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Full Idea
Egoistic accounts of the sublime allow that our fragility is revealed, but also claim we feel something positive about ourselves. Non-egoistic accounts question whether the self-negation is so terrible after all.
Gist of Idea
Accounts of sublimity differ over whether we learn something good about ourselves
Source
Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 3.2)
Book Ref
Cochrane,Tom: 'The Aesthetic Value of the World' [OUP 2021], p.58
A Reaction
[compressed] I think I favour the non-egoistic approach. It is like the thrill of seeing a great performance in the arts or sport. It humbles me - but also I feel part of something greater than me. Like a child on the winning side in a war.
| 22046 | The mathematical sublime is immeasurable greatness; the dynamical sublime is overpowering [Kant, by Pinkard] |
| 21458 | The sublime is a moral experience [Kant, by Gardner] |
| 21928 | The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| 24087 | People who miss beauty seek the sublime, where even the ugly shows its 'beauty' [Nietzsche] |
| 24091 | The sublimity of nature which dwarfs us was a human creation [Nietzsche] |
| 20430 | In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry] |
| 23923 | Visual form can create a sublime mental state [Bell,C] |
| 23758 | Beauty is an attractive mystery, leaving nothing to be desired [Weil] |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| 20386 | The sublime is negative in awareness of insignificance, and positive in showing understanding [Davies,S] |
| 24175 | Accounts of sublimity differ over whether we learn something good about ourselves [Cochrane] |