Sublime vs. Sublime, Or Moral Comfort vs. Tragic Downfall - On One Neglected Aspect of Schelling's...

8/9/2019 Sublime vs. Sublime, Or Moral Comfort vs. Tragic Downfall - On One Neglected Aspect of Schelling's Early Critique …

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Sublime vs. Sublime, or Moral Comfort vs. Tragic Downfall:On One Neglected Aspect of Schelling's Early Critique of

Kant

Journal: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Manuscript ID: JAAC-OA-14-099

Wiley - Manuscript type: Original Article

Abstract:

This paper thoroughly examines Schelling’s early critique of Kant from aslightly different angle: Schelling’s alternative to Kant’s concept of the

sublime. As I argue, this critique is not marginal, or pertains solely to analleged minor and insignificant terrain, but rather bears a symbolic role anddeeply reflects Schelling’s positing an alternative to Kantian philosophy asa whole.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism


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Sublime vs. Sublime, or Moral Comfort vs. Tragic

Downfall: On One Neglected Aspect of Schelling's

Early Critique of Kant

Abstract

This paper thoroughly examines Schelling’s early critique of Kant from a slightly

different angle: Schelling’s alternative to Kant’s concept of the sublime. As I argue,this critique is not marginal, or pertains solely to an alleged minor and insignificant

terrain, but rather bears a symbolic role and deeply reflects Schelling’s positing an

alternative to Kantian philosophy as a whole.

I. Introduction

Considerable scholarly research has grappled, over the years, with the question of the

precise character of German idealism,1 and, moreover, with the significant attempt to

assess the extent to which Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (overlooking, for that matter,

the subtle inner development each philosopher underwent), predominantly share a

philosophical ground and orientation. All in all, as Peter Thielke rightly indicates, it

seems easier to say what German idealism is not ,2 than to state positively what it truly

is.3

By the same token, presupposing its allegedly unified goals and character, the

consensual postulation of an inner development within this important philosophicalmovement has became, in recent decades, disputed as well, for the "classic" view of

Fichte and Schelling as Hegel's ostensible predecessors— an interpretation powerfully

buttressed by Richard Kroner in his monumental Von Kant bis Hegel 4 — has been

problematized time and again. Serious inroads were traced over the conception that

Hegel's philosophical project, in its entirety, represents the crux of German Idealism,

1 Needless to say, it is virtually impossible to address the entire corpus that has been written on this

subject over the last decades.2

Significant hypotheses have been mistakenly aligned with idealism, such as the claim that matter, orthe external world, does not have an independent reality. See Karl Ameriks (ed.), The CambridgeCompanion to German Idealism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 8. See also, in thesame book, Günter Zöller's "German Realism: the self-limitation of idealist thinking in Fichte,

Schelling and Schopenhauer," 200-19.3 Peter Thielke, "Recent Work on Early German Idealism (1781-1801)", in Journal of the History of

Philosophy 51:1 (2013), 150.4 Richard Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel , Tübingen: J.C.B.Mohr, 2 vols. The interpretation of Schelling's

early romantic exuberance as a merely transitional stage, culminating in Hegel's philosophy, may also

be found, for instance, in Josiah Rojce's The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1892), 164-89.

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ostensibly representing its ultimate, decisive and most elaborated synthesis; it was

argued by some commentators that it was, in point of fact, Schelling's later philosophy

rather than Hegel's which embodies the apex of this movement,5 thus paving the way,

in addition, for some important later philosophical developments that have led directly

to Kierkegaard's anti-Hegelian endeavor and to what can be termed as the

"existentialistic turn" against Hegel.6 In the same spirit, it has been claimed, notably

by Heidegger,7 that Hegel (and some of his adherents and commentators) have not

fully comprehended—and have even misinterpreted— Schelling's later philosophy.

And yet, regardless of whether we consider Schelling and Fichte as Hegel's

predecessors or not, whether we think that Schelling has eventually "overcome"

Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik or not, or whether Fichte's decisive critique of

Schelling's Naturphilosophie in the name of his Wissenschaftslehre was justifiable or

not,8 one common and central aim was shared by all these major champions of

German Idealism: their positing an allegedly solid basis to Kantian philosophy. This

is not to imply, of course, that the undertaking of German Idealism can be boiled

down solely to this demanding mission; it merely indicates the undeniable centrality

that this undertaking has come to assume for these three prominent German idealists.

