Vandenabeele, B. - 'Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and The Aesthetically Sublime'

Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Aesthetically Sublime
Author(s): Bart Vandenabeele

Source: The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Spring, 2003), pp. 90-106
Published by: University of Illinois Press
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Schopenhauer,Nietzsche, and the Aesthetically
Sublime
BART VANDENABEELE
Much has been written on the relationship between Arthur Schopenhauer

and Friedrich Nietzsche. Much remains to be said, however, concerning
their respective theories of the sublime. First, I shall argue against the tradi-
tional, dialectical view of Schopenhauer's theory of the sublime that stresses
the crucial role the sublime plays in bridging the wide gap between aesthet-
ics and ethics. Although this traditional interpretation is definitely influ-
enced by Nietzsche, I do not maintain it is exclusively Nietzschean as such.
Second, I would like to offer some points of contention concerning their ac-
counts of the feeling of the sublime. I will try and show that, although
Nietzsche's account of the Apollonian and the Dionysian is highly influenced
by Schopenhauer's analysis of the sublime feeling, his analysis of Dionysian
intoxication cannot be taken to simply develop out of Schopenhauer's
philosophy. Moreover, by way of (a not so innocent) example, it is shown
that Nietzsche's philosophy of music - although highly influenced by
- cannot as easily be reconciled with Schopenhauer's
Schopenhauer's
theory as is commonly believed, due to their differing accounts of the nature
of the feeling of the sublime.
Schopenhauer on the Feeling of the Sublime: Pleasure and Pain

When one tries to describe the exact relationship between the aesthetic feel-
ings of the beautiful and the sublime in the philosophy of "Nietzsche's edu-
cator," many interpretation problems arise.2 The main problem can be com-
pared to a similar issue in Kant: if one agrees with Kant that the theory of
the sublime is "a mere appendix to our aesthetic judging," then it is possible
to restrict the Kantian critique of the aesthetic appreciation to the Analytic
of the judgment of taste2 - that is, if one neglects the subtle displacements
and gaps in Kant's text. In this way, as one can read in its introduction, the
Bart Vandenabeeleis ResearchFellow in the Institute of Philosophy (Center for

Logic,Philosophyof Science,and Philosophyof Language)at the CatholicUniversity
Leuven.He is also the currentVice-Presidentof the Dutch Associationof Aesthetics.
He has published in aesthetics, philosophy of language, and history of philosophy.
Journalof Aesthetic Education,Vol. 37, No. 1, Spring 2003

?2003 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Schopenhauer,Nietzsche, and the Sublime 91
Critiqueof Judgementserves as the sought-after "bridge" between the theo-

retical and the practical, spanning the gulf previously created between the
knowledge of objects according to the conditions of possible experience and
the realization of freedom under the unconditional of moral law. Moreover,
if one notices that Schopenhauer too, in his aesthetics, stresses the fact that
"in the main" the feeling of the sublime "is identical with the feeling of the
beautiful" and "is distinguished from that of the beautiful only by the addi-
tion, namely the exaltation beyond the known hostile relation of the con-
templated object to the will in general, then the option for a similar unifying
and pacifying reading seems evident.3 I shall argue that things are far more
complicated and that such a "dialectical" interpretation is far from evident.
In the appendix to his The Worldas Will and Representation,Schopenhauer
had stressed - long before Jean-Francois Lyotard - the enormous im-
portance of Kant's analysis of the sublime, when he wrote that "the theory
of the sublime" is "by far the most excellent thing in the Critiqueof Aesthetic
Judgment"(WWR, I, 532). That theory, Schopenhauer says, is even "incom-
parably more successful than that of the beautiful" and "gives not only, as
that does, the general method of investigation, but also a part of the right
way to it, so much so that, although it does not provide the real solution to
the problem, it nevertheless touches on it very closely" (WWR, I, 532).
According to Schopenhauer, the main difference between the sublime
and the beautiful is that, while in the case of the latter,
pure knowledge has gained the upper hand without a struggle...and

not even a recollection of the will remains [with the sublime] that
state of pure knowing is obtained first of all by a conscious and vio-
lent tearing away from the relations of the same object to the will
which are recognized as unfavorable, by a free exaltation, accompa-
nied by consciousness, beyond the will and the knowledge related to
it (WWR, I, 202).
The objects can be hostile to the human will in general, the body, in
two different ways: by their immensity or by their threatening power.
Schopenhauer thus retains Kant's distinction between the mathematically
and the dynamically sublime.
At first sight, the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime
seems to be reduced to a passive, will-less and serene contemplation and a
troublesome, violent, and conscious elevation beyond that which threatens
the will, respectively. The will-lessness and disinterestedness, two typical
characteristics of the Schopenhauerian aesthetic spectator, seem to be ab-
sent from his account on the feeling of the sublime: Schopenhauer stresses
the activity of the aesthetic subject in the sublime, that tears itself violently
away from the relations of the object to the own will "by a free exaltation,"
which "must not only be won by consciousness, but also be maintained."4
The question is, "How can such a conscious elevation take place, if it is
92 Bart Vandenabeele
an elevation beyondthe will? In what way can something that threatensor

