The Beautiful and The Sublime (Aesthetics)

[@alittax]

Seems like the main difference between beauty and sublime is that beauty doesn't necessarily emphasizes our human limitations, while the sublime does so. And what they have in common is a sense of satisfaction one feels when experiencing them. What do you think?

[@littlebigphil]

I wonder if spicy foods would be considered sublime.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+littlebigphil I like that interpretation. If you consider cooking a type of art, which gets to the other essential question of aesthetics, what is art?

[@revitellect3129]

If you're not tasting it, yes.

[@MsGoatborn]

Carolyn Korsmeyer discusses this in her essay 'Delightful, Delicious, Disgusting'

[@littlebigphil]

@TheBmo4538 It might not be overwhelming in the same way, but it can be overwhelming. Rather than incomprehensible power or vastness, it's sensational overload. More importantly, there's the fear followed by pleasure as a result of an awareness that you can't physically be hurt by it. Normally the sensations would signal danger from extreme temperatures, but in this context, instead of burned tissue, you just get pain. Also, there's a sense of powerlessness because, once you've started experiencing the heat, you know that you're going to have to deal with it for a while.

[@fayate_6984]

@@littlebigphil I love your interpretation and breakdown. Well down

[@brettobannon7965]

what a fortuitous find tonight. I'm on day 3 of a 10 day Facebook challenge to identify 1 album (yes, I'm from that era) each day that had a particularly important or lasting impact on me. Feeling like I needed to leave the 1980s with today's selection, I was confronted with a choice between two albums of seemingly strikingly different aesthetic qualities. First, was Peter Gabriel's "Plays Live." Now I don't usually care for live albums for quite specific aesthetic reasons - as an audiophile, it's never made much sense to spend irresponsible amounts of money on stereo equipment - back in the day, the needle cartridge I had to have cost as much as the turntable it was attached to -- only to endure an aural contest between the crowd wanting to be heard and the music the artist wishes me to appreciate. Thus I considered Gabriel's third album, sometimes called "Melt," as it contains several of the important songs, including the absolutely essential work, "Biko." But the aesthetically less pleasing two record live set won out by the sheer number of its tracks, and it in fact won the day against what is to me, an album that offers a clearly more beautiful, and yes, pleasurable listening experience, Suzanne Vega's "Solitude Standing." Wanting to give the runner up her due, I began to describe Vega's work as, "an album with a truly sublime aesthetic quality." And then I thought, wait, is it really sublime? It doesn't evoke awe in me, and parts of Gabriel's work does. I found your video, and in learning of the centrality of the fear response to a work of art deemed sublime, I realized that the quality of Vega's work that has long had such an impact on me is precisely its beauty. Peter Gabriel's album, however, puts us , inter alia, into the mind of both the attempted assassin of George Wallace, and of a burglar who has broken into a sleeping woman's home. And in what became the anthem of the global anti-Apartheid movement, "Biko" transports us into the very room (# 619 of the Sanlam Building, HQ of the security police) where in September, 1977, five white policemen beat to death young Stephen Biko. Indeed 'fear' is a central feature of the complex response I experience -- but one I quickly escape as I regain awareness of the merely virtual nature of my presence in the room where Stephen Bantu Biko was so unmercifully taken from his family, his country, and the world. Thanks for helping me think through this interesting problem!

[@minglim5485]

Carneades, thank you. Can you shed some light on the sublime in a time of the coronavirus pandemic? Fear is at the heart of this pandemic - people are in awe at present, immediate danger posed by the virus but it also feels ungraspable and therefore lacks the dimension of 'pleasure' contained in notions of the sublime. Some research references from philosophy would be very much appreciated.

[@bluff_50]

have you figured this out yet? i'm interested.

[@alittax]

1:59 Is the correct arrangement of musical notes, colors on a canvas, words in a speech, etc. another example for the principle "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."? Because if you take the same "parts" (musical notes, colors, words in a speech, etc.) and rearrange them in a different way, the parts are the same, but their sum is different.

[@MJadeMcGregor]

It was through Immanuel Kant's The Beautiful and The Sublime that I have experienced the epiphany that I do not need to, as a woman, continue down this path of wisdom and knowlege. I only had to be beautiful.

[@MJadeMcGregor]

All this time, I was alice in wonderland, but on repeat. day after day, year after year, running into an antichrist absolem who would share terror of never ending death unless I put myself to good use and came up with the key to freeing ourselves from the matrix, for everyone. It was probably just a pissing match for the false "prophets" - antichrist absolems... when I say that, I mean post-modern druids. depraved predators

[@williamappleford148]

sigma

[@rosamarouane1940]

Barnett Newman's artworks are very valuable examinations of the sublime within in an art context

[@vidhikataria1364]

Is it like flashbacks in trauma, there’s no immediate danger but feeling of it

[@pasha92]

I don't agree with the definition of Edmund Burke .... It seems as the whole essence of sublime experience is lies in knowing you can not be hurt, It feels that by his definition sublime is just fear stripped down of adrenaline and locked in some toy cage. It is as if looking at a serial murdrer locked up in jail would bring a sublime experience I think that sublime is a deep appreciation and recognition of power and greatness. A notable sublime experience for me is visiting the Masada, a fortress that was built by Herod the Great. I dont feel fear visiting this place but I appreciate this greatness that was built by human hands, this huge creation, and probably a lot of people died while building it (this is how it usually was with slaves that were building stuff) these facts that make it sublime. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada#/media/File:Israel-2013-Aerial_21-Masada.jpg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Interesting claim. It seems to me that providing a clear definition of what makes something great will be difficult. How would you define it?