That this was conceived as one of the most pressing and compelling

philosophical missions these three philosophers were facing became evident from the

5 Ernst Cassirer's Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit , vol.3,[(Berlin: Verlag Bruno Cassirer), pp.217-84] suggests an empathic appreciation of Schelling's critique

of Hegel; Lewis S. Ford mentions Paul Tillich's two doctoral dissertations as holding a similar view;

see "The controversy between Schelling and Jacobi", Journal of the History of Philosophy 3, (1965),76. Other works of research worth mentioning in this respect are Walter Schulz's Die Vollendung des Deutschen Idealismus in der spät Philosophie Schellings (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1955); ManfredFrank's introduction to his Eine Einführung in Schellings Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,1985) as well as his Das unendliche Mangel am Sein (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1975); HorstFuhrmans, Schelling's Philosophie der Weltalter . Schellings Philosophie in den Jahren 1806-1821. Zum Problem des Schellingschen Theismus (Düsseldorf: L. Schwann, 1954).6 Kierkegaard attended Schelling's Vorlesungen in Berlin, and the germane parts of his diary regarding

Schelling can be found in Manfred Frank (ed.), Schelling, Philosophie der Offenbarung 1841-1842,(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), pp. 530 ff.7 See Martin Heidegger's Schellings Abhandlung Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit,

(Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1995). And yet, Heidegger claims, towards the end of his detailedessay on Schelling, that their "dissention" attests to their fundamental unity (ibid., p. 223).8 See, for instance, Fichte's sharp critique of Schelling's 1804 Philosophie und Religion, which came

after Schelling's first explicit diatribe against Fichte's philosophy in his 1801 Darstellung meinesSystems der Philosophie. Fichte's criticism of Schelling's Philosophie und Religion is discussed indetail in Reinhard Lauth, "Kann Schelling's Philosophie von 1804 als System bestehen? Fichtes

Kritik", Kant Studien 85 (1994): 48-77; see also his "Die zweite philosophische Auseinandersetzungzwischen Fichte und Schelling" in Kant Studien 65 (1974): 397-435; see also Christoph Asmuth, "DasVerhältnis von Philosophie und Religion zur Religionsphilosophie Fichtes,"in F.W.J.Schelling. Philosophie und Religion, Alfred Denkner and Holger Zaborowski (eds.), (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 2008),143-45.

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first embryonic beginnings of Fichte's, Schelling's and Hegel's writings. Fichte, for

instance, maintains that “my system is actually the Kantian”.9 And in a letter to Hegel,

dated January 6th

1795, Schelling states that "the philosophy has not reached its end

yet. Kant gave the results, but the premises still lack."10

Hegel concurs with

Schelling’s abovementioned declaration, and adds, in a letter dated April 16th

1795,

that he “expects a revolution in Germany as to the Kantian system and its most high

consummation.”11

For Schelling and Hegel, then, just as for Fichte, forging an

ostensible "solid" basis to Kantian philosophy is the main philosophical mission at

stake.

Yet, it is not always clear how to account for this new "grounding" of Kant's

philosophy. Moreover: it is reasonable to expect that each philosopher would engage

in a slightly different critique of Kant in this attempt, an undertaking entailing the

tracing of a somewhat different grounding for his philosophy. As suggested by the

title of this paper, I am interested here solely in unearthing a specific and often

neglected aspect of Schelling's early critique of Kant—his early critique of Kant’s

concept of the sublime. As I argue, this critique bears a symbolic significance for

Schelling, and it symbolizes, in addition, Schelling’s unique post-Kantian trajectory

vis-à-vis Hegel’s and Fichte’s.

At any rate, the title of this paper is also somewhat misleading. What I mean

by that is the following: I will focus in this paper only in a roundabout way on

Schelling's critique of Kant's premises; rather, what interests me is mainly a specific

consequence of this critique. Or let me put the matter in this way: Kant's philosophy

hits, according to Schelling, a dead end, which Schelling identifies with its essential

inability to suggest a cogent concept of the sublime. Now, surely, to express the view

that a given philosophy cannot account for the experience of the sublime does not

amount to a theoretical invalidation of this philosophy, especially in light of the fact

that Schelling defines the concept of the sublime in a different way than Kant to begin

with. However, as I will suggest, Schelling's claim concerning this allegedly impasse

discloses an inherent characteristic of Kant's philosophy at large, and echoes,

adequately, Schelling's explicit critique of it.

9 Johan Gottlieb Fichte, Erste Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre,in Fichtes Werke, vol.I (Berlin:Walter de Gruyter, 1971), 420 (my translation).10

This quotation is taken from Materialien zu Schellings philosophischen Anfängen, eds. ManfredFrank and Gerhard Kurz (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1975), 119 (my translation).11 Ibid., p.128.



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Before delving into this issue, it is necessary to raise two principal problems.

Firstly, and unlike Kant’s third Critique, the young Schelling does not construe a

detailed formal definition of the concept of the sublime. He engages systematically

with art’s specific epistemological function in a system of philosophy only in the

celebrated last chapter of his 1800 System des transzendentalen Idealismus, andnotably afterwards in his Philosophy der Kunst lectures, where he first offers an

elaborated system of art. However, this is not to conclude that the problem of art in

general, and particularly the concept of the sublime, did not capture his philosophical

attention long before. Actually, from his very first philosophical beginnings, and most

notably in Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kritizismus (henceforth: BDK ) from 1795,12

he identifies, in a way that will be discussed in due course, the very essence of

philosophy with the structure of Greek tragedy, in other words—with the structure of

a work of art. Despite the fact, then, that the young Schelling still did not elaborate a

full-fledged theory of art in 1795, a coherent and consequent concept of the sublime

can indeed be elicited from his early writings.

