The Sublime in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy

202 Pages·2015·5.457 MB·English

by  Bart Vandenabeele (auth.)

The Sublime in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy
Also by Bart Vandenabeele
A COMPANION TO SCHOPENHAUER ( editor )
GABRIËLLA CLEUREN
Brave New Old Worlds ( with Gabriëlla Cleuren and Ann Smets )
HISTORIES OF THE SUBLIME (e dited with Christophe Madelein and J ürgen Pieters )
SEDUCTION, COMMUNITY, SPEECH ( edited with Frank Brisard and
Michael Meeuwis )
The Sublime in
Schopenhauer’s Philosophy
Bart Vandenabeele
Ghent University, Belgium
© Bart Vandenabeele 2015
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First published 2015 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-57829-0 ISBN 978-1-137-35869-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137358691
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vandenabeele, Bart.
The sublime in Schopenhauer’s philosophy / Bart Vandenabeele,
Ghent University, Belgium.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788–1860. 2. Sublime, The. I. Title.
B3149.A4V36 2015
1119.85092—dc23 2015018346
To Veerle, Sarah, and Eline,
who have raised a tent of shelter

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Abbreviations and References to Works by Schopenhauer x
Introduction 1
Part I Aesthetic Contemplation
1 Pessimism, Aesthetic Experience, and Genius 15
2 Sensory Perception and Aesthetic Contemplation 33
Part II The Beautiful and the Sublime
3 The Aesthetics of the Beautiful 59
4 The Aesthetics of the Sublime 83
5 A Psychological Alternative to Schopenhauer’s Theory
of the Sublime 128
Part III Values of the Sublime
6 Tragedy, Ethics, and the Sublime 145
7 The Existential and Metaphysical Value of the Sublime 1 63
Bibliography 179
Index 187
vii
Acknowledgements
This study is the result of many years of reflection on Schopenhauer’s
philosophy and the topic of the sublime. A large part of it was written
in splendid isolation, during a period of research leave granted by the
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Ghent University. The work towards
what eventually became this book began some 20 years ago. Over the
years I have greatly benefited from numerous questions, comments, and
suggestions, and much encouragement on the part of friends, colleagues,
students, and audiences all over the world, and I wish to thank all of
them.
Some parts of this book started life elsewhere. The following published
articles and chapters contain material in common with parts of the
book, sometimes substantially revised: ‘Schopenhauer on Aesthetic
Contemplation’, in Oliver Hallich and Matthias Kossler, eds, Arthur
Schopenhauer: D ie Welt a ls W ille und V orstellung , Klassiker Auslegen, Band
42 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 101–118; ‘Schopenhauer on Aesthetic
Understanding and the Values of Art’, E uropean Journal of P hilosophy
16, 2008, 194–210, reprinted under the same title in Alex Neill and
Christopher Janaway, eds, B etter Consciousness: S chopenhauer’s P hilosophy
of V alue (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 41–57; ‘Schopenhauer on
Empirical and Aesthetic Perception and Cognition’, in Alan Schrift and
Tomas Nenon, eds, History of Continental Philosophy (8 vols.), Volume
1: K ant, K antianism, and I dealism (Durham/Chicago: Acumen Press/
University of Chicago Press), 2010, 187–210; ‘Beauty, Disinterested
Pleasure, and Pure Contemplation: Schopenhauer’s Response to Kant’,
Schopenhauer- Jahrbuch 93, 2013, 241–256; ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness in
Kant and Schopenhauer’, Estetika: Central European Journal of Aesthetics
5, 2012, 45–70.
I am grateful to the editors and publishers for permission to reprint
and rework material that has already appeared in their pages. I also wish
to thank the editors at Palgrave Macmillan, especially Esme Chapman
and Brendan George, for their very helpful suggestions and the reviewers
for their acute comments.
I have benefited immensely from discussion with Chris Janaway
(whose publications stimulated me to start studying Schopenhauer’s
thought a long time ago), Daniel Came, Paul Crowther, Paul Guyer,
Matthias Kossler, Simon May, Alex Neill, Sandy Shapshay, and Günter
viii
Acknowledgements ix
Zöller. Without the insights from our conversations and their writings,
my thinking would be seriously impoverished. I would also like to thank
and remember the late Patricia De Martelaere, whose generous support
of my work still means very much to me.
Special thanks are owed to the Carmelite friars at Ghent and to Bea and
Kristien for their kindness and hospitality, and to my brother, Stijn, for
the numerous chats and his invaluable moral support. To my wife, the
irreplaceable Veerle Rotsaert, and our sweet daughters, Sarah and Eline, I
owe the greatest debt of gratitude. Without their love, the present book
would never even have materialised. I wholeheartedly dedicate this book
to Veerle and to Sarah and Eline, the sublime Vandenabeele sisters.