scares the will become the objectof aesthetic contemplation,if one agrees
with Schopenhauerthat only the will can urge an organismto act, think, or
perceive?Even "in all abstractemployment of the mind the will is also the
ruler.Accordingto its intentions,the will imparts directionto the employ-
ment of the mind, and also fixes the attention"(WWR,II,369).This problem
is less pressing in the context of the beautiful:the feeling of the beautifulis
ratherpassive and poised and happens on the basis of the Entgegenkommen
of the objects,which transformthe willing subjectwithout any resistanceor
struggle into a pure, will-less subject:
The change in the subjectrequiredfor this, just because it consists in
the eliminationof all willing, cannot proceed from the will....On the
contrary,it springs only from a temporarypreponderanceof the in-
tellect over the will, or, physiologicallyconsidered,from a strong ex-
citation of the brain's perceptive activity, without any excitementof
inclinationsor emotions"(WWR,II,367).
In the sublime,a purposive[absichtlich] turningaway fromwhat threatens
the will, takes place. The feeling of the sublime emerges through the con-
trast of the meaninglessnessand dependence of us as a willing subjectand
the consciousness of ourselves as a pure subject of knowing. The impor-
tance of the spontaneous and free activity of the intellect can hardly be
overestimated.As Paul Guyer rightly remarks,the question remainshow
this activitycan be explainedin termsof Schopenhauer'sown philosophical
system - that one actively wills to free oneself from his or her own will is,
to say the least, ratherparadoxical:
Yet it seems difficult to understandsuch decisive mental acts except
as at least in part productsof the individual will. Thus there seems to
be an air of paradox about Schopenhauer'saccount. It is not mere
contemplation,which passively frees us from our will; ratherwe ac-
tively will to contemplatein orderto free ourselvesfromour will. Not
that there is actually a logical contradictionin such an idea - one
could, after all, inflict a great pain upon oneself now in order to be
free of all pain later, or freely choose to enslave oneself now and
thus loose all freedom later - but there does seem to be something
unsettling aboutit.5
Schopenhauersuggests, however, that there is a kind of purposiveness
that is not produced by the will. He speaks of an aesthetic self, which is
spontaneously and purposively operative in aesthetic reflection. Outside
the contextof aesthetics,the self and the will were put on one and the same
level. On the basis of his postulate of the aesthetic will-lessness and the
identificationof the purposivenesswith will, the acceptanceof an aesthetic,
hence will-less purposiveness [Absichtlichkeit] seems to be a contradictioin
adiecto.6Still, Schopenhauer talks more than once about aesthetic knowl-
Nietzsche,andtheSublime
Schopenhauer, 93
edge that is "operativewithout purpose, hence will-less" and he contends

that aestheticknowledge is connectedwith "pureintelligence,without aims
and purposes."7
Comparedwith the many remarksabout an aestheticwill-lessness and
"aimlessness,"the suggestions for an aestheticAbsichtlichkeit in the feeling
of the sublime are rathermarginal.The conceptionthat the "will-freeactiv-
ity of the intellect"is the condition for a pure objectivityis still irreconcil-
able with the requirementthat the intellect turns itself away from the will
and "emancipatesitself from that service in order to be active on its own
account"by being "detachedfrom its root, the will, by its being free to
move and being neverthelessactivewith the highest degree of energy"and
"forgetfulof its own origin, is freely active from its own force and elastic-
ity" (WWR,II,386, 384, 388).How should one understandthis autonomous
elasticitywithin the frameworkof Schopenhauer'stheoryof the dependence,
and even submissiveness,of the intellect to the will? (WWR,I, 290;II, 199-
202,214, 225).Aestheticcontemplationis founded on the unconsciousactiv-
ity of the will, but this coincides with a specific form of self-consciousness,
which warns the Gemiitof the aestheticcharacterof the experiencedstate of
consciousness.
How can Schopenhauerdistinguish qualitativelybetween the beautiful
and the sublime?This questionhas become more urgent due to the just sig-
naled problems concerningthe freedom of the intellect and the aesthetic
self. Despite all his remarkson the dynamics and the violence with which
the sublime feeling is necessarilyconnected,a numberof excerptsstate that
the aestheticsubjectin the sublime "mayquietly contemplate,as pure, will-
less subjectof knowing, those very objectsso terribleto the will" (WWR,I,
202, 209).He may comprehendonly their Idea that is foreign to all relation,
gladly linger over its contemplation,and consequently be elevated pre-
cisely in this way above himself, his person, his willing, and all willing"
(WWR,I, 201). The eventual result - the serene contemplationof the Pla-
tonic Idea - appearsto be identicalin the beautiful and the sublime. This
hampers a well-founded distinction between the beautiful and the sub-
lime.8 In the case of the sublime, the violent elevation above that which
threatensthe will and its interestsshall eventuallyresult- as in the beauti-
ful - in the quiet contemplationof that which can be joyfully apprehended
despite its hostile and perilous character.
This interpretationis dialectical (in the Hegelian, not in the Kantian
sense):what scaresand threatensthe will can be contemplatedaesthetically
on a higher level (so more intensely), by neutralizingthe negative affects
and elevating oneself above them [Erhebung]. What results is a kind of dis-
associationor depersonalization.Although the subjecthas an experienceof
fearor even of terrorit is not an emotionhe or she regardsas belongingto him
or herself.9Schopenhauer'stheory of the sublime testifies to what Hans
Blumenberg calls "transcendental pride":10one enjoys his or her own inde-

pendence, one finds pleasure in the fact that something that would destroy
someone as a willing individual would not even appear if it were not repre-
sented by the pure subject of knowing. Moreover, the difference between
the beautiful and the sublime is often based on specific characteristics of the
object. In the case of the beautiful, an object invites us to become an object of
an aesthetic appreciation, whereas in the sublime the object becomes an ob-
stacle through its unfavorable, hostile relations with the will of the subject.
Schopenhauer wants to postpone a clear and straightforward definition of
the aesthetic feelings.
The larger part of ? 39 in The Worldas Will and Representationis devoted
to concrete situations in which the transitions [libergdnge] from the beauti-
ful to the sublime are sketched. With much feeling for drama, Schopenhauer
sketches the gradual transitions from the beautiful to the feeble forms of the
sublime and, eventually, the stronger examples of the feeling of the sublime.
"Now of in the depth of winter, when the whole of nature is frozen