Secondly, I wish to account for the fact that I will focus here predominantly on

Schelling's BDK , thus overlooking some no less important texts from those years,

most notably Vom Ich, written during the same year (1795). The ground for this lies in

BDK 's epistolary style.

Schelling's oscillation between different kinds of literary forms through which

to introduce his philosophical argumentation is manifest. During the long course of

his philosophical career he wrote short essays, detailed systems, philosophical

dialogues, aphorisms, philosophical letters, texts which were purported to be read in

front of an audience as lectures, and so forth. Different genres call for different

argumentations. A predominant trait of the philosophical epistles in Schelling's BDK

is their rhetorical function, aimed at convincing a conjectural addressee rather than

merely suggest an argumentation which refutes the rival’s claims. In a way, the

admixture of philosophy and literature, which later during the nineteenth century

became the trade mark of Kierkegaard's writings, is adopted already in Schelling's

12 See Schelling's Sämmtliche Werke (henceforth: SW ), Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von K.F.A

Schelling, 1. Abteilung: 10 Bde. (=I-X), 2. Abteilung: 4 Bde. (XI-XIV), Stuttgart/Augsburg 1856-1861,

vol.1; all the translations from Schelling's writings in this paper are mine.



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BDK .13 This technique of persuasion, which dominated some of Schelling's early

writings, is salient predominantly in BDK , and far less in Vom Ich, despite their

belonging essentially to the same philosophical momentum. As such, it can account

for my claim above, according to which Schelling was preoccupied not merely with a

theoretical refutation of Kant, but also with the unwarranted practical consequencesof Kant's philosophy. In other words, even if one is not convinced of Schelling's

endeavors to undermine the premises held by Kant, one must, nevertheless, be

troubled by the conjectural consequences of an acceptance of Kant's philosophy. This

may induce the reader to dispense with Kant’s philosophy altogether. Such an

uncalled-for upshot, regarded from the perspective of the young Schelling, entails an

alleged Kantian renunciation, deeply originated in the most fundamental locus of

Kantian thought, of the "genuine," full-fledged experience of the sublime.

II. Kant and the Moral Background of Sublimity

Schelling's aim is not to launch an attack on Kant's concept of the sublime per se. The

object of his unfavorable judgment is, rather, the link , allegedly implied in Kant's

philosophy, between Kant's concept of the sublime and morality (first and foremost,

the connection between Kant's morality and his concept of a moral God) —which

constitutes, according to Schelling, the genuine Kantian position vis-à-vis the

sublime. This Kantian triangle— morality, a concept of a moral God (as a

systematical upshot of Kant's morality) and a concept of the sublime is the Gordian

knot that Schelling ardently seeks to sever.

Thus, before inquiring into Kant's concept of the sublime, it is important to

call to mind, however generally, three germane points which underpin Kant’s ethics.

First, Kant maintained time and again that ethics is not to be confused with

anthropology. This bears important consequences for Kant's concept of God. In

Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (one of many examples which can be drawn

out of his writings on ethics) Kant argues:

[U]nless we want to deny to the concept of morality all truth and all references

to a possible object, we cannot but admit that the moral law is of such

widespread significance that it must hold not merely for men but for allrational beings generally [viz., for God as well], and that it must be valid not

13 A similar anticipation of Kierkegaard can be found in Jacobi's Allwill . See George Di Giovanni,

"From Jacobi's Philosophical Novel to Fichte's Idealism: Some Comments on the 1798-1799 ‘Atheism

Dispute,’" Journal of the History of Philosophy 27 (1989): 78-86.



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merely under contingent conditions and with exceptions but must be

absolutely necessary.14

Unlike the concept of "beauty, [which holds] only for human beings,"15 Kantian

morality "holds for every rational being as such."16 "A [divine] understanding in

which through self-consciousness all the manifold would eo ipso be given," and thus

"would be intuitive,"17 is perfectly attainable in Kant's philosophy, even if "our [own

finite] understanding can only think , and for intuition must look to the senses."18

However, this is not the case with morality, since an alternative moral law is

objectively impossible for God as well .

The second point is directly related to the first; Kant posits a logical priority of

ethics over theology:

A perfectly good will [namely, God’s] would thus be as quite as much

subject to objective laws (of the good), but could not be conceived asthereby necessitated to act in conformity with moral law, inasmuch as it can

of itself, according to its subjective constitution, be determined only by the

representation of the good.19

The difference in the manifestation of morality between a finite and an infinite being

lies, according to Kant, solely in the mode of givenness of morality: the very same

morality appears, to a finite being, in the form of an imperative, for the structure of

the will in that case is heterogeneous, whereas, given the hypothesis that God's will

acts of itself in accordance with the moral law, the concept of an imperative is

redundant for Him.