[@pasha92]

+Carneades.org I think greatness is 'contextual', I think greatness can be described as a trait of achieving or potentially being able to achieve something that can not be duplicated, this applies also for things that held this title in the past (For example... Napoleon was a great commander and statesmen even though there were higher achievements after him in this sphere. ) I also have a question: I am a physics major. I watched some of the logic videos you have posted here and this was very interesting and very alike to mathematical logic from what I could see, however I will never study logic as a course. could you please suggest me which book can I borrow from my university's library on that topic? or even something that is available online? preferably that this book will be: written in an 'accessible' fashion. refer not exclusively mathematical logic but the concept in general.

[@revitellect3129]

+pavel penshin Fair definition. Good input, I agree with the limitedness of the Burke's definition. :)

[@Santiaguitarmusic]

Have you read about Kant's view on The Sublime? plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/

[@kimtonsing6325]

Pasha The sublime according to Burke as I understand is that it arouses a feeling of inferiority within us such that our ego and such are replaced by a healthier outlook on how we perceive ourselves and of the world.He means to say that there are greater things out there that makes us feel small,not necessarily in a bad or negative sense,it could actually be of use for our emotional development

[@angusmerrell1465]

Hope you're still here and well. Do you know Asger Jorn's Detournement " The Disquieting Duckling "-Jorn/anon 1958....?

[@angusmerrell1465]

He may have intended us to consider the possibilities of " Sublime Banality".

[@JordanRobinsonJTR]

I know this is super late, and I doubt if you ever see this, but I Immediatley thought of Darren Aronofsky's "Mother!". It is a psycological horror film that could be interpreted as the relationship with the Christian God and the world. As the film depicts the horror the mother (world) goes through with humans, the ability to see the complicated relationships between her and "Him" (God) as a couple speaks highlights and relates to complicated issues people go through in real life. (Reason over nature) The power to see past the horror and reflect on the relationship between nature, humanity, and the divine, I think, is the sublime experience of the movie.

[@adarshchaudhary1466]

Philosophy doesn't solve any problem. What it does is describe the problems in another way. Anyone who agrees or disagrees with me can reply.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I don't know. There seem to be real problems that philosophy has solved. Check out this video for more kzbin.info/www/bejne/sICqiamJqNCmidk

[@albertabdul-barrwang3494]

Pasolini's movie Salo is a sublime film but whether or not it is beautiful is another story :D

[@hamlethoe9694]

thanks for the wonderful video! loved it, super helpful :-)

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Thanks! And thanks for watching! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@periteu]

If aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that study beauty and sublime of art, what branch study craft? what separates art with craft?

[@caesarmendoza2317]

Oilut Onazol ask Aristotle 🤷🏾‍♂️

[@maxenswlfr1877]

Art and craft got separated during the Renaissance, before they were pretty much the same and artists didn't really get to do whatever they wanted, they were just commissioned

[@LesterBrunt]

What about the psychedelic sublime? Psychedelics cause an augmentation of the senses through which we can perceive beyond the capabilities of our senses. This is a sort of anti-Kantian sublime where it is reason that fails and the imagination wins. We see something that reason can not comprehend yet there is no denying one is experiencing it. Pain from reason struggling to make sense of it and pleasure from the imagination perceiving it.

[@DeconvertedMan]

Your voice is beautiful in its sublimeness.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Deconverted Man Haha, thanks!

[@DeconvertedMan]

Carneades.org When a lime is on the subway it is very sub-lime.

[@revitellect3129]

So you're scared of his voice but knowing you're not in physical proximity, u get a sense of pleasure? xp Either that, or you equate it with the infinite, aka, mathematical sublimity (if that's a word).

[@gabrielggripp]

schiele's death and the maiden or Friedrich's Wanderer above the sea of fog Great content by the way!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Gabriel Gripp For sure. So sublime. Thanks for watching!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Gabriel Gripp For sure. So sublime. Thanks for watching!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Gabriel Gripp For sure. So sublime. Thanks for watching!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Gabriel Gripp For sure. So sublime. Thanks for watching!

[@fentonmh]

great video, thank you!

[@queenieandales8816]

Thank you

[@silvialeoni986]

Does CSI rappresents a form of Sublime? and can this be why we love it so much?

[@natalyt9392]

good day. I am curious if some rock songs where a singer seems to scream or whatever is a sublime or what? or it can be sublime only for me and for other not like the beautiful? Thanks

[@tomlives]

No. What you refer to are artworks. The sublime does not extend to art. He also makes a distinction between natural and artistic beauty, but that's a whole other kettle of fish. (I studied beauty to MA level and I studied Kant's Critique of Judgement for what that's worth).

[@etiemable]

Wasn't it Schopenhauer the one that divided the sublime ?

[@DJSTOEK]

🖤

[@kendosa1]

Animal beauty vs logical beauty

[@MarkDeAwesome]

The Garden of Earthly Delights or Saturn Devours His Son

[@gori11afingers]

that would actually come under the grotesque, not the sublime

[@DonVueltaMorales]

... in regard to, not regards ... Just sayin'.

[@tyercuuhbitu2219]

Can non rational entities percieve or comprehend beauty?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Tyercu Uhbitu I am not sure humans are rational so if they can, other non rational entities could. What non rational entities are you thinking of?