Although the Kantian sublime is a well-established research topic in Kant’s aesthetics, arguably less attention has been paid to the contribution that this feeling, and in particular its division into the mathematical and the dynamical, might make in relation to the problem of the unity of reason (theoretical and practical) in Kant’s critical philosophy. While many authors view the primary architectonic role of the sublime as mediating between the aesthetic and the moral domains (for instance, Nahm Reference Nahm1957 and more recently Loose Reference Loose and Loose2012 and Clewis Reference Clewis2015), fewer consider its overall relevance to the unity of reason. And, conversely, those who are interested in the unity of reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgement’s (CPJ) role in it do not focus or dwell much upon the sublime, if at all (see, e.g., Ostaric (Reference Ostaric2023), where the sublime is not even mentioned in the index). Paula Órdenes’s original book attempts precisely to fill this gap, arguing that the aesthetic feeling of the sublime plays an exceptional systematic unifying role (XIII) – albeit in a seemingly paradoxical way, given that the sublime takes two distinct forms (mathematical and dynamical) and is characterised by multiple inner tensions, as she herself acknowledges:

Órdenes’s reconstruction offers the dualities and conflicts inherent in the sublime, accordingly, as the paradoxical key to overcoming the cleavage (Kluft) dividing the uses of theoretical and practical reason that, according to Kant, the CPJ is meant to address (5: 175–6). Aligning with this goal, one of the book’s central theses is that, despite manifesting itself in two distinct modi (mathematical and dynamical) (116–7), there is only one feeling of the sublime, directed at one and the same object: the supersensible, or reason itself.

The book, originally Órdenes’s dissertation, is divided into five chapters. In Chapter 1, Órdenes formulates her core thesis: that, while the sublime might not be the only concept in Kant’s work mediating a transition between the theoretical and practical uses of reason (let alone the only one discussed in the literature; Órdenes briefly surveys alternative proposals from Carl Leonard Reinhold through Onora O’Neill, 8–11), it is nevertheless an ‘outstanding exemplar’ (17) providing this transition ‘in an immediate way’ and ‘proving’, therefore, the unity of reason.

What is meant here by ‘prove’ and by ‘immediate way’ remains somewhat unclear at this stage of the book. Since ‘proving’ might be taken to imply a formal demonstration, this sets the bar perhaps too high. In the final pages, however, Órdenes claims to have provided a ‘proof’ (Beweis) of the ‘teleological unity of reason’, precisely with the help of the feeling of the sublime (226). We will discuss in a moment whether this is plausible and whether she ultimately succeeds. At any rate, Órdenes sets the stage for her argument (25–7) by reminding the reader of the close parallels between, on the one hand, the Analytic of the Sublime in the CPJ, and on the other, the Transcendental Analytic section of the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), with the latter’s division of categories and principles into mathematical and dynamical – a line of exegesis favoured by Lyotard (Reference Lyotard1991) and Wenzel Reference Wenzel2005). She then asks what, from the point of view of the architectonic of reason, might explain such a distinction. This latter question echoes Kant’s assertion that ‘dieser Unterschied’ (sc. between dynamical and mathematical) ‘muß doch einen Grund in der Natur des Verstandes haben’ (B110) and paves the way for an examination of the different kinds of synthesis involved in judgements about the sublime:

Chapter 2 is thus devoted to elaborating the differences between the two types of synthesis in the CPR (71–7) and their connections to the sublime’s mathematical and dynamical ‘moods of the mind’ (Kant’s term for it is Gemüthsstimmung, in the singular, mentioned for instance in connection with the mathematical sublime; see CJ §26, 5: 256).Footnote ² But although the details offered in this reconstruction might be expected and justified as a preliminary, it is Chapter 3 that, in my view, offers a more compelling line of argument. In it, Órdenes discusses the different manifestations of the sublime’s ‘apparent duality’, as she calls it, focusing on the phenomenology of the sublime and its several opposing characteristics. Among the many tensions involved in this feeling, Órdenes addresses its mixture of pleasure and displeasure (Unlust, called by Kant also negative pleasure, 5: 245) (110–16); the paradoxical purposeless purposiveness of sublime objects (showing the inadequacy of our sensibility for representing them, yet still being purposive for reason; 129); and its ambiguous status as both an inward-directed and an outer-directed feeling. In the latter sense, Órdenes insightfully relates the sublime to a glimpsing (Erahnung) of a supersensible substratum underlying the whole of external nature (109). In the former, she relates it to the discovery of the supersensible substratum of our human condition (132).

Unsurprisingly, there is room for several misunderstandings when the supersensible or noumenal in Kant’s philosophy is at stake, whether in us (as the intelligible substratum of our empirical nature) or outside us (as the intelligible substratum of nature as a whole). Along with her positive reconstructions, Órdenes offers at various junctures useful indications to the reader of how she thinks one ought not to understand Kant’s sublime. Stressing our supersensible nature does not entail an exercise of violence, on behalf of reason, on sensibility and imagination (a reading advanced by postmodernist authors such as Lyotard, criticised on 103, 109). Nor does it imply a denigration of our nature as finite, empirical selves. On the other hand, the Kantian dynamical sublime (or rather its reception by the Romantics, from Schiller to Herder to Vischer) has been suspected of paving the way for the aesthetics championed by National Socialist ideologues (see Pries Reference Pries1996: 15–31). This would have resulted from an overemphasis on the ‘metaphysical’ aspects of the sublime, and particularly from favouring the dynamical sublime, with its insistence on power, at the expense of the mathematical. Órdenes criticises Pries for attributing these moves to Kant (210–14), yet I think that Pries sees Kant as the source for this regrettable development only to a limited extent (Pries Reference Pries1996: 38).