The third point, which is of utmost importance for Schelling's critique of Kant,

pertains to the systematic role that the concept of God plays in Kant's philosophy; this

role is unequivocally and exclusively practical. The Kantian concept of God has

nothing to do with the validation of morality (which is grounded solely on formal

grounds, such as the concept of contradiction).20 Nor does it have anything to do with

14

Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals [henceforth: Groundings], trans. James W. Ellington,(Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett, 1981), 20 (my emphasis).15

Critique of Judgment [henceforth: CJ ], trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Cambridge: Hackett PublishingCompany, 1987), 52, (my emphasis).16

Ibid., ibid.17

Critique of Pure Reason [henceforth: CpR], trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan, 1933),15518

Ibid., ibid.19

Groundings, 2420

This is not to say that that the categorical imperative, for instance, can be explained solely on formal

grounds, for the very concept of an ‘imperative’ is put forward by Kant to begin with only in reference



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according to Kant, positing a (rationally justified) belief that nature is inherently

moral; namely, that it was primordially designed by God to correspond to the moral

act , and not merely to postulate a belief that nature is an external barrier that ought to

be (morally) enlivened from the outside.26 This accounts for the fact that Kant uses a

predominant argument from design terminology in his moral demonstration of theexistence of God.

27 As Kant puts it, for instance, in the first and second Critiques, "the

alleged necessary connection of hope and happiness […] can be counted upon only if

a Supreme Reason, that governs according to moral rules, be likewise posited as

underlying nature as its cause,"28 and "therefore, the highest good is possible in the

world only on the supposition of a supreme cause of nature which has a causation

corresponding to moral intention."29

To conclude, then: a finite moral acting subject ought to rationally believe, in

order for the highest good to be considered possible, that nature is primordially moral ,

namely, that nature is an upshot of God's design, and not an utter otherness.

Bearing in mind this background against which Kant unfolds his moral

concept of nature, I now turn to his concept of the sublime, and to its link to Kant’s

ethical project, a link on which Schelling has placed great (albeit critical) emphasis.

III. Sublimity Reveals Morality: Kant’s Concept of the Sublime

Whereas there is an obvious sense in which "beauty" is predicated on works of art as

well, and not just on objects in nature, in the third Critique Kant attributes "sublimity"

predominantly to nature,30

or more accurately, to crude nature: " [W]e must point to

26 I cannot elaborate here on the precise reasons which induced Kant to claim that nature must be

thought of as primordially moral, namely, that nature is moral from within; for it seems that Kant couldhave been satisfied just as well with the mere assumption that, for the Highest good to be possible,

nature can be rendered moral from outside, i.e. by means of the moral act of a finite subject. This was,on the whole, Fichte's systematic position: nature for him was merely a "dead" barrier, which should be

enlivened from outside by the moral acting subject. See, for instance, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Über dasWesen der Gelehrten, und seine Erscheinungen im Gebiete der Freiheit , in Fichtes Werke, vol. VI,(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971), 362. As I have said, all that matters for the purpose of the present

paper is to point out that Kant conceived of nature as primordially moral, and not to dwell on the waywhereby he attempted to justify his stance. Attempts at a justification of Kant's position can be found,

for instance, in Marie Zermatt Scutt, "Kant's Moral Theology," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 18 (2010): 611-33; see also Paul Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law and Happiness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 335 ff.27

Lewis Beck, A Commentary on the Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1960), 275 ff.28

CpR, 638-39, the second emphasis is mine.29 CprR, 129-30, my emphasis.30

As Birgit Recki remarks, Kant has held a different position in his pre-critical writings (mainly in his

Beobachtungen zum Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen from 1764), according to which monuments



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the sublime not in products of art (e.g. buildings, columns, etc.) […] nor in natural

things whose very concept carries with it a determinate purpose […] but rather in

crude nature."31

At any rate, Kant alluded to some important differences between "the

beautiful" and "the sublime," which concern both the subject of sublimity on the one

hand (though, as I will indicate presently, strictly speaking there is no such thing as a

sublime object ), and to the kind of liking this object arouses on the other hand. As for

the object of liking,

the beautiful in nature concerns the form of the object, which consists in [the

object’s] being bounded. But the sublime can also be found in a formless

object,32

insofar as we present unboundedness, either [as] in the object or because the object prompts us to present it, while yet we add to this

unboundedness the thought of its totality.33

And regarding the kind of liking, Kant writes:

the one liking (for the beautiful) carries within it directly a feeling of life's

being furthered, but the other liking (the feeling of the sublime) is a pleasure

that arises only indirectly: it is produced by the feeling of a momentary

inhibition of the vital forces followed immediately by an outpouring of them

that is all the stronger."34

He adds that "the feeling of the sublime is a feeling of displeasure […] but is at the

same time also a pleasure,"35

whereas the aesthetic experience is related solely to the

feeling of pleasure.

In order to gain, however, a better understanding of this inherent tension

between pleasure and displeasure that constitutes the experience of the sublime

according to Kant, it is significant to bear in mind that Kant distinguishes between the

mathematically and the dynamically sublime. Although Schelling focused primarily

on Kant's dynamically sublime, for he designates nature (and God) mostly as an

absolute power , I will elaborate here on both kinds of Kantian sublime, since they

share some essential similarities and each sheds light on the other.

such as the pyramids, or Petersdom were regarded as sublime as well; see Aesthetik der Sitten. Die Affinität von ästhetischem Gefühl und praktischer Vernunft bei Kant (Frankfurt am Main: VittorioKlostermann GmbH, 2001), 187-89.31

CJ , 109.32

Note the "can also be found"; it means that the Kantian sublime is not occasioned solely by formless

objects, and that "unboundedness" is not identical with "formless"; see Allan Lazaroff, "The Kantian

Sublime: Aesthetic Judgment and Religious Feeling," Kant-Studien 71 (1980), p. 206.33 Ibid., 98.34

Ibid., ibid.35 Ibid., ibid.



