EVEN AT ITS CONCEPTION AND ITS VERY FIRST ARTICULATION IN THE critique of Judgment, Kant's aesthetic theory may be seen as problematic. The undeniable and unyielding contrast between the beautiful and the sublime, in particular, not only turns the second half of the analytic of the aesthetic judgment into what Paul de Man calls "one of the most difficult and unresolved passages in the entire corpus of [his] works" (1) but also compels Kant to dismiss the notion of the sublime right inside his own discussion as "not nearly so important or rich in consequences as the concept of the beautiful" or as "a mere appendix to the aesthetical judging of that purposiveness." (2) Yet the urge to exclude the sublime from Kant's aesthetic theory and to malign it as "of [not] much interest to modern sensibilities" (3) is surely as unimaginative as the attempt to promote the sublime unilaterally and to vilify the beautiful as "outmoded--passe even." (4) In order to salvage Kant's insights and rebuild them into what Paul Crowther terms "a more general theory of aesthetic judgment" (139), what is so necessary and important to see and appreciate is not only how there is a complex relationship of both similarities and differences between the beautiful and the sublime but also how such a relationship between them makes it possible for them to work out as Kant's paradise lost and paradise regained. No matter how the sublime may differ from the beautiful, the two of them nevertheless resemble each other at the same time. Even though Kant touches upon the former only after he completes the analysis of the latter, not only is he not therefore launching into something that is fundamentally different from what he has till then called a judgment of taste but he is also in a very real sense talking about the same thing. "The beautiful and the sublime," as he says, "agree in this that both please in themselves" (Critique of Judgment #23, 82). Taking place only during a cognitive interaction between a subject and an object but setting itself apart from both a judgment of sense and a judgment of logical determination, the sublime is as much a judgment of reflection as the beautiful. As such, it is analogously both similar to and different from the pleasant and the good. Like the pleasant, for instance, the sublime is a singular experience, but unlike the pleasant, it does not derive its satisfaction from any current and therefore transient need for any particular object. Like the good, on the other hand, the sublime makes a universal claim for its judgment, but unlike the good, at the same time it separates the validation of such a collective contention from any ideas of either utility or ultimate purpose. Totally disinterested and centrally concerned only with what Kant terms "the mere presentation [of the object]" or "the faculty of presentation" (#23, 82), the sublime is as much about the internal relationship of man's cognitive capabilities as the beautiful.
