Kant über das Erhabene und die Freiheit. Zum Gefühl der übersinnlichen Bestimmung des Gemüts

Abstract

By investigating Kant’s doctrine of the sublime, this essay aims to show to what extent its task consists in providing an account of the supersensible vocation of the human mind (Gemüt). The analysis of the Critique of Judgement, notably paragraphs from the 23rd to the 30th (including the General Remark upon The Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements), will allow to expose the «ground […] merely in ourselves and the attitude of mind» that the sublime prompts us to look for. It will also illuminate to what extent the ground of the judgement about the sublime lies «in human nature», namely in «a native capacity for the feeling for (practical) ideas, i.e. for moral feeling». Based on this twofold analysis, this essay will claim that the judgement about the sublime, whose specificity consists in the theoretical structure and moral foundation, is a boundary case (Grenzfall) of the pure aesthetic reflective judgement. According to this interpretation, the judgement about the sublime reveals something of the faculties of the human mind, that would otherwise remain unknown.