Buddhist Romanticism

iological creation: The purposiveness of animal and plant life suggests that
there is a purpose for the universe as a whole. In this sense, beauty is a
symbol of the reality of the moral law. It is also a symbol of the fitness of
the parts of the universe to one another, suggesting that the transcendental
patterns of reason fit well with the way things actually are in and of
themselves.
Kant’s second concept—which had a long past history, stretching back
to the Epicureans—was that of the sublime. Sublime objects go beyond being
beautiful because they are so immense that they give rise to a sense of terror
and awe. Typical examples include mountains, canyons, waterfalls, and
sunsets. (As one wilderness writer has noted, the theory of the sublime
provided the impetus for the American experiment in setting aside land for
national parks. Only in the 1930’s was a non-sublime piece of wilderness, a
swamp, set aside.)
During the 18th century, when the concept of the sublime took on new
life, thinkers were divided as to whether the sublime dimensions of nature
were truly terrifying, in the sense that they called into question the
possibility of any larger, benevolent force behind them, or if they were
ultimately reassuring in demonstrating that, no matter how great they
were, the benevolent God who created them had to be even greater. Kant
fell into the second camp. The overwhelming immensity of sublime
experiences, together with a sense of their orderliness in following causal
laws, he said, excites within the mind a feeling that there must be a
supersensible faculty at work in the universe. In fact, Kant felt that the sheer
possibility of thinking such a thought without contradiction could be seen
as a sign of a supersensible faculty, outside of time and place, at work
within the mind itself. Thus, for him, the experience and thought of the
sublime suggested—even though they did not prove—both a benevolent
God and an immortal self—and a connection between the two.
Kant’s discussion of beauty is where he most clearly shows his Pietist
roots. In fact, there is some justice in the view, occasionally expressed, that
his philosophy can be read as a sustained attempt to provide Pietism with a
rigorous, philosophically respectable form. Certainly, many of the
inconsistencies and dilemmas he left unresolved can be explained by an
underlying Pietist agenda, conscious or not.
As already noted, Kant’s proposed ways out of the dilemma he posed
between theoretical and practical reason did not satisfy the Romantics—or
95