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The mathematical sublime entails an experience of something which is

"absolutely large,"36

of something which lies beyond our capacity of understanding.

Now, to state that something is absolutely large means that it is large "beyond

comparison,"37

and not

merely that it is large in comparison to a specific finite

magnitude. Indeed: being beyond measure does not necessarily mean that "more"

sublime or "less" sublime is unconceivable on Kantian grounds;38

and yet, even if

"more" and "less" sublime is conceivable, the clear-cut difference between being

absolutely large and being large by comparison is still retained.

This reveals that Kant was not referring to an empirical magnitude while

entertaining the concept of the mathematical sublime,39

but rather to some kind of an

utter beyond ; it shows that, properly speaking, there is no sublime object , since an

utter beyond cannot be represented by a corresponding intuition. According to Kant,

"establishing that our concepts have reality always requires intuitions," and—unlike

"empirical concepts (whose intuitions are called examples)," or "pure concepts of

understanding (whose intuitions are called schemata)"— "no intuition can be given

[to ideas of reason] that would be adequate."40

In Kant's terminology thus, this utter

beyond refers to ideas of reason (such as the idea of God), or to what he alternatively

terms "rational concepts."41

This "absolutely large," which lies beyond the ken of intuition, illustrates the

fundamental finitude which characterizes a finite agent's knowing capacity: "[What

happens is that] our imagination strives to progress towards infinity, while our reason

demands absolute totality as a real idea, and so [the imagination], our power of

estimating the magnitude of things in the world of senses, is inadequate to that

idea."42

"Being beyond measure," as experienced in a specific occasion by a finite

agent , overwhelms and thus frustrates the power of imagination.

36 CJ , 103.37

Ibid., ibid.38

See James Rasmussen, "Language and the Most Sublime in Kant's third Critique," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68 (2010): 155-66.39

Herder's critique of the Kantian concept of the sublime focuses on this discrepancy: according to

Herder, the sublime is rooted in objects that are (say) higher than us, and not absolutely high, a concepthe finds completely unattainable. For Herder, then, the difference is not qualitative, and the very same

object can be considered sublime and, given a different context, it can be considered beautiful. See

Rachel Zuckert, "Awe or Envy: Herder contra Kant on the Sublime" in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 61 (2003): 217-32.40

Ibid., 225-26.41

CJ , 225.42 Ibid. , 106; the remarks in brackets were added by the translator (Werner S. Pluhar).



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Yet, sublimity does not partake of this epistemological frustration alone, for

"this inadequacy itself is the arousal in us of feeling that we have within us a

supersensible power […] Sublime is what even to be able to think proves that the

mind has a power surpassing any standard of sense" ;43 and elsewhere, in the same

spirit:

[B]ut our imagination, even in its greatest effort to do what is demanded of it

and comprehend a given object in a whole of intuition (and hence to exhibit

the idea of reason), proves its own limits and inadequacy, and yet at the same

time proves its vocation to [obey] a law, namely, to make itself adequate to

that idea. Hence the feeling of the sublime in nature is respect for our own

vocation."44

"Vocation," "respect," "obey a law," terms drawn directly from Kant's moral

dictionary, tell, in a nutshell, the story of the mathematically sublime: it is not the

frustration of our epistemological powers alone, triggered by the awareness of its

inherent limitation, which constitutes the experience of the sublime (in that case, only

the displeasure would be accounted for); rather, it is the feeling of a moral (namely,

supersensible) overcoming of that finitude of the understanding by means of reason

that makes for the genuine character of the sublime. The sublime is thus founded on

the "predisposition to the feeling for (practical) ideas, i.e., to moral feeling."45

Obviously enough, this accounts for the mixture of pleasure and displeasure

that we experience in the sublime:

[O]ur inner perception that every standard of sensibility is inadequate for an

estimation of magnitude is itself a harmony with laws of reason, as well as a

displeasure that arouses in us the feeling of our supersensible vocation,according to which finding that every standard of sensibility is inadequate to

the ideas of reason is purposive and hence pleasurable.46

The second kind of sublime, the dynamical, which brings us closer to the kernel of

our discussion, refers to nature as a "might" ("bold, overhanging and, as it were,

thunderclouds pilling up in the sky and moving about accompanied by lightening and

thunderclaps")47 and as ungeheuer (monstrous, enormous).48 As such, nature is

43 Ibid., ibid.

44 Ibid., 114.

45 Ibid., 125.46

Ibid, 115; my emphasis.47 CJ , 120.48

Note that "enormous" does not carry within it an ethical implication, contrary to "monstrous"; I will

dwell on this point in due course, since it pertains directly to the present discussion. As Jacob



