Abstract

This dissertation combines a study of the aesthetic feeling of "sublimity" with a theory of mental activity known as simulation theory. Philosophers of art have employed simulation theory to account for arousal of emotions such as fear, grief, or pity in the course of appreciating fictions. However, they have not extended this approach to the sublime. I argue that sublimity can be understood with a version of simulation theory and a theory of imagination. I illustrate my thesis with a study of sublime experience in film. ;I begin with a review of classic accounts of the sublime represented by Burke and Kant. Kant terms the sublime a "negative pleasure" brought about through the frustration of reason to comprehend objects of great magnitude and power, which is resolved into a feeling of pleasure as the mind reflects on its own cognitive capacity. To a degree I follow Lyotard's explication of the Kantian sublime as a response to the presentation of the "unpresentable." ;Along with its cognitive complexity, the sublime has a distinctive phenomenal character and arouses intense and almost ineffable feelings in its audiences. It is my central claim that the uniqueness of the sublime lies in the intricate reciprocal relation between its cognitive and phenomenal aspects. ;To illuminate the psychological dynamism of the sublime, I import the simulation theory developed by Gregory Currie and ideas about the imagination developed by Richard Wollheim, among others. I argue that their theories require adaptation to account for the sublime, and I develop my own account of simulation and aesthetic imagination. ;In the final section of the dissertation I consider some examples of complex film experiences that, I argue, count as sublime in Lyotard's sense of "presenting the unpresentable." I devote special attention to Chris Marker's photo-montage La Jetee , which I compare to the recent film Memento . These examples support my argument that the sublime is efficiently evoked by simulating an extended object, a process that is a reflective act of imagination