The Sublime in Modern Philosophy
Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature

A philosophical study of the sublime from the height of its popularity to its renewed importance as a form of appreciating and valuing nature.

Emily Brady (Author)

9780521194143, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 August 2013

240 pages, 4 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.52 kg

'The book is a considerable achievement and an important one for those working in aesthetics or environmental philosophy. There is great insight here about a significant aesthetic experience and the light it sheds on the human relation to nature. Those interested in the historical development of the notion of the sublime should also pay attention to this book. Brady has made her case that the sublime deserves a prominent place in contemporary aesthetics and environmental thought.' Ned Hettinger, Environmental Ethics Journal

In The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature, Emily Brady takes a fresh look at the sublime and shows why it endures as a meaningful concept in contemporary philosophy. In a reassessment of historical approaches, the first part of the book identifies the scope and value of the sublime in eighteenth-century philosophy (with a focus on Kant), nineteenth-century philosophy and Romanticism, and early wilderness aesthetics. The second part examines the sublime's contemporary significance through its relationship to the arts; its position with respect to other aesthetic categories involving mixed or negative emotions, such as tragedy; and its place in environmental aesthetics and ethics. Far from being an outmoded concept, Brady argues that the sublime is a distinctive aesthetic category which reveals an important, if sometimes challenging, aesthetic-moral relationship with the natural world.

Part I. The Historical Sublime: 1. The eighteenth-century sublime
2. The Kantian sublime I: pre-critical and critical work
3. The Kantian sublime II: nature and morality
4. The Romantic sublime
Part II. The Contemporary Sublime: 5. Art and the sublime
6. Tragedy and the sublime
7. The sublime, terrible beauty, and ugliness
8. The environmental sublime.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN], Philosophy [HP], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Art & design styles: Romanticism [ACVC], History of art & design styles: c 1600 to c 1800 [ACQ]