The Kantian Sublime And Its Moral Meaning

The Kantian sublime is an important and special part of Kant's philosophy. The sublime, which plays as an intermediate role in Kant's philosophy, is a connection between knowledge and morality, theory and practice, nature and freedom. However, in China, the researchers have not fully understood the important role which sublime plays in Kant's philosophy, and have not paid enough attention to the special part that the Kantian sublime acts. This thesis reveals the importance and the moral meaning of the sublime in Kant's philosophy.This thesis includes three chapters, along with the introduction and conclusion.The introduction mainly talks about the main sense of this thesis. It displays the revival of the Kantian sublime in foreign Kantian research and the un-ideal research environment in Chinese academia on this topic, and talks about the importance, the difficulty, the aim and the orientation of this research.The first chapter talks about the background of the Kantian sublime. The first section makes a concise introduction to Longinus, Addison and Burke's thoughts of the sublime. The second section talks about the sublime in Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, and argues that the Kantian sublime took roots in his early aesthetic thoughts.The second chapter discusses the important and special status of the sublime in Kant's critical philosophy. At first it makes a brief introduction to the Kant's aesthetics, providing a systematic background for the Kantian sublime. And then, it orients the role that sublime plays in the Kantian aesthetics, through the comparison between beauty and the sublime.The third chapter is the major part of this thesis. It interprets deep into the analytic of the sublime. Based on the method of text analysis, it illustrates the logic and the details of the analytic of the sublime, and emphasizes the moral meaning of the Kantian sublime through introducing the moral feeling of respect.The conclusion includes a brief comment on the Kantian sublime and a self-criticism of the thesis.