and stiff, we see the rays of the setting sun reflected by masses of
stone, where they illuminate without warming, and are thus favor-
able only to the purest kind of knowledge, not to the will, then con-
templation of the beautiful effect of light on these masses moves us
into the state of pure knowing, as all beauty does. Yet here, through
the faint recollection of the lack of warmth from those rays, in other
words, of the absence of the principle of life, a certain transcending of
the interest of the will is required....precisely in this way we have a
transition from the feeling of the beautiful to that of the sublime. It is
the faintest trace of the sublime in the beautiful [der schwdchste
Anhauch des Erhabenenam Schdnen]"(WWR, I, 203).
A very lonely and silent region, under a perfectly cloudless sky, without
animals or human beings is "as it were a summons to seriousness, to con-
templation, with complete emancipation from all willing and its cravings;
but it is just this that gives to such a scene of mere solitude and profound
peace a touch of the sublime [einen Anstrich des Erhabenen]"(WWR,I, 203).
But "let us imagine such a region denuded of plants and showing only
bare rocks; the will is at once filled with alarm through the total absence of
that which is organic and necessary for our subsistence. The desert takes on
a fearful character; our mood becomes tragic" (WWR,I, 204). As it demands
more effort to raise oneself above the interests of the own will, the feeling of
the sublime appears more intensely. Schopenhauer is often closer to Edmund
Burke's theory of the sublime, than to Kant's. In A PhilosophicalEnquiry into
the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Burke connects the sub-
lime feeling with "anguish," "terror,"and "privation."11In the above-quoted
example, a feeling of silence and emptiness is evoked, which fills the will-
ing individual with terror.Terror is, as Lyotard rightly remarks, closely re-
lated to privation.12 The feeling of the sublime originates in deep terror or
Schopenhauer, 95
desolation,which is always what Burkecalls a violentemotion.The sublime

feeling is delight and not pleasure: it is "pleasure, which cannot exist
without a relation,and that too a relationto pain."13The sublime delight is
negative pleasure, "the sensation which accompaniesthe removal of pain
or danger."14It is pleasure, one can say, that is connected with the re-
moval of pain or the escape from danger or threat. This is analogous to
Schopenhauer'sdescriptionof the feeling of the sublime as the feeling of
the liberationfrom that which overwhelmsor endangersthe willing subject,
althoughSchopenhauerdoes not mentionBurkein this context.
Schopenhauer'sexamples of the strongerdegrees of the sublime - the
sublimeis, it seems, and contraryto Kant,more a questionof intensification
than of elevation - join in with Burke'scontentionthat "a mode of terror,
or of pain, is always the cause of the sublime."15The clearestexampleof the
(dynamically)sublimein natureoccurs,Schopenhauermaintains,
when we are abroadin the storm of tempestuous seas; mountainous
waves rise and fall, are dashed violently against steep cliffs, and
shoot their sprayhigh into the air.The stormhowls, the sea roars,the
lightning flashes from black clouds, and thunder-clapsdrown the
noise of storm and sea" (WWR,I, 204).
What makes this terrible scene enjoyable?According to Burke (and
Lyotard),this has to do with being deprived of the privationof light, life, or
language.16Our personalneed [personliche Bedrdngnis] cannot gain the up-
per hand: the clearest and strongest impression of the sublime lies in the
twofold sensationof terroror pain and calm superiorityat the same time:
Simultaneously,he feels himself as individual, as the feeble phenom-

enon of will, which the slightest touch of these forces can annihilate,
helpless against powerful nature...and he also feels himself as the
eternal,serene subjectof knowing....This is the full impressionof the
sublime (WWR,I, 204-5).
When Schopenhauerspeaks about a transitionfrom the beautifulto the
sublime in a descriptionof a landscape,one may wonder in what way the
specificityof the feeling of the sublime can be guaranteed.Confrontedwith
a desolate region, a certainelevation beyond the interest of the will is re-
quired,becausethe will cannotfind any objectsthat can satisfyit. But this is
not a question of a really hostile relationshipto the will. Some examples
point to the fact that Schopenhauerabandonsthe strictdistinctionbetween
the beautiful and the sublime. This impression becomes even stronger
when we take into account Schopenhauer'sremarkabout the beneficent,
soothing effect of the moon: "Themoon is sublime....itinduces in us a sub-
lime mood [stimmtuns erhaben],because, without any referenceto us, it
moves along eternally foreign to earthly life and activity, and sees
everything,but takes partin nothing"(WWR,II, 374).Thereis by no means
a hostilerelationto the individualwill. On the contrary,the will with its needs

and sorrow, "vanishesfrom consciousness,and leaves it behind as a purely
knowing consciousness [lazftes als ein rein erkennendes zuriick]"(WWR,II,
375). A well-founded distinctionbetween beauty and sublimity seems im-
possible (See for example, WWR,I, 433, 49).17This leveling of the two aes-
thetic categoriesis linked with the Platonicinspirationof Schopenhauer's
aesthetics:it stresses the cognitive importanceof aesthetic perception.Yet
one should not, as is typical in most commentaries,overestimatethis Pla-
tonic strand in Schopenhauer's aesthetics.18 It is too far-fetched to not leave
room for any differentiationbetween the beautiful and the sublime. In
his hierarchy of the arts and especially in his interpretationof tragedy,
Schopenhauerclearly acknowledges the importanceof the distinctionbe-
tween those aestheticfeelings. The Widerstdndigkeit - which is essential in
-
the experienceof the sublime is irreconcilablewith Schopenhauer'scon-
tention that the capacityof the objectsto enhance the state of pure percep-
tion in the subjectis parallelto the grade of beauty they reach.The sublime
cannotbe called extremelybeautiful in this sense, as the sublime precisely
hampers such an easy transition from willing subject to pure subject of
knowing.
Schopenhauerseems to take a lot of troubleto minimizethe modification
in the subjectprone to the feeling of the sublime. Why?When the violence
and incommensurabilityis stressed, the architectonicsof Schopenhauer's
work is shaking.At the end of the thirdbook (on aesthetics)of TheWorldas
WillandRepresentation, he preparesa transition[Ubergang] to the fourthone,
the book on ethics, from a momentaryliberationfrom the will to a perma-
nent escape from it. If the harmony and will-lessness, promised in the feel-
ing of the beautiful,turns out to be illusory, then a smooth transitionfrom
the aesthetic to the ethical domain becomes highly problematic.This is,
however, just theproblem,which emerges in the feeling of the sublime.
The Sublime and Music: Between the Apollonian and the Dionysian?
The serenity and harmony of the feeling of the beautiful, which holds the
promise of a unified, will-less subject, has totally disappeared in the feeling
of the sublime. It is, of course, still a question of exaltation above the will
[Erhebungiiber den Willen] and a feeling of purity (WWR, I, 201, 209). That is
what renders it a purely aesthetic feeling. It does not form the particularity
of the feeling of the sublime, though. When we acknowledge the impor-
tance of violence and ambivalence in the sublime feeling, it cannot be main-
tained that the feeling of the sublime helps to fulfill the preparatory role of
the beautiful in the perspective of the denial of the will (WWR, I, 200-7).19
The sublime reveals the fundamental twofold nature [Duplizitdt] of human
consciousness in an ambivalent and painful way:
Then in the unmoved beholder of this scene the twofold nature of his
consciousness reaches the highest distinctness. Simultaneously, he
feels himself as individual, as the feeble phenomenon of will, which
the slightest touch of these forces can annihilate, helpless against
powerful nature, dependent, abandoned to chance, a vanishing noth-
ing in face of stupendous forces; and he also feels himself as the eter-
nal, serene subject of knowing, who as the condition of every object is
the supporter of this whole world (WWR,I, 204-5).
The subject is confronted with something boundless that completely over-