I cannot do justice to all the complexities of Órdenes’s arguments, but a pair of criticisms come to mind as objections to her interpretation. The first would be that claiming that the feeling of the sublime can ‘prove’ the unity of reason (17, 226) may be overly ambitious, or at least requires further qualification, given that Órdenes herself notes that through that feeling we cannot obtain any theoretical knowledge of the supersensible (157), and even later states that it ‘cannot be proven in principle’ (227), adding more modestly that we can only have a ‘notion’ of it. Perhaps what is intended is rather that the sublime proves the unity of reason by aesthetically ‘showing’ the supersensible, or our search for the supersensible; but if so, one would like to know how literally, or how far, one ought to take this metaphor.

My second concern is that considering the feeling of the sublime as one feeling rather than two (on the basis of their shared object, the supersensible or reason itself) appears to be both systematically plausible and exegetically not very contentious (Kant, e.g., speaks of a division in the ‘investigation of the feeling of the sublime’ at 5: 247, suggesting that it is the investigation, not the feeling itself, that is divided). However, if it is relatively uncontroversial that there is but one feeling of the sublime, then the appearance of duality seems somewhat weakened. Building a paradoxical argument for the unity of reason on this basis might therefore be less compelling. Readers who might share similar doubts about whether Órdenes’s argument succeeds are referred to the last chapters of the book (4–5), where she articulates and defends her key systematic arguments.

Chapter 4 examines the problem of the unity of reason – the duality between theoretical and practical reason – that, according to Órdenes’s main claim, the concept of the sublime is particularly well suited to resolve. As Órdenes concedes (182), her discussion in this chapter may not break new ground. Rather, it relies on what might be called the ‘teleological unity of reason’ interpretation (see Henrich Reference Henrich1994, Breitenbach Reference Breitenbach2009). According to this view, reason possesses a ‘teleological structure’ that strives to unify all parts or domains of knowledge into a whole. This structure is supposed to manifest in reason’s search for an unconditioned condition – both in the theoretical domain, that is, in regard to the totality of nature, and in the practical domain, that is, in regard to the highest good, understood as the union of virtue and happiness (p. 181). One point that I find particularly original, however, is Órdenes’s view that ‘the critical philosophy’s achievement consists in creating an awareness of a constant subreption (ständige Subreption), namely, between the object of reason (nature) and the subject of reason (reason itself)’ (182). This aligns well with her broader thesis that, through the sublime, reason not only feels itself but also its inherent purposiveness (155). Overall, however, the primary function of Chapter 4 appears to be to lay the groundwork for understanding the sublime as a unifying concept.

Chapter 5 concludes the case for the sublime and its role in unifying reason. Órdenes maps the duality of the sublime onto the duality of theoretical and practical reason, arguing that both the mathematical and the dynamical sublime reveal reason’s underlying ‘teleological unity’. Thus, the mathematical sublime – in Kant’s phrasing, that ‘[…] which even to be able to think of demonstrates a faculty of the mind that surpasses every measure of the senses’ (5: 250) – offers the finite epistemic agent (whose imagination is incapable of representing infinity) a way to find, in reason itself, an aesthetic glimpse of the supersensible substratum of nature. On the other hand, the dynamical sublime – in Kant’s phrasing, ‘[n]ature considered in aesthetic judgment as a power that has no dominion over us […]’ (5: 260) – enables the moral agent (who is overwhelmed by the might of nature) to feel nevertheless its independence from nature, once again through reason. In both cases, Órdenes emphasises that reason, through the feeling of the sublime, reveals itself to itself (188). This self-reference may strike some as subjectivist: towering high mountains, or even devastating earthquakes, are what qualify as sublime, not our feelings about them – or so critics of Kant’s sublime such as Herder would argue. However, Órdenes plausibly counters that what truly is at stake is the feeling, not the external object triggering the feeling (for a discussion of the phenomenon of ‘subreption’ and what Órdenes calls the ‘aesthetical illusion’, see 41–5).

The book concludes with a brief ‘summary’ (227–32) including a useful aphorism encapsulating Órdenes’s view: ‘The aesthetic immediacy of supersensible reason is the sublime’ (227). Despite its title, this section also features an additional aside in which Órdenes argues against ‘non-conceptualist’ interpretations of Kant’s pure aesthetic judgements (e.g., Peña Aguado Reference Peña Aguado1994, Polzer Reference Polzer2015), according to which concepts or even categories would be largely irrelevant when judging beautiful or sublime objects.

Overall, Órdenes’s book will prove to be an indispensable resource for specialists on Kant’s sublime who are seeking a fresh angle on this much-discussed topic. It is also likely to benefit readers interested in the broader issue of the unity of reason in Kant’s critical system. A particular merit of the book is its ‘unorthodox method’ (XIII), which connects the Analytic of the Sublime closely with passages from the CPR, rather than offering a reconstruction of the place of the sublime within the CPJ. Moreover, Órdenes’s original approach sheds light on the purposiveness and unity of reason where one might least expect it. While Órdenes may not succeed in convincing every reader that the sublime proves the unity of reason or is the key to solving the dualism in Kant’s philosophy, she marshals an impressively wide-ranging body of textual evidence to support her claim that the sublime’s role extends beyond that of being ‘a mere appendix to the aesthetic judgement of the purposiveness of nature’ (5: 246).