Burke vs. Kant in the Battle of the Sublime

“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime,” writes Burke in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Contrasting Kant’s idea of the sublime, which Hartman echoes in his article “A Poet’s Progress,” Burke theorizes sublimity as being the most connected to a gothic sense of fear. He argues that the sublime is what moves our soul into a state of astonishment, a condition in which all motions of one’s existence are suspended due to some degree of horror. “In this case,” says Burke, “the mind is so entirely filled with its object [of fear or astonishment] that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it.” Therefore, one’s inability to communicate or express this fear points directly to the power of the sublime. Fear, astonishment, and pain, according to Burke, exist as the strongest examples of passions connected directly to the sensation of the sublime. As opposed to Kant’s description of the mind’s continuous alternating movements between repulsion from and attraction to an object, resulting in a feeling of transcendence, Burke describes the sublime as a downward plunging motion into the depths of horror. Instead of feeling a “restful contemplation,” as Kant describes, Burke argues that sublime fear unleashes one’s subconscious anxieties otherwise inexplicable in conscious existence.

Kant’s theory of the sublime seems to touch on Freudian aspects of “unheimlich,” a feeling of anxiety produced by the inability to recognize a thing so seemingly familiar. It’s this feeling of uncertainty that Kant describes in the sublime thought process; it initially creates a feeling of displeasure, which then transitions to a pleasurable admiration as the imagination supersedes logic and reason. Therefore, Kant’s theory of the sublime focuses on the power of the imagination and its ability to produce feelings of gratitude and pleasure. In contrast, Burke theorizes that the sublime is rooted in fear alone. In fact, he argues that psychological pain is far stronger than the feeling of pleasure since the cathartic expressions of fear and danger affect the body and mind more so than “any pleasure could suggest.” Essentially, the only commonality between these two philosophers is the fact that the sublime initiates a psychological sensation.

Still, even though these two theories of the sublime identify distinct psychological responses, they both touch upon this idea of the unknown. In terms of Burke’s sublime, we feel terror because we don’t have an understanding of the thing we’re experiencing. Meanwhile, according to Kant, the sublime unlocks a playfulness of the imagination, evidencing a “faculty of the mind that can transcend every standard of sense.” I don’t necessarily subscribe to one theory or the other, as I believe each concept has an inherent truth. Still, I find it interesting that a concept so incommunicable can be expressed in so many ways.