Natasha Luna Málaga

Properly speaking, the sublime “cannot be contained in any sensible form, but concerns only ideas of reason”. Moreover, for the sublime to take place—Kant affirms—we must abandon sensibility. To some extent, the sublime is a negation of the sensible world. Therefore, in contrast to Kant’s approach, I will focus instead on the non-sublime aspect of the sublime, i.e., that sensible element that plays a critical role in the experience but is not considered worthy of the label “sublime”. After all, it is the Analytic of the Sublime that highlights what it tries to overshadow: the intractable excess of the sensible realm and imagination’s non-subservience to the mandates of reason. Unlike the properly sublime, art is not intended to serve a shielding function (the sublime comfort us by reassuring us of the purposiveness of our moral vocation); rather, like the non-sublime, it promotes the disruption of what is well formed.

Nous allons tout d’abord nous occuper de quelques points essentiels, bien que fréquemment négligés, chez Kant : la nature spécifiquement esthétique du sublime, le rôle productif de l’imagination, la valeur positive de la “présentation négative” de l’infini, etc. C’est ainsi que –et au-delà de ce qui a été développé par Kant lui-même– nous développerons l’idée que la non-présentation possible de l’infini, la juste sensation (i.e. la non-détermination) de notre vocation morale, la non-concordance, et donc, la non-familiarité entre raison et nature, mais aussi l’intersubjectivité (et non l’intimité) de l’expérience, nous invitent à penser le politique, non dans ses fondements ni dans son déploiement concret, mais dans ce qui se trouverait en-dessous : son abîme (Abgrund) comme condition de possibilité. Nous allons ainsi travailler sur la possibilité de comprendre le sublime comme une “inconnue racine commune”, ici, un vide qui ferait compatibles le défi de la contingence sensible et la nature suprasensible de l’homme.

My aim is to argue that Jean Luc Nancy’s conception of _Being_ can be particularly valuable for underlining Everyday Aesthetics’ specificity and thus for revealing its philosophical worth, one that I believe is overshadowed when treating Everyday Aesthetics solely as an extension of traditional aesthetics. Nancy’s ontology is nevertheless rooted in the Heideggerian perspective of _Being_, and is thus seemingly opposite to an Anglo-American approach, which is the sort of ground that Everyday Aesthetics seems to rely on. This paper will be divided into three parts: first, I discuss what separates Everyday Aesthetics from the European approach – Heidegger included – and why this rupture is legitimate. Secondly, I present what I consider to be the strongest philosophical points that Everyday Aesthetics puts forward. Finally, I show why Nancy’s work, in its specific way of challenging Western thought, can make a considerable contribution to Everyday Aesthetics.