whelms him - this is, as Nietzsche would say, the Dionysian - but at
the same time it manages to contemplate this in a serene, disinterested,
"Apollonian" way.
There is more to it: ontologically speaking, the will struggles against the
individual it has created itself. In this sense, the sublime is completely un-
natural [naturwidrig].The sublime is an excessive feeling: either originating
in qualitative excess (dynamically sublime) or in quantitative excess (math-
ematically sublime). The subject is confronted with something that sur-
passes its imaginative power. Hence the transformation into a pure, will-less
subjectivity that knows how to turn this ravished scene into an enjoyable
picture. This subjectivity is naturwidrig:it is pure objectivity- a term which
Nietzsche is to use again in The Birth of Tragedy,one which Schopenhauer
identifies with genius, and which borders on madness (WWR, I, 188-94; II,
399-402). In the sublime the incessant battle between presenting and will-
ing, between knowledge and drive, between the ideal and the empirical, or
- in Nietzschean terms - between the Apollonian and the Dionysian,
takes place: "With sublime gestures he [Apollo, BV] reveals to us how the
whole world of torment is necessary so that the individual can create the
redeeming vision, and then, immersed in the contemplation of it, sit peace-
fully in his tossing boat amid the waves."20 The individual will feels threat-
ened and wants to turn away from the perilous and the immeasurable, but
the contemplating faculty does not surrender. It tries and presents the
"unpresentable." It pains itself to apprehend that it can apprehend. It is this
terrible violence that reveals the need to transcend individuality. Thus the
excessive threat becomes the excess of presentation: the individual faculty
of presentation reaches its limit and a desire for the boundless announces
itself. This sounds almost perverted: one is threatened and scared to death
[bedrohtund gedngstigt],humiliated and annihilated [verkleinertund vernichtet],
and still one persists in his state of pure perception or contemplation.
The beautiful and the sublime can be interpreted as extremes on a gradual
axis. This interpretation is explicitly supported by many passages in
Schopenhauer's work (WWR, I, 203; II, 374, 433, 449). The beautiful as well
as the sublime are felt by a "pure" subject; in both cases the power to appre-
hend in a disinterested manner is enjoyed;21the pleasure [Wohlgefallen]or joy
[Freude]is accompanied by the contemplation of an Idea; and an exaltation
above the will is demanded. The differences are essential, however. The
beautiful is an Apollonian feeling of harmony, discipline, and measure: the
objects invite us to feel disinterested pleasure. The sublime, on the contrary,
originates in a boundless and immoderate scene that threatens the indi-
vidual will. The importance of this fundamental difference cannot be over-
estimated, whatever J.E. Atwell may say.22
What is at stake is the life of the individual. The throbbing heart of sub-
jectivity itself, the will, is threatened to death. The moment at which con-
sciousness tears itself loose is not just a detail but is exceptionally funda-
mental. In the sublime, the subject is attracted and rejected at the same time:
as a willing subject it is ravished and withdraws, as a presenting subject it
persists in its own activity. The gap in subjectivity is sublime. In the sub-
lime, the extremely paradoxical possibility is maintained to enjoy aestheti-
cally of the deep gap that characterizes consciousness. This is not to be con-
fused with Nietzsche's concept of Selbstentzweiung; in Schopenhauer, no
Dionysian loss of the self or violent auto-destruction is taken into consider-
ation. According to Schopenhauer, there is a conscious subject divided be-
tween a passively experienced affection of the will and the active will-less
contemplation: either one takes refuge or one wants to remain contempla-
tive. The feeling of the sublime is no sensation or a series of sensations that
can be reported to an Ich denke.Still, it is felt! Not as a lucid insight, a feeling
that can be enjoyed serenely as is the case in the beautiful. It is the felt
"presence," as Lyotard would say, of the incommensurability of subjectiv-
ity itself. It can only be felt as the paradoxicaland strenuous mixture of pleasure
and pain which is the sublime.
This (aesthetic) feeling can only occur if the exaltation is "accompanied
by a constant recollection of the will [von einer steten Erinnerung an den
Willen begleitet]"which contaminates the so-called will-lessness, typical of
the beautiful (WWR, I, 202). So no Erhabenheit,as in Schiller for instance: the
elevation above the will never succeeds completely. There is no room for
happiness and harmony in the sublime. In this way, and this is crucial for a
thorough understanding of Schopenhauer's philosophy, it is rather the
beautiful than the sublime that prepares a successful ethical escape from the
torments of willing.23 The transition to the so-called quieter (of the will) is,
in a way, easier from the beautiful - which is closer to the spiritual serenity
of the saint - than from the restless and painful feeling of the sublime. The
sublime is not a purely spiritual feeling, as it is essentially "accompanied by
a constant recollection of the will...of human willing in general, insofar as it
is expressed universally through its objectivity, the human body" (WWR, I,
202). In this way, an interpretation that considers the aesthetic and the
artistic as a route to a kind of Buddhist liberation from all willing and suf-
fering, is highly problematic.24 The sublime functions as an aesthetic border
crossing-point that hampers a smooth passage to the realm of ethics.
This does not alter the fact that Schopenhauer's remark about the per-
manent recollection of the will in the sublime remains fairly enigmatic. It
cannot mean that the individual will is affected, since if this happened we
would end up in the contrary of the sublime: the charmingor attractive (das
Reizende):"Since opposites throw light on each other, it may here be in place
to remark that the real opposite of the sublime is something that is not at
first sight recognized as such, namely the charming or attractive" (WWR, I,
207). In the charming, one is merely passive and no really cognitive activity
or purely aesthetic affection of the mind [Gemiit] takes place. The charming
is sensual pleasure and not liking [Wohlgefallen]or joy [Freude].Every confu-
sion or mixture on this level would destroy the particularity of the aesthetic.
In the charming, the individual will is affected, because immediate satisfac-
tion is being promised. This immediately disturbs the purity of the aesthetic
feeling (WWR,I, 207). That every beautiful thing of a cheering nature is usu-
ally called charming or attractive is "due to a concept too widely compre-
hended through want of correct discrimination," and Schopenhauer objects
to it (WWR, I, 207). The charming or attractive "draws the beholder down
from pure contemplation," which is crucial to a purely aesthetic feeling,
and thus he "becomes the needy and dependent subject of willing" (WWR,
I, 207). No such Genuss is present in the feeling of the sublime, but there is
still the constant recollection of the will, or, rather, of human willing in gen-
eral [sondernan das menschlicheWillen iiberhaupt](WWR, I, 202):
If a single real act of will were to enter consciousness through actual

