A Philosophical Enquiry
by Edmund Burke
'A Philosophical Enquiry ' Summary
According to Burke, the Beautiful is that which is well-formed and aesthetically pleasing, whereas the Sublime is that which has the power to compel and destroy us. The preference for the Sublime over the Beautiful was to mark the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic era.
The origins of our ideas of the beautiful and the sublime, for Burke, can be understood by means of their causal structures. According to Aristotelian physics and metaphysics, causation can be divided into formal, material, efficient and final causes. The formal cause of beauty is the passion of love; the material cause concerns aspects of certain objects such as smallness, smoothness, delicacy, etc.; the efficient cause is the calming of our nerves; the final cause is God's providence. What is most peculiar and original to Burke's view of beauty is that it cannot be understood by the traditional bases of beauty: proportion, fitness, or perfection. The sublime also has a causal structure that is unlike that of beauty. Its formal cause is thus the passion of fear (especially the fear of death); the material cause is equally aspects of certain objects such as vastness, infinity, magnificence, etc.; its efficient cause is the tension of our nerves; the final cause is God having created and battled Satan, as expressed in John Milton's great epic Paradise Lost.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
EnglishPublished In
1757Author
Edmund Burke
Ireland
Edmund Burke was an Irish statesman, economist, and philosopher. Born in Dublin, Burke served as a member of parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whi...
More on Edmund BurkeDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
The City of God, Volume 1 by Saint Augustine of Hippo
On the city of God against the pagans, often called The City of God, is a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the e...
On Grace And Free Will by Saint Augustine of Hippo
It explores the complex relationship between grace and free will, two concepts that are central to Augustine's understanding of salvation and the natu...
On the Law by Marcus Tullius Cicero
The De Legibus (On the Laws) is a dialogue written by Marcus Tullius Cicero during the last years of the Roman Republic. It bears the same name as Pla...
The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics, the science of the good for human life, which is the goal or end at which all our act...
The Hope of the Gospel by George MacDonald
In The Hope of the Gospel, with his ever sagely style, MacDonald explores the essential heart of the gospel that is so often overlooked, both in his d...
Timaeus by Plato (Πλάτων)
Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by Critias, written c. 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on...
Greek Literature by Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard
"The Greeks were the most intellectual people of the old world. … The study of Greek literature is therefore a proper element in a liberal education....
Novum Organum by Francis Bacon
The Novum Organum, fully Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae ("New organon, or true directions concerning the interpretation o...
The Life of Jesus Critically Examined by David Friedrich Strauss
Medical missionary Albert Schweitzer described Strauss' Life of Jesus as, "one of the most perfect things in the whole range of learned literature. I...
Quatrains of Omar Khayyam of Nishapur by Omar Khayyam
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (rubāʿiy...
Reviews for A Philosophical Enquiry
No reviews posted or approved, yet...