Serious doubts have been raised about the coherence of theories of the sublime and the usefulness of the concept. By contrast, the sublime is increasingly studied as a key function in Kant's moral psychology and in his ethics. This article combines methodological conservatism, approaching the topic from within Kant's discussion of aesthetic judgment, with reconstruction of a conception of human agency that is tenable on Kantian grounds. I argue that a coherent theory of the sublime is possible and useful, and the experience of the sublime is significant for our self‐conception as agents. However, the chief interest in the sublime is not moral.
What this "better" is -whether it includes moral as well as political improvement -and how it may be attained are matters of keen interest and considerable debate among Kant interpreters. 2 Although I will be discussing and taking a position on these issues, my primary aim in this chapter is to examine what Kant's writings on history are about.The question arises for Kant's essays in a way that it does not arise for works on, say, "Casca's attempt at Caesar's life," "the Great Fire of London," or "the age of revolution in Europe from 1789 to 1848," which are fairly straightforwardly about historical actions, events, or periods. Kant's essays have a very wide compass and treat historical phenomena, such as wars or the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture, at a high level of generality, as kinds rather than individuals. 3 Kant explains that he is interested in "human actions," which he wants to consider "in the large [im Grossen]" (IUH 8:17), in order to bring to view the whole they compose; he calls this whole "universal," "human," or "world"
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