personal affliction and danger from the object, the individual will,
thus actually affected, would at once gain the upper hand...the im-
pression of the sublime would be lost, because it had yielded to anxi-
ety, in which the effort of the individual to save himself supplanted
every other thought" (WWR, I, 202).
What is the exact meaning and status of the steten Erinnerung an den
Willen? It has to be remarked, first, that "recollection" is closely connected
to the aesthetic in Schopenhauer's work:
it is also that blessedness of will-less perception which spreads so

wonderful a charm over the past and the distant, and by a self-decep-
tion presents them to us in so flattering a light. For by conjuring up in
our minds days long past spent in a distant place, it is only the objects
recalled by our imagination [Phantasie], not the subject of will, that
carried around its incurable sorrows with it as much then as it does
now....We can withdraw from all suffering just as well through
present as through distant objects" (WWR,I, 198-99).
The same blessed will-lessness can be found in remembrances as in the aes-
thetic contemplation. Our memory is a form of self-deception: we imagine
that reality was as pure and untouched by the will as is the image in our
imagination now.25 This, Schopenhauer argues, explains the wonderful
flattering light that accompanies the images and the distant scene flits
acrossour minds "like a lost paradise"(WWR,I, 198).
In the feeling of the sublime anotherkind of recollectiontakes place:it is
a constantrecollection- it lasts as long as the aestheticperceptioncontinues.
One notices here a remarkablesort of temporality:the aestheticconscious-
ness is, accordingto Schopenhauer,timeless after all. Aesthetic contempla-
tion does not seem to take time and yet a constantrecollectiontakes place,
which is clearly temporal. The will is present in the (will-less) conscious-
ness, but it is not experiencedas "beingpresentat the moment";it is "only"
a recollectionand, hence, a product of our imagination.A constantoscilla-
tion takes place, which has far-reachingconsequencesfor the interpretation
of the sublime.This intricateissue can only be dealt with summarily.
Firstof all, if the fact that it is (only) a recollection
is secondary,then the
distinctionbetween the sublime and the charming(the attractive)is blurred.
If its status as recollectionis subordinate,then there is no purely aesthetic
feeling;every actualpresenceof the will disturbsthe purity of the aesthetic
feeling. Thatis the danger of Atwell's interpretationof the sublime feeling.
He contends that the will does not disappear as such, but that only "con-
sciousness of the will disappears."26How else, however, can a constant
recollectionof the will be interpretedthan as a mode of consciousness?
But second, if it is unimportantthat thewill is present as recollection
so if thepresenceof the will in consciousness is accidental- the distinction
between the sublime and the beautifulis blurred.In the feeling of the beau-
tiful, the will is completelyabsentfrom consciousness,not even presentas a
faint memory!Somethingis beautiful,if it invitesus to become the objectof
a disinterestedcontemplationand it is very beautiful, if it forcesus to con-
template it aesthetically.In the sublime, however, "a constantrecollection
of human willing as such" occurs,which is difficultto grasp. A moment of
displeasure cannot be absent and that pain remains there, so long as the
aesthetic feeling remains. This aesthetic feeling should not take any time.
All this is very enigmatic as it is. Schopenhauer wanted to avoid the
Dyonisian "trap"of "becominga work of art"that Nietzsche seems to glo-
rify: the complete self-forgetfulnessand total self-destructionby becoming
one with the whole of reality:"Manis no longer an artist,he has become a
work of art:the artisticpower of the whole of nature reveals itself to the
supreme gratification of the primal Oneness amidst the paroxysms of
intoxication"(BT,I, 18).
In Schopenhauer'saestheticsthere can be no such thing, not even in the
experienceof music, since a kind of self-awareness- be it pleasurableor
not - is the strictcondition to speak about an aestheticfeeling. One should
not, however, as Atwell seems to do, try and avoid the complexities of
Schopenhauer'saccount by reducing the aesthetic and the ethical to the
dichotomy:
Schopenhauer, 101
liberationfrom the individual will/liberation from the noumenalwill
altogether....Isuggest then that contemplationis liberationfrom the
individual will but not from will altogether (else contemplation
would not be knowledge in which the will knows itself),while saintly
resignation is liberation from the will altogether (thus from every
traceof knowledge).27
The feeling of the beautifulis the promise of pure inner blessed serenity
and harmony.The sublime feeling is pleasure and displeasureat the same
time. The feeling of the sublime is to be situated in the contrast,the fissure,
the resistance[Widerstand] and the differend;it is joy and sorrow, pleasure
and pain, exaltationand terrorat the same time. It is paradoxicaland thor-
oughly ambivalent.It cannotbe identified with the feeling of immortality,
as JulianYoung thinks:"Theexperienceof the sublime is, we may say, an
intimationof immortality,an experiencewhich, as Kant puts it, makes us
'alive to the feeling of the supersensibleside of our being.'"28It cannot be
consideredas the harmoniousfeeling of the beautiful,in which one enjoys
its own undisturbed serenity. The beautiful is cheerful and serene. In the
sublime this happy quietness and cheerfulnessis permanentlythreatened
by the constantrecollectionof the will, which causes deep pain and violent
emotion.
However different Schopenhauer'saccount of the sublime is from the
one of the feeling of the beautiful, it is perhaps even more differentfrom
Nietzsche's analysis of the Dionysian.In Schopenhauer'sdescriptionof the
sublime feeling, the subjectseems to be divided between willing and pure
perception, or between unconscious drive and conscious contemplation,
whereas in Nietzsche the (Dionysian)subjecthas become intoxicatedand is
"joyfullypenetratingthe whole of nature"(BT,I, 17). As in the Kantianac-
count of the sublimefeeling, the sublime sets one shuddering,casts one into
the movement of Erschiitterung, overwhelmingand exceeding one in such a
way that one is drawn beyond narrowindividualityto a universaldestina-
tion. Yet, for Nietzsche that destinationwould be, not moral,but aesthetic:
"for it is only as an aestheticphenomenon that existence and the world are
V,
eternallyjustified"(BT, 32). It has nothing to do with Kant'sdiscovery of
our ethical destinationnor with Schopenhauer'spremonitionof the denial
of the will. Nietzsche writes of the tragic spectatorwhich "shuddersat the
sufferings that will befall the hero and yet anticipatesin them a higher,
much more overpoweringjoy. He sees more extensively and profoundly
than ever and yet wishes he were blind"(BT,XXII,105).As with dissonance
in music, there is desire to hear and at the same time longing to get beyond
all hearing.29True, Nietzsche almost literally repeats Schopenhauerwhen
he argues that "subjectivitybecomes a complete forgettingof the self" and
"each man feels himself not only united, reconciled, and at one with his
neighbor,but one with him, as if the veil of Maya had been rent and now
merelyflutteringin tattersbeforethe mysteriousprimalOneness"(BT,I, 17).
But it remains very anti-Schopenhauer to claim that one feels "like a god...
enraptured and elated" in aesthetic experience and "man is no longer an
artist, he has become a work of art" (BT, I, 18). Nietzsche goes still further
than Schopenhauer does, when he maintains - in one of the very few pas-
sages where he literally mentions the sublime [das Erhabene]- that the sub-
lime is "the mantle of the ugly."30 In Schopenhauer - contrary to what is
often assumed - the sublime is not a kind of protection against or a mask-
ing of the pain and horrors of the world. It is an ambivalent confrontation
with the horrid or threatening aspects of the world.
Nietzsche, or the young Nietzsche, seems still very much influenced by
Aristotle's idea of catharsis,when he writes that the sublime is "the taming
of horror through art [die kiinstlerischeBdndigungdes Entsetzlichen]"(BT, VII,
40). According to Nietzsche in Ecce Homo, in the sublime one experiences
courage in the face of "horror and terror of existence," and one is able to
"say Yes to life even in its strangest and sternest problems."31 This is so be-
cause, in the experience of art, one shares in the artist's "Dionysian," "orgi-
astic" transcendence of individual subjectivity. One identifies with the "will
to life rejoicing over its own inexhaustibility."32 Julian Young's claim that
Nietzsche's account of the sublime effect is truly Schopenhauerian, is incor-
rect.33According to Schopenhauer, in the sublime feeling no "Yes to life" is
possible. The sublime is, as I have argued, an ambivalent mixture of joy and
pain and the subject retains its contemplative stance, instead of completely
disappearing and fusing with what Nietzsche calls "primal Oneness" (BI, I,
17, 18; IV, 25). Although both philosophers seem to believe that life and suf-
fering are inseparable - though for different reasons - Nietzsche stresses
that art is to be of service to life, whereas Schopenhauer stresses that art en-
hances, among other things, pure "objective" perception of the Ideas (or, in
the case of music, of the will as such). Instead of a complete destruction of
the subject, as seems to be the case in Nietzsche's Dionysian sublime, the
Schopenhauerian aesthetic subject attains an exceptional state of purity that
allows it to discover the (transcendental) conditions of life.34 It perceives at
a glance what makes life possible: will. Therefore, Schopenhauer feels the
need to stick to Kant's "disinterestedness" in aesthetic appreciation. In de-
- something Nietzsche can-
scribing aesthetic perception as disinterested
-
not agree with Schopenhauer means that in the aesthetic state normal
categories and concepts of perception are suspended, thereby enabling us
to become alive to usually unnoticed aspects, to the "significant form" of
the object.
This is completely different from what Nietzsche means when he states
that the subject is completely transformed or transfigured in the aesthetic
stance. Nietzsche's Dionysian rapture [Verziickung], transgression, over-
flowing energy, Rausch, and ecstasy should not be confused with the
Schopenhauerian aesthetic transcendence of our ordinary mode of perceiving
the world. According to Schopenhauer, art is by no means "a metaphysical

