O sublime, as mulheres e os negros nas Observações do jovem Kant

Abstract

The aim of this article is to pursue the theoretical consequences of the aesthetic-anthropological and naturalistic characterizations of genders and races based on the category of the sublime, as presented in Kant’s Observations. By this, we would like to show how the opposition between beautiful appearance and sublime virtue, on the one hand, and the dualities and internal gradations of the sublime, on the other, lead the young Kant to make passages, forbidden by himself in his exposition, between the pragmatic field of observations and the theoretical field of philosophy, implying conclusions that represent, in a larger picture, the possible contradictions of Enlightenment discourse, especially in the form of the methodologically intertwined relationship between natural history, philosophy of history, criticism of taste and anthropology. However, the balance of the detailed investigation of the sublime in this essay from the pre-critical period reveals many marks that persist and even develop in the Kantian understanding of this notion in the critical period, such as its relationship with fanaticism (Schwärmerei), its dualities and its condition as a moral feeling in itself and also morally formative.