel Kant.[1][2]
[3]

The first complete translation into English was published in 1799. The second, by
John T. Goldthwait, was published in 1960 by the University of California Press.

Contents
1 Section One
2 Section Two
3 Section Three
4 Section Four
5 Editions
6 Further reading
7 References
Section One
Of the Distinct Objects of the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime

Kant states that feelings of enjoyment are subjective. In this book, he describes
his observations. His interest is not in coarse, thoughtless feelings or in the
other extreme, the finest feelings of intellectual discovery. Instead, he writes
about the finer feelings, which are intermediate. These require some sensitivity,
intellectual excellence, talent, or virtue.

There are two kinds of finer feeling: the feeling of the sublime and the feeling of
the beautiful. Kant gives examples of these pleasant feelings. Some of his examples
of feelings of the beautiful are the sight of flower beds, grazing flocks, and
daylight. Feelings of the sublime are the result of seeing mountain peaks, raging
storms, and night.

In this section, Kant gives many particular examples of feelings of the beautiful
and the sublime. Feelings of the beautiful "occasion a pleasant sensation but one
that is joyous and smiling." On the other hand, feelings of the sublime "arouse
enjoyment but with horror."

Kant subdivided the sublime into three kinds. The feeling of the terrifying sublime
is sometimes accompanied with a certain dread or melancholy. The feeling of the
noble sublime is quiet wonder. Feelings of the splendid sublime are pervaded with
beauty.

Section Two
Of the Attributes of the Beautiful and Sublime in Man in General

Kant described the relationship between these finer feelings and humanity. The
feelings are not totally separate from each other. Beauty and the sublime can be
joined or alternated. Kant claimed that tragedy, for the most part, stirs the
feeling of the sublime. Comedy arouses feelings for beauty. The personal appearance
of humans prompts these feelings in various cases. A person's social position also
affects these feelings.

Human nature has many variations of the feelings of the beautiful and the sublime.
Some variations of the terrifying sublime are the adventurous and grotesque.
Visionaries and cranks are persons who have fantasies and whims. The beautiful,
when it degenerates, produces triflers, fops, dandies, chatterers, silliness,
bores, and fools.

Sympathy or compassion and also good-natured agreeableness are not true virtues,
according to Kant. True virtue is the quality of raising the feeling of humanity's
beauty and dignity to a principle. When a person acts in accordance with this
principle, regardless of inclination, that person is truly and sublimely virtuous.

"A profound feeling for the beauty and dignity of human nature and a firmness and
determination of the mind to refer all one's actions to this as to a universal
ground is earnest, and does not at all join with a changeable gaiety nor with the
inconstancy of a frivolous person." With this observation, Kant will attempt to fit
the various feelings of the beautiful and sublime, and the resulting moral
characters, into Galen's rigid arrangement of the four humours or human
temperaments: melancholic, sanguine, choleric, and phlegmatic.

Kant asserted that the human temperaments or dispositions are fixed and separate
characters. An individual who has one frame of mind has no feeling or sense for the
finer feelings that occur in a person of another temperament.

A person who has a constitution that is melancholic will have a predominating

feeling for the sublime. That person may possess genuine virtue based on the
principle that humanity has beauty and worth.
One who has a sanguine nature will mostly have a feeling for the beautiful. This
results in an "adoptive" virtue that rests on goodheartedness. This person's
compassion and sympathy depend on the impression of the moment.
A choleric human will have a feeling for the splendid or showy sublime. As a
result, this person will possess an apparent virtue. Kant calls it "a gloss of
virtue." This includes a sense of honor and concern for outward appearance.
Phlegmatic people have apathy or lack of any finer feeling. They therefore may have
an absence of virtue.
As a whole, human nature in general is a combination of these virtues. As such, it
is a splendid expression of beauty and dignity.

Section Three
Of the Distinction of the Beautiful and Sublime in the Interrelations of the Two
Sexes

In Section Three, Kant asserts that women predominantly have feelings for all that
is beautiful. Men, on the contrary, have mostly feelings for the sublime. Any other
feelings that are only for the enhancement of the main feeling. Kant admits,
though, that the distinction is not absolute. Since "we are dealing with human
beings; we must also remember that they are not all alike."

Kant helps to root notions of inequality in the Western social structure. For
example, Kant argues that "a woman is little embarrassed that she does not possess
high insights; she is beautiful and captivates, and that is enough ... Laborious
learning or painful pondering, even if a woman should greatly succeed in it,
destroys the merits that are proper to her sex."

Women's mental ability and understanding, then, refer to the beautiful. Men's deep,
noble understanding is not suitable for women. Women have beautiful virtues such as
kindness and benevolence. Men's virtue is noble and has to do with principles and
duty. Because a woman is concerned with the beautiful, the worst that can be said
against her is that she is disgusting. A man's greatest defect, however, would be
that he is ridiculous, as this is the opposite of the sublime.

In sexual selection, a woman demands that the man have noble and sublime
characteristics. A man wants a woman to possess beautiful qualities. In a marriage,
the husband and wife unite their disparate attributes to form, as it were, a single
moral person. The man's understanding combines with the wife's taste to constitute
a union.

Section Four
Of National Characteristics, so far as They Depend upon the Distinct Feeling of the
Beautiful and Sublime

Here Kant describes the different ways that various people have finer feelings. He
qualifies his remarks by stating, "[W]hether these national differences are
contingent and depend upon the times and the type of government, or are bound by a
certain necessity to the climate, I do not here inquire."

The Italians have a strong feeling for the beautiful with some mixture of the
thoughtful sublime. The French have mostly a feeling for the beautiful, but with
the addition of the joyful sublime. The feeling of the Germans is an almost equal
blend of both the beautiful and the splendid sublime in that they are much
concerned with outward appearances. The feeling of the noble sublime predominates
with the English, whose actions are guided by principles rather than impulses. With
their cruel autos-da-fé and harsh conquests, the Spaniards have feeling for the
terrifying sublime. Dutch people in Holland have no finer taste and are concerned
only with what is useful. Arabs are like the Spaniards. Persians resemble the
French. The Japanese are the Englishmen of the Orient. West India displays its love
of the grotesque sublime, as also do the Chinese. African Negroes possess no finer
feelings. North American Indians, however, have a feeling for the sublime in that
they are adventurous, honorable, truthful, proud, brave, and valorous.
In antiquity, the ancient Greeks and Romans had remarkable feelings for both the
beautiful and the sublime. However, with the Caesars, this decayed into a love of
false glitter. The subsequent barbarian Gothic civilization had an overpowering
feeling for the grotesque. Kant claimed that his time witnessed "the sound taste of
the beautiful and noble blossoming forth both in the arts and sciences and in
respect to morals." He declared that it is necessary to educate the younger
generation so that they will have noble simplicity, high morals, and finer
feelings.

Editions
Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. Trans.
John T. Goldthwait. University of California Press, 1961, 2003.
Further reading
Doran, Robert. "The Kantian sublime in 1764: Observations on the Feeling of the
Beautiful and the Sublime" in The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
References
"Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other
Writings". cambridge.org. Retrieved 15 January 2014.
Louden, Robert B. "Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and
Sublime and Other Writings". ndpr.nd.edu. Retrieved 15 January 2014.
"Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime". books.google.com.
Retrieved 15 January 2014.
Categories: 1764 booksAesthetics literatureBooks by Immanuel KantGerman non-fiction
books
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