supplement of the reality of nature, placed beside it for its overcoming" but
(at best) merely offers some insight in the deep structure of reality and frees
us momentarily from the thralls and boredom of the ordinary world (BT,
XXIV, 14). The subject is not destroyed, not swallowed by the whole of real-
ity; its self-awareness has radically been transformed so that it can discover
the conditions of its own existence.
It is often claimed that Nietzsche remains true to Schopenhauer's phi-
losophy of music. Despite Nietzsche's sustained homage to Schopenhauer's
doctrine of music, Nietzsche, from the first versions of The Birthof Tragedyis
radically opposed to this doctrine.35 Music is the sublime art par excellence.
Schopenhauer situates music "completely outside the other arts" (WWV, I,
256). Music is the direct copy [Abbild]of the thing in itself, the will. Music
speaks of being. It does not simply imitate being, but the intimate essence of
the phenomena, their affective essence. It is "the copy of an original that can
itself never be represented directly" (WWV, I, 257). Schopenhauer argues
that music does not express a particular joy or affliction. It delivers these
affects in abstractoor it presents them as they essentially are.
Nietzsche's (admittedly speculative) theory breaks with the idea that
music imitates, even if it be most immediately and with the most penetrat-
ing intuition, the will.36 There is no possible distinction or division between
a pure eternal will and its musical phenomenalization, just as there is not,
on the one hand, the One, and on the other, its multiple appearances or
manifestations. The will is music, as the One is its splitting into images. Mu-
sic does not speak of being, as Schopenhauer would have it, does not re-
count its vicissitudes in the processes of nature.37 It is "an originary melody
of pleasure and displeasure." The question is, however, why one would still
call this pre-melodic and pre-harmonic event music? It is silent. It is the still
unheard tones of the world that the composer gathers. This latent musical-
ity is not a symbol, but the thing-in-itself, that is, a plurality of pulsations in
the process of concordance and discordance. In Schopenhauer, the will mani-
fests itself directly in the sublime tuning of the instruments before the or-
chestra starts performing. It enhances our insight in the deep structure of
the world. According to Nietzsche, however, the music of the world is "a
rather chtonian music, a music of elements, winds, waters, of trees and
rocks, both deep and light; it is cosmic, in circular expansion rather than the
Platonic concentric music of the spheres, music of the sky before it reso-
nates through beings."38 It is music that can never be played on an instru-
ment. Nietzsche claims that the incessant rush of affects that oscillate from
joy to pain and from pain to joy, which is at the heart of Schopenhauer's
account, only yields an approximation of the song of the earth. This primal
chaos is only intelligible and can "only be immediately grasped through the
wonderful significance of musical dissonance; just as music alone, placed
next to the world can give us an idea of what we might understand by 'the
justification of the world as an aesthetic phenomenon"' (BT, XXIV, 115). It is
the magic of music as "the very voice of the abyss" that transforms the spec-
tacle of annihilation into superior pleasure.40 Music and tragedy "play with
the sting of displeasure," and both "use this play to justify the existence
even of the 'worst world"' (BT, XXV, 116-17). Schopenhauer would never
have drawn such a close analogy between music and tragedy: tragedy is the
highest poetic art and music is completely different, as it is simply beyond
his hierarchy of the arts. At least one of the important reasons for that, if not
the most important, is his completely different idea of what sublimity is.
According to Schopenhauer, the feeling of the sublime is the inseparable
intertwining of joy and sorrow, which enables the subject to encounter
the will without being destroyed. The "worst world" cannot be justified,
Schopenhauer maintains, only contemplated. Yet according to Nietzsche, a
split subject dwelling in two no matter how different worlds does not experi-
ence Dionysian sublimity. It is the unbridled and self-destructive jouissance
- as Jacques Lacan would say - of excessive intoxication, a creative state
that finds itself jubilant and anguished to the point of death.38 Perhaps the
pupil is least faithful to his master when he believes to be following him
closest.
NOTES
1. See C. Janaway,ed., WillingandNothingness: Schopenhaueras Nietzsche'sEducator

(Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1998). See also Philippe Granarolo,"Le maitre qui
permet a Nietzsche de devenir ce qu'il etait," [The master that permitted
Nietzsche to become what he was] in Schopenhauer, ed. J. Lefranc (Paris:
L'Here, 1997),277-92.
2. See ImmanuelKant,Critiqueof Judgement, ? 23, AA, 246:"einenbloftenAnhang
zur asthetischenBeurteilung"[A mere Appendix to our aestheticjudging].
3. Arthur Schopenhauer,TheWorldas Will and Representation [Die Weltals Wille
und Vorstellung]vol. I, trans. E.F.J.Payne (New York: Dover, 1966), 202.
Schopenhauer'smagnumopuswill be cited in the text for all subsequentrefer-
ences as WWR,followed by the volume and page numbers.I have alteredthe
Englishtranslationwhere it seemed appropriate.
4. Here I paraphrasesome argumentsused in BartVandenabeele,"Schopenhauer
on the Beautifuland the Sublime:A Qualitativeor GradualDistinction?"Scho-
penhauer-Jahrbuch 82 (2001):99-112.
5. Paul Guyer, "Pleasureand Knowledgein Schopenhauer'sAesthetics,"in Scho-
penhauer,Philosophy,and the Arts, ed. Dale Jacquette(Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 116 and BarbaraNeymeyr, AsthetischeAutonomieals
Abnormitdt.KritischeAnalysen zu Schopenhauers Asthetikim Horizontseiner
Willensmetaphysik (Berlin:Walterde Gruyter,1996),365-85.
6. See Neymeyr, AsthetischeAutonomieals Abnormitdt, 371: "Auf der Basis von
Schopenhauers Postulat isthetischer Willenlosigkeit einerseits und der
Zuordnungvon Absicht zum Willen andererseitsscheint die Annahme einer
isthetischen Absichtlichkeitalso eine contradctioin adiecto zu implizieren."
[On the basis of Schopenhauer'spostulate of aestheticwill-lessness on the one
hand and the placementof the orientation[Absicht]to the will on the other,the
acceptance of an aesthetic purposiveness [Absichtlichkeit]seems to imply a
contradictionin adiecto].
7. See Arthur Schopenhauer,Parergaund Paralipomena (Darmstadt:L6hneysen
edition, 1989)V, 494,491.
8. See Neymeyr, AsthetischeAutonomieals Abnormitit,377: "Dem Erfordernis
spezifischerund damit qualitativerDifferenzzwischen den 'beiden Arten der
asthetischenAuffassung'wird auf diese Weisewohl schwerlichgeniig geleistet."
[Theneed for a specificand hence qualitativedifferencebetween "bothkinds of
aestheticperception"has hardlysucceededin this way].
9. See JulianYoung,WillingandUnwilling:A Studyin thePhilosophy ofArthurScho-
penhauer(Dordrecht:MartinusNijhoff,1987),90.
10. See Hans Blumenberg,Schiffbruch mitZuschauer. Paradigma einerDaseinsmetapher
(Frankfurta.M.:Suhrkamp,1979)58-69.
11. EdmundBurke,A Philosophical EnquiryintotheOriginof OurIdeasof theSublime
andBeautiful(1757;reprinted,Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1992),36, 42, 65,
79, 121,124.
12. See Jean-Franqois Lyotard,"Lesublime et l'avant-garde,"in Idem, L'inhumain.
Causeriessur le temps(Paris:Galilee,1988),110:"Orles terreurssont liees a des
privations:privation de la lumiere, terreur des tenebres;privation d'autrui,
terreurde la solitude;privationdu langage,terreurdu silence;privationdes ob-
jects,terreurdu vide; privationde la vie, terreurde la mort."[Terrorsare linked
to privation:privationof light, terrorin darkness;privationof others,terrorof
solitude;privationof language, terrorof silence;privationof objects,terrorof
emptiness;privationof life, terrorof death].
13. Burke,Philosophical EnquiryintotheOriginof OurIdeas,33.
14. Ibid.,34.
15. Ibid.,124.
16. See Lyotard,"Lesublimeet l'avant-garde,"105.
17. See also Der HandschriftlicheNachlass(Frankfortam Main:WaldemarKramer,
1966),I, 45;DerHandschriftlicheNachlassIV,249.
18. Typical examples of this overestimationare Chris Janaway,"Knowledgeand
Tranquility:Schopenhaueron the Value of Art,"in Jacquette,Schopenhauer, Phi-
losophy,and theArts,39-61;ClementRosset,L'esthetique de Schopenhauer (Paris:
PUF, 1969);and Neymeyr, Asthetische Autonomieals Abnormitdt. One had better
keep in mind BertrandRussell's remarkin Historyof WesternPhilosophy(Lon-
don: Routledge,1996),722:"He acknowledgesthree sourcesof his philosophy,
Kant,Plato,and the Upanishads,but I do not thinkhe owes as much to Platoas
he thinkshe does."
19. See the frequent use of terms such as Gewalt,Widerstand, Bedrdngnis, Kampf,
Kontrast,Losreissung,and Vernichtung.
20. See FriedrichNietzsche, TheBirthof Tragedyout of the Spiritof Music(London:
Penguin, 1993),26. This book will be cited in the text as BT for all subsequent
references.
21. See Bart Vandenabeele,"On the Notion of Disinterestedness:Kant, Lyotard,
