Single Idea 21928

[catalogued under 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 6. The Sublime]

Full Idea

Exaltation of the Sublime is the struggle to maintain will-less knowing in the face of a threat to the human will. The Sublime contains an awful beauty and a delightful terror because it includes a threat to human existence.

Gist of Idea

The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity

Source

report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 201-7) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 5

Book Reference

Lewis, Peter B.: 'Schopenhauer' [Reaktion Books 2012], p.116


A Reaction

Can you experience the Sublime when looking down a microscope? Can a mere theory in cosmology be sublime? Can a supposed perception of the Sublime ever be incorrect? We no longer worry about these questions, it seems.

Related Idea

Idea 21924 As the subject of willing I am wretched, but absorption in knowledge is bliss [Schopenhauer]