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but precisely this overpowering (the impotent frustration) gives us the opportunity to

exert our moral practical predominance over nature:

though the irresistibility of nature's might makes us, considered as natural

beings, recognize our physical impotence, it reveals in us at the same time an

ability to judge ourselves independent of nature, and reveals in us a superiority

over nature that is the basis of self-preservation in kind from the one that can beassailed and endangered by nature outside us [....] Hence if in judging nature

aesthetically we call it sublime, we do so not because nature arouses fear, but

because it call forth our strength.53

The dynamically sublime, then, just as the mathematically sublime, is not to be found

in objects (nature as "might" and threatening, or rather, as presenting "absolute

magnitude"). Rather, the object is presented as suitable for exhibiting a sublimity "that

can be found in the mind ."54 Whereas in the mathematical sublime the sublime objects

(or strictly speaking, objects that occasion the sublime in us) are incommensurate with

our ability to comprehend them fully, the dynamical sublime represents a similar

moral overcoming , now as to nature's might rather than as to its magnitude.

This illuminates the mixture of pleasure and displeasure characteristic of the

dynamically sublime as well: the dynamically sublime is constituted not just by fear,

but by the fact that nature, crude, threatening and ungeheuer as it may be, cannot truly

reach and annihilate our supersensible ability, our moral vocation, which includes, a

rendering of this very nature moral . According to Kant, "it is difficult55 to think of a

feeling for the sublime in nature without connecting it with mental attunement similar

to that for moral feeling";56

in the sublime we are primarily "compelled to

subjectively think nature itself in its totality as the exhibition of something

supersensible, without our being able to bring this exhibition about objectively."57

This account evokes Kant's moral concept of nature, as engendered by a conjectural,

rationally believed in moral God, according to which nature is, from a practical point

of view, nothing but a hidden morality. The conception of nature as hidden morality

neutralizes its alleged (physical) threatening otherness. Physically speaking, nature

defeats humanity (hence, the sense of impotent frustration), yet humanity (reason)

53 Ibid, 120-121.

54 Ibid, 98-99; my emphasis.55

In point of fact, Kant uses a more decisive term in German: "es läßt sich nicht denken"; it seems just

as well appropriate, then, to translate it as "impossible" rather than "difficult."56

Ibid., 128.57 Ibid., ibid.



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exerts a practical dominance over sensibility, rendering nature essentially identical

with morality.

For Kant, then, the experience of the dynamically sublime is contingent, and yet it

entwines within it a transcendental moment that reinforces his ethical project; to

practically overpower nature's threatening otherness constitutes its very essence.Schelling, however, insists upon nature's (and God's) utter otherness, which cannot be

resolved by means of our moral concepts, as he grasped it; put differently, Schelling

vehemently rejects Kant's moral concept of God, and consequently Kant's moral

concept of nature, which derives from it. This is precisely why Schelling searches an

explication of the experience of the sublime elsewhere—in the structure of tragedy.

IV. Tragic Downfall vs. Moral Comfort: Schelling's Alternative

As I have mentioned in the first section, in BDK Schelling is interested not only in

undermining Kant's premises, but rather in admonishing his addressee against some

unwarranted consequences of Kant's system. Now, "premises" and "consequences"

are context-dependent terms; nature as hidden morality, as we have seen, is a

consequence of Kant's moral discussion as to the possibility of the realization of the

highest good; yet it serves as a preestablished premise regarding Kant's discussion of

the sublime. Thus, we must be more accurate concerning our contention: Schelling

warns his addressee against the Kantian distortion of the "genuine" experience of the

sublime. For him, a falsification of this experience is the consequence of Kant's

premises; the premises, which enabled such a falsification, and thus must be

eradicated, are those which constitute Kant's morality. It would be natural to expect,

then, that Kantian morality, taken in its broader sense (namely, including its upshots,

such as his view of nature as a hidden morality), would be assailed by Schelling.

In point of fact, this is precisely what unfolds at the outset of BDK . Schelling's

avowed aspiration in BDK is an assault on Kant's moral demonstration of the

existence of God. Retrospectively, in 1809, in his Vorrede zu F.W.J. Schelling's

philosophischen Schriften,58 Schelling indicates that BDK "contained a vital polemic

against the […] moral demonstration of the existence of God" (As BDK figures in,

Schelling addresses his diatribe predominantly to the Kantian version of this

demonstration). It is true that Vom Ich, as well as other early texts composed by

58 This introduction can be found, for instance, in Schelling’s Über das Wesen der menschlichen

Freiheit , Hamburg: Meiner, 1997, pp. 3-6.



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Schelling till 1801, may bear the same consequences as to Schelling's rejection of

Kant's moral concept of God, and of Kant's morality as a whole; still, an explicit,

independent and well-established attack on Kant's moral concept of God is to be

found mainly in BDK , as Schelling himself points out in retrospection.

