Abstract

This dissertation contributes to the debate between modernity and postmodernity by focusing on the discourse of the beautiful and sublime in such writers as Derrida, Habermas and Lyotard. I address issues emerging in this debate by tracing the modern roots of the discourse on the beautiful and sublime in Kant, Nietzsche and Freud, and by linking this discourse to the idea of sublimation. ;The dissertation has four chapters. Chapter One focuses on the problem of intersubjectivity in terms of the Kantian beautiful. By juxtaposing Habermas' and Derrida's reading of Kant's Critique of Judgment, I argue that both Diskursethik and differance have yet to reckon with the idea of spontaneity in the Kantian beautiful. I suggest that the idea of spontaneity in the beautiful can be related to the idea of sublimation in psychoanalysis. In Chapter Two, I turn to the psychology of the Kantian sublime and its relation to history, and explicate what I think remains implicit in Lyotard's reading of the third Critique. In particular, I contend that, in order to sustain its critical assumptions, the sublime may not be separated from the idea of sublimation. In Chapter Three I draw a parallel between, on the one hand, the beautiful and sublime in Kant, and, on the other hand, the Apollonian and Dionysian in Nietzsche. I maintain that Zarathustrean ethics exemplifies an idea of sublimation which, in effect, dissolves the aesthetic opposition between the beautiful and sublime. Finally in Chapter Four, I discuss Freud's treatment of the Kantian-Nietzschean sublime as death drive or repetition compulsion. By examining Derrida's critique of repetition compulsion, I propose that the idea of sublimation as symbolization must be involved in the sublime as pain-pleasure rhythm. ;My interpretation of the sublime and sublimation emphasizes the issue of reflectivity and reflexivity in postmodern aesthetics. By defining the double of reflectivity and reflexivity as an ethical issue, this dissertation asserts that the sublime formulated as rhythmic differance and sublimation conceived as ontogenetic differentiation cannot do without each other. There is only one step from the sublime to sublimation