Schopenhauer,"Journalof theHistoryofIdeas,62 (2001):99-112.
22. J.E.Atwell defendsthe view thatthe sublimeis the extremelybeautiful,and that
both aesthetic feelings preparefor a complete liberationfrom willing (that is
completedin asceticrenunciation).See J.E.Atwell, "Artas Liberation:A Central
Theme of Schopenhauer'sPhilosophy,"in Jacquette,Schopenhauer, Philosophy,
andtheArts,81-106.
23. See Bart Vandenabeele,"Wij wenen maar zijn niet gewond. Het sublieme
gevoel in Schopenhauersesthetica,"Tijdschrift voorFilosofie61 (1999):663-95.
24. I am thinkingof, for example,D.W. Hamlyn,Schopenhauer (London:Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1980),111 and passim;TerryEagleton,TheIdeologyof theAes-
thetic(Oxford:Blackwell,1990):162-63;A.L. Cothey,TheNatureof Art (London:
Routledge,1992):70-71;Atwell, "Artas Liberation,"81-106.
25. On the importanceof imaginationin artand aestheticcontemplation,see Cheryl
Foster, "Ideas and Imagination,Schopenhaueron the Proper Foundationof
Art,"in TheCambridge Companion to Schopenhauer,
ed. ChrisJanaway(Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress,1999),213-51.
26. See Atwell, "Artas Liberation,"100.
27. Ibid,91.
28. Young, Willingand Unwilling,100. This equalizationof the intimationof im-
mortalitywith the awarenessof the super-sensibleside of our being is highly
disputableas such.
29. JohnSallis,Crossings: NietzscheandtheSpaceof Tragedy(Chicago,The University
of ChicagoPress,1991),100.
30. FriedrichNietzsche, ThusSpokeZarathustra (London:Penguin,1969),74.
31. FriedrichNietzsche,EcceHomo,trans.R.J.Hollingdale(London:Penguin,1992),
50-51;"Affirmationof life in its strangestand sternestproblems;the will to life
rejoicingin its own inexhaustibilitythroughthe sacrificeof its highest types -
that is what I called dionysian, that is what I recognized as the bridge to the
psychology of the tragicpoet."
32. Ibid.
33. This-is not minimizing Schopenhauer'ssignificant influence on Nietzsche's
Birthof Tragedy,as JulianYoung seems to believe. See JulianYoung,Nietzsche's
Philosophy ofArt (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress),1992,26.
34. See also MichelHaar,"TheJoyousStruggleof the Sublimeand the MusicalEs-
sence of Joy,"Researchin Phenomenology 25 (1995):68-89,for typical Apollonian
types of the sublimein Nietzsche.
35. See Haar,"JoyousStruggleof the Sublime,"75.
36. Ibid.,76.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.,77.
39. Contraryto Schopenhauer'scontention,temporalityplays a crucialpart in the
sublime.See also E.P.Miller,"SublimeTime:Nietzsche'sTragicRe-Thinkingof
Kant'sAestheticTemporality,"Eidos14 (1997):49-68.
40. The importanceof Nietzsche's connectionbetween creativity,erosand art can-
not be stressedenough. See B.E.Babich,"Nietzscheand Erosbetween the Devil
and God's Deep Blue Sea: The Problem of the Artist as Actor-Jew-Woman,"
Continental PhilosophyReview33 (2000):159-88.

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Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Aesthetically Sublime

Author(s): Bart Vandenabeele

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Much has been written on the relationship between Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer on the Feeling of the Sublime: Pleasure and Pain

Bart Vandenabeeleis ResearchFellow in the Institute of Philosophy (Center for

Journalof Aesthetic Education,Vol. 37, No. 1, Spring 2003

Critiqueof Judgementserves as the sought-after "bridge" between the theo-

pure knowledge has gained the upper hand without a struggle...and

an elevation beyondthe will? In what way can something that threatensor

edge that is "operativewithout purpose, hence will-less" and he contends

Blumenberg calls "transcendental pride":10one enjoys his or her own inde-

"Now of in the depth of winter, when the whole of nature is frozen

desolation,which is always what Burkecalls a violentemotion.The sublime

Simultaneously,he feels himself as individual, as the feeble phenom-

a hostilerelationto the individualwill. On the contrary,the will with its needs

The subject is confronted with something boundless that completely over-

If a single real act of will were to enter consciousness through actual

it is also that blessedness of will-less perception which spreads so

the world. According to Schopenhauer, art is by no means "a metaphysical

1. See C. Janaway,ed., WillingandNothingness: Schopenhaueras Nietzsche'sEducator

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