Schelling’s forthright assault on Kant's concept of moral God consists of two

moments (I follow here Schelling's terminology): an aesthetical and a philosophical

one. Schelling’s contention that a moral concept of God disables a genuine experience

of the sublime, a claim which would interest me here, pertains mainly to the

aesthetical aspect of his claim. In effect, Schelling opens BDK by stressing the

aesthetical side, and only afterwards turns on to suggest its "philosophical" grounding.

However, since according to my interpretation the aesthetic side represents, in many

respects, the apex of Schelling's discussion, I would reverse the order, and present

first Schelling’s philosophical discussion.

Schelling writes: "[T]his idea of a moral God lacks any aesthetical side. But I

claim, further: it does not even have a philosophical side; it contains nothing sublime

[…], and it is empty as every anthropomorphic representation [Vorstellung ]."59 This

concise claim of Schelling encapsulates his distinct systematical point of departure in

comparison to Kant. Schelling holds that ascribing moral attributes to God is an

"anthropomorphic" move. It is crucial to note that what is at stake here is primarily

Kant's writings on morality, and only consequently Kant's concept of a moral God. To

assert that Kant's moral concept of God is nothing but an "anthropomorphic"

subterfuge amounts to saying that Kant's morality in and of itself is an

"anthropomorphic" enterprise, namely, that its claim for utter generality "for all

rational beings" (God included) and not just for us is questionable.60

The controversy

between the young Schelling and Kant, then, is ethical in its basis, and not merely

theological, or rather; it revolves around Schelling's refusal to consent to the Kantian

contention regarding the logical precedence of ethics over theology: "[N]ot

theological ethics: for this contains moral laws, which presuppose the existence of a

supreme ruler of the world,” exhorts Kant; “Moral theology, on the other hand, is a

conviction of the existence of a supreme being – a conviction that bases itself on

59 BDK , 285.

60 The philosophical unease as to this Kantian move was shared by many philosophers after Kant. See,

for instance, Arthur Schopenhauer's Über die Grundlage der Moral (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag,1988), pp. 18-24; 53-9.



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per se. Schelling grants Kant's "practical need" of a concept of God as an

indispensable complementary component of ethics (namely, bringing about the

Highest Good); yet, as Schelling holds, "once something is valid, it is valid backwards

just as it is valid ahead."66

This means that once Kant introduces a concept of God in

his system, he must accept its full-fledged consequences; once there is a God,regardless of the ground (or "need") that advanced it to begin with, a tacit ascription

of its immanent attributes , such as omnipotence (namely, all -determining) becomes

inevitable. Acknowledging solely God's moral attribute while discarding God's other

necessary properties, which constitute the very concept of God, would amount to

denying, while upholding a concept of a triangle, one of its defining qualities (say,

rejecting that 180 is the sum of its angles). Kant’s granted need of a concept of God

cannot alter arbitrarily the sense of the concept.

Now, if according to Schelling, the concept of God must be valid "backwards"

as well, once it is raised, the logical need to ascribe to God all His necessary

attributes, especially His being all -determining, practically destroys the premises that

constitute Kant's morality. For how can morality, as a self -determining project, be

compatible with God as all -determining essence? Caught up in a vicious circle, Kant's

"practical need" for a concept of God is an inevitable upshot of his morality, yet this

upshot undermines the very premises which constitute his morality. "Divinity,"

Schelling maintains, "cannot carry the fault of the weaknesses of your [Kant's]

reason"; indeed, " you [Kant] can reach it only through moral law"; yet from this it

does not follow that "it must be appreciated only according to these measures."67

What arises from Schelling’s passionate criticism is manifest: "for an absolute

causality," Schelling concludes, "there is no moral law."68

A moral concept of God, in

the Kantian sense, is utterly rejected by Schelling.

By now I believe that it is already evident that Kant's account of the sublime,

which is bound up with his moral concept of God, and with nature's hidden morality

—a consequence of his conception of God— is incompatible with Schelling's

framework. God's (and consequently, nature's) utter otherness, namely the fact that

God's will is not constrained by (merely our , as Schelling has it) moral laws disables a

Kantian account of the sublime. Once God retains his utter otherness in respect to

66 Ibid., 289.

67 BDK , 289.

68 Ibid., ibid.



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morality as well, an intimation of horror regarding God, and, consequently,

concerning nature’s might as well, cannot be eradicated.

So, given the aforesaid claim, how can Schelling uphold the experience of the

sublime? And not less crucial: what does the experience of the sublime stand for in

Schelling’s view? This brings me to the "aesthetical" side of Schelling's critique of

Kant. In the very first lines of BDK Schelling indicates:

"I understand you, dear friend! To struggle against an absolute power, andwhile struggling to sink and to be defeated, seems to you much bigger than to

secure yourself in advance against every danger with the help of a moral God.Indeed, not only that the struggle against the big beyond measure is the most

sublime a man can think of, but it [entwines], I think, the very principle ofsublimity […] if we look at the idea of a moral God from its aesthetical side

we must conclude: by determining such a moral God we have lost the

principle of pure aesthetics."69

Note that Schelling backs up a wondering raised by his conjectural addressee. This

addressee is presented as questioning the outcome of assuming a moral God, and not

the way whereby a concept of a moral God is grounded. Schelling’s rejoinder is that

such a moral God, be its grounding warranted or not (recall that we find ourselves

here sill on an "aesthetical" and not on a "philosophical" terrain), cannot be

compatible with the genuine concept of the sublime. In addition, notice that Schelling

alludes to concepts such as "defeat," "sinking" (untergehen) and so forth as the

authentic kernel of the experience of the sublime, contrary to Kant’s moral vocabulary

which consists in an overpowering of nature. Sublimity, thus, cannot reside in

morality's awaited triumph, namely in some kind of a moral belief. Rather, it has

something to do with Morality’s being routed.

