Robert Clewis on philosophers and psychologists observing mighty things.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/132/Awe_and_Sublimity
Awe & Sublimity
-
Hiroshi Satow
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:21 pm
- Location: Japan
Re: Awe & Sublimity
I like the article. The following are just tentative definitions of sublime, awe, and reverence. Sublime is the nature of the subject that is far greater than us; awe is something we feel in the face of the sublime; reverence is paid when we decide to take part in the process of the sublime. Sublime and awe are passive, while reverence is active.
-
Hiroshi Satow
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:21 pm
- Location: Japan
Reification and Sublimity
Imagine you try to draw a circle, you almost finish drawing it but for some reason stop it, the circle isn't completed, so there's no circle before your eyes in a strict sense, and yet you think you see a circle with your own eyes. Why? This is because of what Gestalt psychologists call reification. Your perception compensates for the lack. What you believe you see is more than you really see, you making up for the shortage and completing the circle. And the psychologists claim it's perception; it is not will but perception that makes you compensate for the lack. I'd like to suggest it's imagination; you exert imagination in order to make it perfect. Imagination is in this sense an extension of perception, whose function is not to go far away from the reality, but to complement the deficiency in the reality, putting parts together into a whole, in this case. Isn't this parallel to sublimity?
In the case of reification, by perception, you find the circle as if it were completed. On the other hand, by imagination, the sublime experience as I understand it from the article is gained when you integrate yourself into something greater, a part being incorporated to the greater whole; you extend and make belong yourself to the greater whole, imagining. So, comparatively speaking, sublimity is a big and subjective reification by imagination, reification a small and objective sublime by perception. Sublime and reification are both the integration process of a part or parts into a whole.
In the case of reification, by perception, you find the circle as if it were completed. On the other hand, by imagination, the sublime experience as I understand it from the article is gained when you integrate yourself into something greater, a part being incorporated to the greater whole; you extend and make belong yourself to the greater whole, imagining. So, comparatively speaking, sublimity is a big and subjective reification by imagination, reification a small and objective sublime by perception. Sublime and reification are both the integration process of a part or parts into a whole.