Still, note that despite Schelling's terminology cited above, sublimity is not to

be reduced to humanity's defeat either; rather, it is about the very struggle with an

utter absolute otherness, whose strength overpowers you, a struggle which is carried

out despite the awareness of an inevitable defeat . More accurately, it is about tragedy.

Schelling returns to this issue in the tenth (and last) letter as well: "to know that there

is an objective power who threatens us with annihilation, and with this conviction to

struggle against it […] and so to sink […] this possibility must be kept for art - for the

most high in art [namely, tragedy]."70

69 Ibid., 284.

70 Ibid., 336.



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To gain a thorough understanding of Schelling's intention here requires some

deepening into Schelling's critique of Kant. One of the main problems with Kant's

philosophy, according to Schelling, is that it does not belong to a specific system of

philosophy at all; that it is Kanon to every system of philosophy. Schelling rejects

Kant's pretension in this respect, and one line of his reasoning, which pertains to the

bond between morality and the concept of God, was delineated above. Schelling,

nevertheless, incorporates into his own one essential element of Kant's philosophy in

BDK , and he acknowledges it most vividly in his fifth letter: "the Critique of Pure

Reason has first shown, out of the mere Idea of system in general, that no system

whatsoever can be an object of knowledge, but only an object of a practical necessary,

of endless action."71

This Kantian conclusion reverberates positively in Schelling's

BDK . And in Kant’s spirit, Schelling adds: "[A] system of knowledge is of necessity

merely a game of thought [Gedankenspiel ] […] or it must receive reality, not by some

theoretical knowing capacity, but rather by practical, productive capacity, which can

be realized, not by knowledge, but by action."72

Now, if the ultimate goal of all

knowing is the unconditioned, as Kant grants as well, and if this unconditioned cannot

be resolved by theoretical means, then the only way out of this philosophical labyrinth

is practical; philosophy, in its essence, is not an enterprise of thought , but rather a

matter of experiment , carried out by the free finite agent. "Philosophy," so goes

Schelling's reasoning, "cannot pass from the infinite to the finite [namely, it cannot

have its point of departure in the unconditioned, as Spinoza, for instance, strived to

do]; but it can nevertheless pass from the finite to the infinite."73

For Schelling too,

then— similarly to Kant— a finite self -determining essence is philosophy’s point of

departure, for it is the free agent who strives to realize the absoluteness; the moment

some kind of system takes control (Schelling alludes constantly to Spinoza as the

most consistent champion of this alternative), the finite agent "ceases to be a creator,

and turns to be an instrument of his system."74

Now, the precise character of this practical mission which the finite agent has

to carry out, namely the passing from finite to infinite, is determined not merely by

the character of the finite (which must be thought of as self -determining), but by the

character of the infinite as well. Kant grants the infinite, as we have seen, a moral

71 Ibid., 305.

72 Ibid., ibid.

73 Ibid., 315.

74 Ibid., 306.



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Note that tragedy does not provide here a theoretical solution to this

philosophical riddle, namely, the incompatibility between a self-determining agent

and an “objective world”: this riddle is theoretically irresolvable. However, it

demonstrates, by means of art, a practical solution: by presenting the struggle against

the Absolute, an Absolute which is not subordinate to (“our”) morality, it opens a

sublime way for the finite subject— "to know that there is an objective power who

threatens us with annihilation, and with this conviction to struggle against it […] and

so to sink ."78 This struggle ends up with sinking, on grounds of the rival’s absolute

power. And still, as Schelling holds, “the struggle against the big beyond measure is

the most sublime a man can think of […] it [entwines], I think, the very principle of

sublimity.”79

Sublimity for Schelling, then, does not indicate a merely contingent

experience, which reveals a transcendental moment. Rather, it represents the

culmination of human existence, as it demonstrates its highest essence, which is

tragic. And precisely this tragic element, the apogee of humanity—its dignity

(Würde)—is abdicated in Kant’s philosophy according to Schelling, as it does not

allow this very sublime struggle to take place. For Kant, “the ultimate purpose that

nature has as a teleological system” and the “final purpose of the existence of a

world”80

is moral, and signifies a transcendental elevation; for Schelling, the ultimate

structure of reality lies beyond morality, namely in tragedy, where sublimity reveals

itself, and the elevation at stake is rendered intelligible only against a tragic

background.

78 Ibid.,336.

79 Ibid., 284.

80 CJ , 317, 322.


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